Living healthy is the slowest rate at which one can die. That phrase sucks. I DO live healthy and am currently considered chronically ill and recently found out that I am believed to be terminally ill. The sad truth is that sometimes illness is beyond our control. Genetics, accidents, side effects from operations or medications are the biggest contributing factors to my illness. That isn't me dismissing my shortcomings health wise - I binged and purged as a teen, alcohol use in my early twenties, anorexia in my late 20s/early 30s and a horrible soda addiction that was, at one point in time, a twelve pack of soda a day. Stark difference from where I am at currently. 8-10 bottles (16-20 oz) of water a day and occasionally a soda, somedays not even one. Food intake is limited to the Fodmap diet (I don't even like cheeseburgers anymore) I exercise reasonably and often, mostly in the yard doing work like: weeding, digging, mulching, sweeping - that is about 2 hours a day, so no lack of exercise. There is a part of me that hopes my commitment will do some good because I'm not foolish enough to think it saves me.
Being chronically ill is nothing new, it started 15 years ago. As illnesses and diagnosis after diagnosis adds up, my resolve had worn down some. Battles I choose to fight are the ones that are truly important. Believe if I am standing up for or expressing something right now, that it had warranted such a response and has merit. I not interested in tossing my spoons (check out the spoon theory about being chronically ill) in the air like I am making it rain in the club. Each one is precious and reserved for NEEDS. If I spend my spoons for you, I am placing your well-being in front of mine. Learning how to spend my energy and how to find more has been a tough adjustment. My husband calls the feverish and intent pace I practice as "insanity pace". Insanity pace is a product of pure fear, fear I am running out of time and leaving things unfinished for others to complete. So when you judge how ill I am against what I can still accomplish, it often doesn't add up, but that's because of the unseen variable of this equation - determination. What I lack in health, I have determination in spades for.
Being chronically ill has been a suffering of more than just the physical sense. The worst suffering isn't the pain or the psychological process of coming to terms with your mortality, but the emotional strain of personal relationships. People tire of complaints about being ill, question the validity of your illness, detach themselves because sick people are lame and boring, lack of social interaction, family and friends who never offer help despite knowing I am ill but feel free to not only ask but expect me to do for them, watching my husband suffer watching me be ill and nobody offering him an ear or a shoulder, missing out on my opportunities to be with my kids because my body shuts down and goes to sleep, having people not understand that sometimes I just don't feel well enough for social events, feelings of failing my children even though they get phenomenal care, the fear that this will pass on to my children and they will suffer the same fate. Our home used to be filled with friends on the regular and they have all disappeared. Some friends can't even muster a reply when you tell them how sick you are. The worst part of being chronically ill is the loneliness. Evenings in bed while my family laughs just a room away, seeing people post publicly they are close but never stop by, being excluded from plans, not having anyone to relate to, desperately trying to hide my tears and pain from my children because it is important to me that their empathetic souls are spared my suffering.
Sometimes these days, the worst part of dying is living in loneliness. I'm still alive and still a person an would like to be treated like one, knowing full well it's too much to ask.
