When Nothing Seems to Be Going Right With Your Illness

Do you have times like this, when nothing seems to be going right with your health, or life in general?

That’s how it feels for me at the moment. My illness isn’t going too well at the moment, my body just seem to be responding how it should.

Each day when I wake up, I feel OK. My breathing seems fine. I have chronic severe asthma and my breathing is probably OK first thing in the morning because I have sleep apnea, and my CPAP machine warms the air I am breathing, controls the humidity levels and keeps my airways open. My asthma has been bad for the last six weeks. And, I don’t seem to be able to come back from this, to being able to breathe easily without it hurting and being constantly short of breath.

The constant tightness and feeling of something scraping in my airways is very unpleasant. The lack of energy is debilitating.

The consequence of my breathing difficulty is absolute exhaustion. I know that going for walks will help, but I feel like my body is a limp rag doll. Eventually, I hope and know this situation will pass. I will eventually get a little better control of my airways. Each flare-up seems to take longer and longer to recover from. It is tedious.

Within a couple of hours of getting up, everything has changed. I am coughing, spluttering and really struggling. I feel that the relentlessness of chronic asthma is just a bit too much. My thinking says, “Go away asthma! You’ve been hanging on with this flare-up for too damn long!”

Then, reality hits. This is my illness. This is why it is called a chronic illness.

Every day for these six or so weeks, I have needed large amounts of reliever medication. Boy oh boy, does your heart race! Then the shakes and the headache follows. And, I just want to sleep! Very tiring.

It’s very easy to feel sorry for myself, and I do sometimes succumb. I think everyone with a chronic illness succumbs some days. It really is quite a load to carry.

I think I need something to help me, a “reviver kit.” Last week, I bought myself a couple of new novels, although I usually only buy second hand books or read ones from the library. My reviver kit needs a couple of good books in it, some homemade chocolate, a book of crosswords, some nice hand cream, my iPod and headphones. Then, I can curl up in bed and wait for this day to pass.

I live in hope that tomorrow will see an improvement. That I can cutback on all the drugs I am taking. Even just a tiny improvement will be welcome!

At my best, I am still ill, but life is manageable. Now it is just tedious, boring, exasperating and a struggle. These sorts of days will get a new name too, “Rag Doll Days.” When it is like this, it really is the pits.

I know my disease is ever present… I’m just waiting, waiting for that slight improvement to start.

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Thinkstock Image By: BerSonnE