I am not a fan of the spring time change. I could gladly fall backwards every weekend. I’m also a 57-year-old woman whose health has been falling backwards since about 2004.
Some people have been asking why I don’t write very much anymore. The truth is I don’t even read very much anymore and I’m someone who has always had at least four books in various stages of progress since I learn to read at age 3.
Pain has become my constant companion, replacing both books and keyboard. I use social media to distract from the pain by reading and re-sharing and admiring other peoples posts.
But what is wrong with me? That is the million dollar question. At first I thought it was normal aging. Until friends who are nearly a decade older than me started offering to help me up from a chair or slowing down to match my footsteps.
Then I finally went to the doctor and began the long process of testing and narrowing the options. I thought the options were narrowing, anyway. Until my rheumatologist told me “well, just because the biopsy of your cheek says rosacea instead of lupus, it doesn’t mean you don’t have lupus.” The most frustrating thing about waiting to see another specialist and then answering all the same questions for them in their paperwork and then having them not have read the paperwork and ask you all the same questions in person, is to have them look at you, shrug and say, “come back in six months and we will see how much your health has deteriorated and that’ll give us a clue.”
So often I have found myself repeating mantras of death and despair. “I can’t do this anymore.” “I hate being this person!” “Just kill me already!”
And just like I tell myself I hate the spring time change, I convince myself that my life is over and that the pain and stiffness and shaking that I endure every day is probably the best I’m ever going to feel again.
I’m done with these thoughts, so I have decided that I’m not letting myself be done with living but rather I’m done with being an invalidated invalid. I’m going to keep searching for answers and I’m going to write here about what the struggle has been like and where it goes next.
As Dory says. I’m going to “just keep swimming.”
duffybarkley 