Chronic Illness: You only feel like you're dying

Tonight, I feel like shit. I ache and burn like the flu is in my joints. I’m shaking cold and burning up at the same time. Tomorrow, I will most likely ache in every joint and muscle in my body. My shoulders will have little invisible red-hot knives poking into them whether I move or not. My ribs will have much larger pains wracking them whether I breathe or not. Today, I helped run a program at the library. I told my coworker, “If I pass out, don’t freak out, just call Jess. It won’t be the first time he’s had to carry me out of a job.” Today, I threw a bachelorette party (with massive last-minute help due to the insane generosity of a friend who knows how my brain scrambles when I get sick). On both occasions, I mostly sat and tried to look the least sick as I could, which is not an easy feat. On the drive home, my bones felt like they began to burn. My eyes and breath were hot. But I’m not sick. I cooked and had an allergy attack. Maybe now an infection from it. So maybe I’m technically sick. Just like I will technically get better. Most likely. But odds are I will never get better.

Last time I felt like shit, I had a cold for three days. That was almost two months ago to the day and I still haven’t recovered. I skipped classes, strategically skipped assignments, skipped an untold number of social functions and skipped communicating because typing a message was too exhausting. I couldn’t hold a book for over a week. Reading a single page was the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done. My chiropractic appointment left me feeling like I had experienced a mugging in a dark alley from all the inflammation that was still there. I cried in bed, I cried in my husband’s arms, I cried in the car, I cried on friends couches, I cried in a friend’s arms. I’m sure the list goes on. Each new step down in health is a mourning process. A version of me has to die and I have to figure out who I am all over again. How will I live, how will I circumvent the pain when everything brings it, should I quit school for a term until I know my limits or do I forge on and hope for the best? When bad days are so, so bad, it’s hard to tell what will last and what will remit.

Right now, I’m on a weird emotional high. Things got so bad that instead of wanting to cry, I feel giddy. Giddy is not a generally acceptable emotion when you can’t hardly move from the pain. Giddy makes people think you’re faking. Giddy means people dismiss you and “can’t take you seriously” until you display a more “appropriate” emotion. I’m not sure when others decided they knew what emotion I should be displaying but somewhere along the line they did.

Tonight, my husband wants me to sleep. Sleep is supposed to heal. Unless you can’t wear your CPAP, then sleep doesn’t do much. I want to sleep but I know this stage. I’m going to stay awake far too late and maybe even watch the sun get light outside before I can finally sleep. I may not sleep at all and instead will go through all of tomorrow cackling with hyper laughter until I crash late in the afternoon. Not sleeping feels better than waking up choking from congestion.

The pain is slowing and my mind along with it. The rest is blissful even if temporary.