I have an illness. Some days, weeks and months, it’s not a big thing. It’s not who I am and I exist in uneasy silence with it while it sleeps, waiting in the hope that its feeling tired and not going to rear its head when I least expect it. As I said, it doesn’t define me, but it IS a part of who I am now.
And then at other times, it consumes me like a hunger that I can’t fix, a void that I can’t fill. I struggle to walk up the stairs; I get out of breath and my heart races doing the smallest of tasks. I get sleepy, I feel dizzy and I get forgetful. My illness becomes the first thing that you see about me; dark circles, a pallid complexion and a girl who sleeps for 23 hours a day and could drink a river dry.
Last week, the hint of the day on the WordPress blog was to explain to someone who didn’t know anything about a part of you. And it came at a poignant time, as that week I had been in bed, struggling with the other part of me and dealing with people who just don’t understand.
I see it from the other side, I really do. I can remember a time when I wasn’t ill, when all the bits in my body did what they should when they should and I used to get annoyed with people taking lots of time off and having to cover their work. So I can put myself in their shoes, and I get it.
But I wonder how many people, equipped with the knowledge of my day to day life, could put themselves in my shoes? Imagine a day where the first thing you do when you wake and the last thing you do before you go to sleep is stick a needle in yourself, or you would get really sick? Not to mention the four or five times in the day in between. A life where you can’t get pick and mix at the cinema because you can’t exactly work out the sugar content, or where you can’t reach for the calming bubbles of that full fat diet coke when you have a hangover, making do with diet versions or fizzy water?
It all adds up. Don’t feel pity, the majority of things I can do, with some subtle adaptions, and I do. But there are some days that something happens, like someone sneezes in my face on the tube, and then the whole balanced micro system goes to pot. The cells that are preventing me from coming down with any other nasties get confused and rush to a different place, leaving the alien bugs of someone else’s sneeze to bring down my pathetic immune system in one fell swoop. And then the sugar becomes the enemy and infiltrates, causing a whole host of other problems. I make light of it, but it’s serious.
If someone could stand in your shoes for one day, what would you like them to see?
Tinkerbelle 
I had no idea! I hope you can get it under control so you can feel better again, but you will. It may take a while and in the meantime, I hope you get the support you need!
I dont let on normally, as I am generally fine 🙂 fret not xx
No offense, but I wouldn’t want to be in anyone else’s shoes. I’m comfortable in my own.
Thank you for your courage in posting about such an intimate part of your life. Your final question made me ponder.
I think I’d want people to know that I’m not as strong as I appear on the outside. I struggle with doing what I want to do rather than making the mature choices that I usually make. I really wish I had someone other than myself to lean on sometimes.
We all have ‘deficiencies’ or ‘life challenges’ that we have to work against, make peace with and accept. I believe that all of us are doing the very best that we can at any given moment. So when we look out into the world and see people falling apart, making terrible choices.. we know that its the best they have at this moment. Offering a kind word, a smile, or a hand up might be all it takes to change their lives and ours.
Hugs to you love…have seen first hand with someone I know, how life consuming your sickness is. Xoxo
hi
I’m sorry you have to struggle with an ilness. I have a friend who also has major health problems, but copes with it perfectly. On the other hand, I’m healthy, but I have suffered from depression, which still haunts me from time to time, in milder forms though. But really when I compare myself to my friend, I have nothing to complain about.
My life is good right now and I am happy in my own shoes since the Investigative Journalists have finally given up after sixteen years of persecution and insanity!
I hope you get well soon my friend and that your health problems finally find a cure! 🙂
Love you loads my sweet friend! 🙂
Huge hugs always! 🙂
Prenin.
With all the calming, reassuring news about diabetes, people sometimes misunderstand that there is a big difference between type 2 and type 1. Type 2 is caused by environment and type 1 by genetics. I have type 2 and lord knows that is hard enough. However, it can be relatively easily controlled.
Type 1 is deadly and must be looked after strenuously or it can rapidly spring out of control and strike with lethal force. Anything that tilts your body’s precarious balance, like a little old common cold, for instance, can render you deathly ill…way beyond the mean power of a cold. It’s too bad people don’t think of things like that when they cough or sneeze in someone’s face. Hope your cold gets better quick, Belle.
You’ve put it beautifully – raw and honest. It’s a glimpse of life in your shoes, something only a few understand completely. Thank you for sharing this.
So glad you stopped by my blog so I could “meet” you! I’ll be back for more.
I know how you feel….