You go through many cycles with chronic
illness. Flares. Remissions. Good days, bad days, round and round and round.
I knew posting about things being good was
a bit of a risk. There’s always part of me that thinks The Universe is going to
go “Oh, you thought things were going to stay good? Haha, nope! Here’s a
flare.” And that did kind of happen a little bit after I posted about how well
things were going.
A couple of days after writing this post, I
had my monthly blood test and my labs were out. Considering my labs are usually
normal even when I’m badly flaring, it was a bit worrying. Since then, most of
the things that had got better stayed better (Yay!)... but some other new
symptoms popped up*. And so the cycle goes round and round and round.
Another cycle that will be familiar to many
others with chronic illness is the grief cycle.
I’ve been struggling quite a bit with
dropping things lately. I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it – my guess
would be a combination of pins and needles, tremors and raynaud’s. Whatever it
is, I’m decidedly more fumbly that I used to be. And my poor dishes have not
been faring particularly well! Last count, 1 glass, 2 bowls, 1 mug, 1 dinner
plate and 1 side plate have fallen victim to my hands. Plus a few other things
are now either chipped, or have learned to bounce. Even when the crockery
itself doesn’t break, just having the contents go everywhere can be annoying
enough. I really wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when I dropped an entire
glass of almond milk into an open drawer. Don’t be fooled by the almond part –
after a couple of days, it smells just as bad as normal milk!
So, after being upset about this for a
while, I got this pretty awesome drink bottle (or three of these drink bottles
to be more accurate.) And on the day I bought these, I was really happy, as I
now had a solution to this problem. But then I had to grieve for a while, because
finding a solution made me think again about the fact that there was a problem
in the first place.
Similarly, I’ve been avoiding ordering
drinks in cafes, or having anything other than water out of my bottle at other
people’s houses, due to not wanting to make a mess or break other people’s
stuff. I was thinking about this today, and I realised I could easily ask café
staff or friends to put drinks in a mug or paper takeaway cup. I might get a
few awkward questions as to why, but with Molly-Stick around I get awkward
questions anyway. It’s not a perfect
solution, as even with the handle I do sometimes drop mugs, and takeaway cups
are hardly environmentally friendly, but it’s a solution none the less. And so
again, I had to grieve about the fact that I had a problem that needed a
solution.
Remembering that it is a cycle does help.
Bad days suck, but good days are part of the cycle too. And the cycle of grief, it is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster to be upset by both the problem, and
the solution to the problem, but I’m kind of an emotional person. If I wasn’t
getting upset about that, I’d probably be crying watching Shortland Street, or something equally
ridiculous (by the way, totally cried watching Shortland Street last night.)
There’ll be good days, and there’ll be bad
days, and I’ll cry about stupid things. But sometimes I’ll laugh about stupid
things too. With the almond milk, I settled on laughing.
Thanks for reading
Little Miss Autoimmune
*I will post properly about this at some
point, but still a bit too close to it to talk properly about it yet.
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