I'm sick. I've been sick for over 25 years. You wouldn't know it by looking at me and you likely wouldn't even know it had you known me for years - unless I told you. I don't dwell on it and I don't talk about it very often. I mostly try to ignore it. But sometimes, I just can't.
Today, I'm having a pity party. I do that once in awhile. It's how I cope. My nature is to be optimistic but in order to be that way, I must allow myself days to be melancholy.
My illness is comprised of 3 autoimmune diseases. Ankylosing Spondylitis (a form of arthritis that affects the spine and hip joints), Psoriatic Arthritis (an inflammatory condition that can involve all my joints but also includes yucky flaky skin patches that don't want to heal) and lastly, fibromyalgia (which I am still in denial about but supposedly involves trigger points, muscle aches, brain fog, and other weird maladies).
I am coming off a rather rough time physically but have felt good for the last 2-3 weeks. That's just the nature of autoimmune diseases. You have really bad flares alternating with days of normalcy. The bad thing is they are completely unpredictable. I might feel good today and unable to move tomorrow. Sometimes I can anticipate when I might feel bad, such as when the weather is changing. Yes, I can feel it in my bones - literally.
I pretty much have some pain daily. I can keep it under control with medication but sometimes medication quits working and I have to try something new. There are side effects with everything. I've taken pills every day of my life since I was 16 years old. I have been on an IV treatment for 7 years and have just recently had to increase it from every 8 weeks to every 6 weeks because it has lost effectiveness. The treatment is approximately $5,000 every time I go. I'm very thankful for my health insurance!
I'm now 42 - an age when most adults start having normal aches and pains. My aches and pains have been "normal" for over 25 years. I now face the affects of aging along with the aches and pains and sometimes worry about what life will be like in 10, 20, 30 years. Will I be completely disabled at some point? It's likely. Can I accept that? Maybe someday I will but not now. I intend to fight it as long as I can.
The hardest thing for me is not really the pain I deal with or the medications I have to take, it's more the comparison habits I have. I tend to look at other 40 something women and wonder why I can't be more like them, have their energy levels, run 5 miles, be super mom, or wear size 8 jeans. In that way, I suppose I'm no more different than any other woman. We all have our struggles and we all play that stupid comparison game. We tend to forget that God made us just like we are for a reason.
Will I ever understand the reason I have autoimmune diseases? No, not likely. I understand that it is partly due to my genetic make-up. I understand the scientific explanations. I even understand how it likely started or happened. But the why of it - why I got it and my brother didn't, why I have it but didn't pass it on to my children (praise God for that!), why I know others who have it worse than I do.....those are questions for which I will never have answers.
But this I do know: God is with me, always. He sometimes shelters me from pain, He comforts me on pity party days, and He will stay with me even at my worst. He has helped me overcome the times that would otherwise be unbearable. My body may fail me but He never will.
And perhaps, that is at least part of my answer. If there's one resounding lesson I've learned in life it's that we sometimes have to be brought to that place where we have absolutely nothing or nobody to depend on to truly understand what it means to depend on God. Today is one of those days.
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