What is Healthy?

It’s a “funny” thing how my perspective has changed after 20+ years living with chronic illness. My measure of “healthy” for myself is vastly different than it was once-upon-a-time. 

These days, I feel “great”. Great is a word that can be different over time. Today’s great is in comparison to how shitty I have felt in the past. Today I feel great because I can get moving in the morning without tons of dread and tears. Today I feel great because my afternoon naps are down to thirty(ish) minutes most days. Today, I feel great because I can eat without nausea and vomiting at bedtime or 2 a.m.  Today I feel great because I can manage my day as long as I take the breaks I need between tasks. Today I feel great because my pain is not excruciating and debilitating. 

These feelings of “great” are all in comparison to a time when my life was completely the opposite. Getting out of bed was a challenge and some days almost impossible. Pain was pretty much all I knew. I would accomplish very little. My naps were long and sometimes many a day. Often times by bedtime I was completely nauseated and would frequently end up vomiting before I could fall asleep.

AND because of all of these wins in my current health journey allowing me to feel “great”, it’s sometimes easy to forget that I DO have Interstitial Lung Disease and I’m in Congestive Heart Failure. Let’s not forget I also have Neil the Neoplasm squatting in my chest and freeloading on my lung.

It’s easy to forget those things until the surgeon calls and reschedules Neil’s eviction date by two weeks because he wants me to see a heart failure specialist. Above and beyond the extra echocardiogram he has requested with my normal cardiologist. He’s erring on the side of caution to make sure my heart is strong enough to handle the stress of this surgery. 

For that I’m grateful. It has, however, been a less than cheerful reminder that I’m not as healthy as I kid myself into believing. Just another part of the journey. Making sure all of the ducks are in a row and that we can move forward. 

Fingers crossed everything can proceed and Neil will be evicted on December 15th. 

Until then, as always, what do we do?

Persevere. And rock on.

💋🤘🏻