I’ve never been seriously ill before recently, so to say that the long term effects of having been seriously ill have taken me by surprise is an understatement. In the past, I have usually been a fast healer, so despite the severity of my issue, I imagined from the very beginning that I would be back up on my feet in a matter of weeks.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Now, granted, the general trend over the past few weeks has been improvement, but the fact is that, while there have been mostly good days, the bad days stand out in their capacity to knock me on my rear end.
The past couple of days have been bad days, the kind that have taken it all out of me. I’ve gone from grouchy to downright foul as I hurt, ache, and struggle with fatigue. Somewhere in there, I know this is not a permanent state, but the physical and psychological effect of even a temporary setback is large for someone as determined and impatient as I tend to be.
Bad days also serve as a warning. This illness damaged my body, and some part of my illness was the result of a bad combination of willful ignorance and impatience with my body warning me it was not okay. In some ways, I’m glad the bad days happen to remind me I can’t go back to the way I was without the risk of repeating what happened.
In short, then, the bad days will happen, and I have to learn to live with them because they’re now part of the package. It’s not going to be easy, but it is necessary.
DLH