Accepting Sick

Last spring I got sick with a cold that acted more like the flu. While certainly not the sickest I've ever been, I was already struggling to come out of a fibro relapse and it hit me pretty hard. Additionally, it lingered and lingered and lingered until it was nearly summertime. At one point I remember walking around my kitchen forcing myself to do the dishes with every muscle aching, nose running, head throbbing, and lungs hacking. I'd been like this for weeks and was miserable. I wondered if it was ever going to end. I couldn't remember what it was like to feel good and didn't know if I ever would again.

Somewhere between unloading the dishwasher and loading it back up again, an epiphany hit me. I stopped working and just stood there. Stunned. Suddenly my life made all the sense in the world. Of course I wasn't going to feel good again. And for the life of me I couldn't figure out why I expected to? It became clear as day that even after this cold-flu abated, which it undoubtedly would at some point before Labor Day, I was still sick. I was still miserable and in pain and hardly able to function. I was still struggling to come out of a three-year relapse. I was isolated and alone, with no help on the horizon and no end in sight.

Acceptance washed over me in a way it hadn't before. I admitted how sick of feeling awful I was, and how it wasn't fair that everyone else's colds and flus went away and allowed them to return to real life when my chronic illness had been keeping me prisoner for thirteen years. I got mad that I was expected to live in pain and self-subjugation because medicine doesn't truly know what's wrong with me. I became furious over the fact that because medicine doesn't know what's wrong with me, I'm treated like a nut job who just can't figure out how to make life work.

It seemed like an absurd circus I was willfully participating in. So I decided, then and there, standing in front of my dishwasher with a tissue in one hand and the other covering my hacking mouth, that I was done. I refused to participate in the madness any longer. Everyone who didn't feel like I did every damn day could piss off, I was done caring about them more than me. I was done feeling awful and hiding it. I was done putting productivity in front of my ability to reduce my pain and sickness. Yup, in that moment I decided feeling good was my number one priority and everything else could happen second.

My flares changed after that. Instead of lying on the sofa all day feeling awful and getting nothing done, then feeling okay a few days later and racing around to get caught up, only to push myself right back onto that sofa, I stopped the cycle. Slowly I started to feel better from my cold-flu. Man was I behind on life's to-do list! But my refusal to keep myself imprisoned in misery was fresh and strong. So I did a little and rested a lot. Each day I kept at that pace. When I felt bad, I rested. When I felt good I did a little, then rested preemptively. I figured if everyone else gets to not feel horrible every day, the least I deserved was to not make things worse for myself.

Yes I've pushed myself into a few flares since then. Obviously. Whatever I had to do was too important. Until I was there. Then I remembered why I committed to my quality of life first and productivity second. This epiphany has revolutionized my life. Over the last few months my core health has started to stabilize. I'm coming back to life again and slowly getting a handle on my circumstances. And each time I make a decision to put my health first, it becomes easier to do. Although I'm still climbing out of the deep hole of relapse, I'm now able see the tiniest glimmer of light at the very end of the tunnel.

Thanks for joining,

Leah