Tag Archives: chronicillness

Chronic pain, chronicillness

The inevitable slide…

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One thing people don’t really talk about is the slow inevitable slide of progressive illness. I’ve been sick for about 16 years now, disabled for 5, and for most of that time people in my life keep asking me if I feel better.

I will never feel better.

At each stage of my particular disease I have felt the best I will ever feel again because I have a progressive disease that is killing me very, very slowly.

It’s like being murdered by a tiny snail, or stalked by death in the form of a tortoise. You’ve got a long, long time to contemplate your end, but you feel every single step of your demise.

This year has been a slide. I’ve been sicker than usual more often than not. Less able to do, more susceptible to the usual colds milling around, more exhausted after activity. Even as I have increased my exercise, improved my diet, dialed in my medications, I am feeling the slip.

Today I am on day 8 of a respiratory illness that has had me in bed unable to do much of anything all week. I know I will recover from this cold and get back to life but I also know I will be slower, weaker. It will take me a lot longer to get my breath back, to get back to the 30 minute 3 mile walks with my dog 5 times a week. To get back to lifting and gardening and hula hooping. To get back to anything really.

And it all feels so daunting. The clawing back to the surface from deep inside this hole. Especially knowing how easily another cold can come along and knock me down. Making the process start all over again.

If you are a healthy, mobile person do me a favor please. Pause and take a moment to truly revel in all the amazing things your body can do.

Chronic pain

A choice to keep going anyway.

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That’s where I ended up.

After 15 years of tests, medication failures,  painful treatments, expensive doctors.

I ended up with a diagnosis science poorly understands and a palliative care team.

And a choice to keep going anyway.

I am in pain every day. All day every day. Sometimes the pain is only as distracting as a well behaved toddler while you’re at the grocery store. It demands my attention constantly but doesn’t melt down. If I apply mindfulness techniques I can accept it’s presence and live with it along side me.

While I paint, clean, have coffee, exercise, socialize, drive, care for others, whatever I do.

Some days it’s a teenager who is out hours past curfew. Keeping me from sleep as I toss and turn waiting for the magical moment I can actually safely drop off.

It is never gone and there is no cure for it.

My life got livable again when I stopped looking for one and accepted my pain as part of my existence. When I relearned my body’s limitations and stopped trying to recover my old me.

When I made the choice to keep going anyway.

Chronic pain

I am never, ever, ever

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Getting better.

The slow inevitable decline of a progressive illness is hard to quantify especially when the illness in question gives you “good days” and “bad days” to begin with.

It can be difficult to notice the fact that it takes longer and longer to recover from the flu, or infusions, or too much physical activity.

The bounce back doesn’t dramatically swing from bouncy to flat. It’s more like a basketball, inevitably bouncing a little less high each time it hits the ground.

Right now I’m noticing my ball is flatter than it used to be. It’s taking me longer to recover from infusions, longer to get over colds. I run out of energy sooner on my good days.

It’s possible it’s a flare up. They can last for years after all. However it’s just as possible that I’m declining, slowly, incrementally, as my disease devours healthy nerve endings and my autonomic system loses coping mechanisms.

It’s scary and it’s depressing.

Today I’m struggling to find the silver lining.