“You Must Be Feeling Better!” Uh… No…
I’m being hard to please. I admit it. I don’t know what I want, but I somehow desire other people to figure it out, when even I can’t.
The truth of the situation is that I have been off of my main medication for rheumatoid arthritis since August 2008. I’ve never been off of this classification of medication since I began it about eight years ago. I had to go off of it due to an infection last fall, and between my high risk for infection and need to have hand surgery I’ve not been able to take it (And I haven’t been able to have surgery due to edema, etc.)
The result is that every day gets worse. Literally. That’s not being pessimistic, it is just my reality right now. My rheumatologist has put me on a medication that people took for RA 60 years ago so I could feel like I was “doing something.” But it’s one of those medications that takes months to kick in, and it’s also raising my danger zone for my liver, so I don’t know how long I can keep taking it. Monthly lab tests will tell.
So I am on about 20 different medications from anti-inflammatories to pain killers, steroids to medications to try to help me sleep, control blood pressure, etc.
If that is the situation, what is my reaction?
Last week was a bad week physically–the worst it had been up until that point. I moaned about it a bit. I’m sick of it!
My Twitters and Facebook postings had people writing me back saying, “Praying for you.” “Hope you feel better soon.” I appreciated it. I explained to my husband one night I didn’t think he realized just how bad each day had been and he listened patiently with sympathy.
But this week he has had to work 15-hour-days every day on a project that is due. We are so blessed that he has a job (and hence, my health insurance) that I can’t and won’t complain for a moment about that. But has it been harder being on my own each day, all day and evening with just me and Josh? Sure. I’ve gotten Josh to bed an hour earlier each night by 8:15 or so and I’ve quickly followed, asleep by 9 p.m.
I haven’t even wanted to post “updates” this week, because I’m even sick of hearing myself whine. But my knees haven’t been able to unbend for days. I walk hunched over and hold onto walls, furniture and cars. I’ve tried to not give into it and still make it a fun week for Josh. We’ve made cookies, played Play Doh, watched a movie, gone to McDonald’s, karate, and hav had 3 play dates. Tonight is the Variety Show at his school and we’re attending. I’ve pushed through and have made it.
So why do I feel a sting when people write kind comments to me that say, “I see you’re posting on the list so you must be feeling all better! I’m so glad!” or “Are you feeling better this week?”
I want to say “No! I am NOT feeling better! I won’t feel better! Every week is going to get worse until I am healed up from a surgery that isn’t even scheduled yet.”
Yes, I am posting to some lists. I am trying to work to keep my mind off of things and then other times I am too exhausted to think straight and I just walk away from the computer. But I feel awful.
I feel badly I’ve not answered people who have kindly asked if I am better? I don’t want to say, “No, and I won’t, thanks, for awhile.” I don’t feel like being cheerful and saying, “I am hanging in there.” I don’t know how to be honest.
When my friend called and asked how I was I said, “Uh… I’m doing okay.” She said, “Just okay?” and I said, “Well, I know I’m sick of saying I’m not doing great and you’re probably sick of hearing it, so I don’t know… Lately I’ve been stealing my friend Pam Farrell’s saying… ‘I’m choosing joy!’”
Something as simple as “how are you?” shouldn’t caused such mixed emotions, right? After 15 years of chronic illness, I should be past it causing any emotions at all. But even as I write emails to people who I know are chronically ill I hesitate as to what to say. Do I say, “I hope you are feeling better”? Or do I say, “Unless you let me know otherwise, I’ll assume you are still having a lot of pain”?
We have a 50% chance of getting it right. When we are right, the person in pain gets a moment of “ahhh” –like getting into a hot tub. The sting of pain is taken away for just a few minutes. When we get it wrong, it’s a sting that is more like wading into the cold ocean waters.
What are your feelings? Experiences? While I am waiting I guess I will go update my Twitter. I’m still deciding to be honest (and boring) or “joyful” and upbeat.
You’re Too Young to Be That Sick!
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You’re Too Young to Be That Sick!
By Lisa Copen
I was twenty-four years old, enthusiastically living in new city, finding my independence, careers, and following my heart when I became disabled in a period days and was eventually diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. It only took about four weeks, but with two visits to doctors a week, explaining my significant pain, it felt much longer. Eventually I found a wonderful doctor of internal medicine who asked me about fifty questions. In about two days I had a diagnosis.
As with many people, having specific terms like “chronic” and “forever” attached to a painful condition can simultaneously create emotions of fear and relief. At least something describes the chronic pain. There were not many friends, however, that understood or participated in my enthusiasm for a diagnosis. And the office managers at my place of work were not concerned about my pain level, but rather about when I would be able to get back into some heels to keep the office looking professional.
“Encouragement” was quickly tossed around, like “You’re too young to feel so badly!” Rheumatoid arthritis was only something that could be related to the aches and pains their grandparents suffered from and a hot water bottle made it go away. They’d laugh and say, “You can’t have arthritis yet!” Those who attempted to sympathize, compared my weary body to a sports injury they had. “I have a touch of arthritis on my knee cap from football in college. It’s not fun when the rain comes, but you just have to keep pushing and not think about it.” Even well-intentioned words were enhanced by the brush off of a hand or even rolling eyes.
A diagnosis in your twenties throws off all the typical decisions one is making. Your twenties should be about deciding on an education, a career, relationships, and where you will live. Suddenly, most of these choices are put on hold. Instead decisions are about how you accept (or do not) accept the diagnosis, what medications to take, what the risk of side effects are worth it, and how to locate the right doctor. We learn how to decipher lab results, what alternative treatments to try and when to have a good cry versus when to just bite your lip.
As I tried to make each decision based on careful research, instinct, and “worse case scenario” situation, hearing someone flippantly say, “You’re too young to have that illness” felt like a slap in the face. Though a simple comment, my heart felt it deep, as if they assumed I was too ignorant or accepting of the doctor’s diagnosis. They implied that I needed to be more assertive and get a the “real” diagnosis of an illness that could be cured in a few weeks with a pill. After all, I couldn’t really be that sick, because I “looked so good.”
Laurie Edwards, author of Life Disrupted: Getting Real About Chronic Illness in Your Twenties and Thirties
The saturation of advertisements on television and in magazine for prescription medications has helped legitimize some illness, such as rheumatoid arthritis and fibromyalgia. There are downsides, however. For example, everyone considers her self an expert on the, plus they make their assumptions about how well the drugs work based on the ads. The advertisements show people with debilitating illnesses (healthy models, actually) who are astonishingly now able to water ski or join their kids on 300-foot water slides. While a certain percentage of people may experience remission, the majority of us are happy to be able to get up out of bed without assistance, get dressed, and drive to the grocery store. Ads and commercials fail to alert people that though an illness may be temporarily controlled, they are usually associated with immense daily chronic pain.
With any chronic illness, most of which are invisible illnesses, there will be people who will be skeptical about how much your life is impacted by your condition. When you cope with an illness while in your twenties or thirties, and you “look healthy” they will have even more hurdles to jump over to get the fact that for you to feel better requires more than an attitude adjustment or a daily walking regimen.
Get an instant download of 200 Ways to Encourage a Chronically Ill Friend from “Beyond Casseroles” by Lisa Copen when you subscribe to HopeNotes invisible illness ezine at Rest Ministries. Lisa is the coordinator of National Invisible Chronic Illness Awareness Week held annually in September.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 10 so far )GUEST BLOGGER: Coping with Unexplainable Fatigue
Something that a lot of us chronically ill people have in common is that we have limited energy. A lot of us can only do a small fraction of the thing that “normal people” do. Personally, I only have a couple of good hours each day where I can get out and meet with people, or do work for the SPCA, or even have lunch and shop with my Mom. And if I do that one day, then I’ll probably need to rest the next. And maybe even the one following.
For me, I know a lot of the reason I need so much rest (and have so little energy, a.k.a. “productive time”) is because of the side effects of my meds. I take seven different meds each and every day, and fatigue is a side effect of at least four. Another side effect that comes from individual meds, and the combination of meds that I take, is that my mind is sluggish. I often feel like I’m pushing my way through quicksand when I try to think, to process. That is pretty exhausting, too.
I sleep a lot. I mean, A LOT. I used to sleep for twelve or thirteen hours at night, be up for two, then nap for four or five, and stagger through the last few hours of the day. And when I was awake, I was so foggy, so mired in the quicksand, that my “awake” hours were not really awake, in an aware and able sense of the word.
Now, I have a new med (fairly new, I’ve been taking it since the spring) that helps to banish some of the murkiness and feeling of slogging through quicksand. It doesn’t take it away, but it allows me to have at least a couple of hours a day that I can write, or go out, or do housework, or whatever. And I don’t need to sleep so much: about ten hours at night, and I usually go two or three days without needing a nap. It might not sound like much, but it’s been a huge improvement to the quality of my life.
When I first had my breakdown, I didn’t sleep at all. I rested a lot, and I did probably fall asleep for wee catnaps, but I was desperate for sleep. Psydoc finally found a combination of meds that let me sleep (forced me to sleep) on a regular basis. My sleep today is not particularly restorative, despite how much of it I do. I think that my need for ten hours of sleep to be able to function is like the “normal” person having five or six hours of sleep a night for a protracted period. They can manage, they can get through their routines, but damn, what they’d give for a good night’s sleep. For me, a “good night’s sleep”, in terms of quality and not quantity, is hard to come by.
I’ve also found that I resent having to sleep so much. Not so much at night, but I fight and rail, tooth and claw, against having to nap. Another issue for me to work on. It’s a struggle to accept, especially when I was always on the go, constantly, before my mind finally forced me to stop.
It’s hard for many people to understand that I don’t have an unlimited well of energy to draw upon. My well is rather shallow, actually, and I have to save up the energy for a lot of days to be able to spend five or six hours at someone else’s house, or at a fundraiser, or wherever. And then the well is dry, and I have to spend a number of days letting the water rise again so I can do even the basics, like have a shower or cook a nutritious meal.
Anyway, something that I found immensely helpful, not only for my loved ones, but also for myself, was something called The Spoon Theory. Christine Miserandino of www.butyoudontlooksick.com is the one who created it. It is a way to explain to people who don’t have a chronic illness what life is like when you have one. It is a fantastic story, and I would really, REALLY encourage you to go here and read it. It will truly help you understand, and is better expressed than I could ever hope to do. So go. Now! Read it!
A former lawyer, Linds of The Muse Asylum spends her days carefully. She balances chronic depression and anxiety with her love of written and oral advocacy. Her passions include promoting animal welfare, preventing the abuse of children, and using her own experiences with mental illness to educate others.
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