I’m sick. Again.
Another sinus infection. You’d think it wouldn’t be that bad, but in the last year or so, every sinus infection has laid me out not so much with pain and pressure but with intense, whole-sale fatigue.
Which means I’ve navigated the whole last, oh, two weeks with willpower and not a whole lot else. I’m a teensy bit better today, but only because I spent most of both yesterday and today in bed.
It’s terrifying
Every time it happens, it’s a little bit worse. And every time it happens, I fear that this is how it will be forever and ever. That I’ll never again be able to walk the two blocks to Whole Foods from work without feeling the lead in my legs, that I’ll never be able to do yoga, even yin yoga, without having to lie down afterwards to recover.
I’m supposed to get surgery next month on my sinuses (unless it gets delayed by this charming infection), but the people I know have given me mixed reports on how much such surgery has helped them.
I sit around arguing with my body, saying things like, you know, I’m not asking for much. I don’t want to run a marathon or anything. But couldn’t I, you know, manage to go to work and keep up with the basics of the housework without falling over?
It’s not so helpful.
Very little is helpful
Perhaps the worst part is that I feel so alone in this.
I know I’m not. I know, actually, lots of wonderful, creative, interesting, fabulous people who have chronic illnesses, even chronic fatigue stuff. But I don’t have any of them in my day-to-day life.
No, in my day-to-day life, I’ve mostly got the kinds of people who don’t have a doctor because they never get sick. (I’ve got four in my phone alone.) I’ve mostly got the kinds of people who, if they do get sick, get nice little common things everyone knows how to identify and treat.
Or maybe that’s the hardest part — being the big question mark. Never having answers. Having to figure out how to explain it anyway to people — doctors and friends and colleagues — in a way that makes sense and yet doesn’t entirely throw me under the bus. Having to go from doctor to doctor to doctor — always far away and never taking insurance — to try another theory, make another call. Living in the big what-if.
Basically, it sucks
It just does. And maybe it will get better. I hope it does. But it might not. And living with that, well, it’s a challenge in and of itself.