For all the chronically ill out there. I salute you.
What some of us go through in a week, most people don’t experience in a year, a decade, or even a lifetime.
Surviving and remaining strong and resolute is not an easy thing to do.
Even when sometimes you just want to give up.
I’ve experienced people giving up on me. It’s like I’m already six feet under.
The ignored and unreturned phone calls. The sad pitiful looks. The downward glances. The yearning for yesterday when you were normal.
“I don’t understand. There must be something that can be done!” They yell. They look at you as if there was something you ate, someplace you went, something YOU did to make yourself THAT WAY.
“I can’t see you like this. I can’t bear to see you in pain.”
So they don’t. You’re “lucky” if you get a “Hey howya doin’” message on Facebook and your answer better be a firm solid, “Fine.” They can’t tolerate anything else.
What does all this mean?
People look for life to make sense. Things have to be rationalized and analyzed.
The mere thought that people can get sick all random and willy-nilly is just absolute nonsense. Which is why they comb through your diet and environment looking for answers to why YOU got sick and they are not.
It all boils down to FEAR.
That’s right. Fear of the Chronically Ill. Because of this fear most sick people are blamed for their conditions. If only you stopped with red meat, took vitamins, drank more water, didn’t live in the Midwest, took EVEN more vitamins.TOOK BETTER CARE OF YOURSELF.
Because if you did all those things, YOU WOULDN’T BE SICK.
They have to repeat those lies in their head because their minds cannot possibly contemplate that this could just as easily be THEM.
They can’t imagine a life of getting infusions, injections, dialysis, medicine cocktails, unbearable pain, mobility aides, organ transplants, extreme fatigue, etc. because life doesn’t do this to people if they DID THE RIGHT THING.
But alas my chronically ill friends you already know that life does not work this way.
I’m sure some of you were even healthier than some of these people that I speak of before you got sick.
The fear that random things can happen to people scares the crap out of them. The fear that one day you can be totally fine and have your life turned upside down with a diagnosis can be devastating and life changing.
Welcome to the life of a chronically ill person.
If you think its scary thinking about waking up sick one day, how do you think it feels to wake up sick every day?