Why I’ve Been Away

I take time at the beginning of this blog post to apologize to my many followers for my pause in writing lately. And I have to be honest as to why.

The last few months have been busy, but life always is. I live in the Pacific Northwest, and summer had been treating my body surprisingly well. I hadn’t even been doing anything specific to improve my lifestyle, I just simply felt better. So I avoided writing in my blog because I wanted to keep feeling better and forget for a little while that I had any diagnoses at all.

But I was always kidding myself, because these diseases do not ever just go away. My eyes have gotten drier, to the point of needing lubricating drops to even open my eyelids in the morning. Without the drops, my eyes have such a lack of moisture that my eyelids are dried onto the eyeball itself and need help to move at all. I have to buy new shoes if I plan to stand longer than fifteen minutes for the sake of debilitating feet pain. I am trying to make the switch over to a gluten-free diet because I can no longer tolerate some of my favorite foods. I have also begun therapy to manage anxiety mostly connected to the emotional trauma of health diagnoses. My life is changed, and continues to change with new symptoms and concerns.

One day in September, the temperature reached 50 degrees. And I felt it, everywhere. I woke up with that familiar ache in every bone and joint of my body that tugs at each muscle that I try to use slowly. I spent the day willing one foot in front of the other, counting down the hours until it was socially acceptable to get back into bed and wish for that restorative sleep that never comes. I felt my diseases again, and it was awful. I felt like I had awoken from a happy, dream-like state void of reality to remind myself where I’ve always been. I spent the summer returning to normal. I ate pasta and sandwiches and sugar and drank alcohol with friends and stayed up late chatting in bed with my fiancé. I felt like I was returning to myself again, but then the days got colder and I started feeling them.

I apologize for my delay. I needed a break to feel like I used to, physically and emotionally. But that’s what it was, just a break. My norm is eye drops in my kitchen, my living room, my bathroom, my purse, and on my nightstand. It is several different pairs of slippers and searching for the best sole inserts to keep me on my feet for an hour or more, if I’m lucky. It is determining what I can and cannot do with my friends and family when they fly across the country to visit me, and how to tell them I just need to sit at home instead of exploring the Space Needle or taking a walk in the local park. It is a dull ache in my left salivary gland that becomes more severe every day to the point of avoiding sleeping on my left side because of the pressure. It is nose bleeds from the lack of moisture in my nasal cavities. It is a sugar-free cough drop every single morning just to talk, since the dryness makes my throat feel like knives attacked it in the night. It is always there, 100% of the time. I just needed that break to forget it was.

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So it is all back. And I am back. I have been feeling down because of that, and realized what I needed was this blog. I needed your comments and your messages and your emails to support me. My therapist helped me to realize that while I created this blog to help other people, I created it to help myself just as much. So I thank all of you for continuing on my journey with me, and allowing me to play a role in your journeys as well. Let’s keep the communication alive, and as always, I wish you all a beautiful, happy, and healthy day.