Flaring Through Life

Finally, the flare up is nearing it’s end and I’m over the worst of it. I still don’t quite look like the girl in the photo but I’m getting there. Day by day, little pieces of me start to come back and put themselves together and I can’t wait to get back to what I class as ‘my normal’.

What most don’t know about chronic illness is the after effects of a flare up. The pain has dwindled to a quiet hum, never quite gone but quieter none the less, but what is noticeably left is the fatigue and weakness. The remnants of the long battle with your own body. You fight them throughout the flare up but this is a new kind of hell. You’re mind wants you to get up and go back to enjoying life but your body just doesn’t have the strength, and without the excruciating pain to remind you that you’re not quite recovered yet, you’re stuck in a cycle of boom and bust.

You get up, you can now make yourself a cuppa, maybe even cook something light and easy, pop in a load of laundry but having the energy to drink the drink, eat the food, put away the laundry after you’ve completed those tasks is a different challenge. For example, you cook a packet of pasta, a simple 5 minute task with minimal effort but then you sit down to enjoy it, starting off fine but then you’re onto your forth fork-full and suddenly it’s not so effortless. Simply lifting your fork from bowl to mouth becomes a work out, chewing starts feeling like a chore and by the end of it, you’re exhausted and it’s time to take a two hour nap.

So, here’s to also battling through those inbetween days, where you’re over the worst but still not out of the battle. Where you do a little more each day to build strength but not too much that you over exert yourself, while reminding yourself every step of the way that you’re a warrior and better days are coming.