The Things I Think About When Emerging From a Chronic Illness Flare

While in the midst of a chronic illness flare-up, it feels like I am in a fog. It feels as if everything is hazy with a deep, dark film covering my world.

When I have a flare-up from any of the things that are “wrong” with me, it is often subtle, a sort of cumulative effect. I have a few days where I feel just not quite right. I have many days of fatigue so bad I would rather drag around a bag full of bricks all day. There’s the nausea, the pain, the blurred vision, the mood swings and baseline anxiety, the all-encompassing depression and underlying fears. The daunting inability to regulate a single body system leading to fainting, the inability to digest leading to not eating, and the constant overstimulation of the nervous system often resulting in, at minimum, a neverending vibrating sensation. And there’s whatever new symptom I may have. In this most recent case, a throat and neck pain. Neck pain that receives no relief from pain killers. Throat pain that luckily is more about sensation than function, but off-putting nonetheless.

These things can last hours, days, weeks, and months and be so unpredictable and inconsistent that it is maddening. Typically when I’m in the midst of a multiple sclerosis flare, I have every cognitive defense up in order to ignore, distract, and pretend it’s not happening. I try my hardest to carry on with my daily routine and schedules and follow through with all social plans and things that I want to do despite struggling so hard.

It is similar when I’m in a depressive episode. Daily tasks feel daunting, and social plans feel crushing. However, if I pretend it’s not happening, sometimes being so busy leaves me feeling too exhausted to have time to feel the overwhelming sadness that inevitably settles in.

But, I digress. This post is about emerging from these moments and coming out on the other side.

When I move through the depression, or when I notice my symptoms (new and old) slowing down or dissipating, it feels as if I opened my front door after a storm.  When things are still and quiet and fresh and bright, that’s the most noticeable — the brightness of literally everything. When I can walk down the hall without being winded and I can sleep a full night, that’s when colors are more vibrant. When I can do yoga and go to work without feeling immense pain, that’s when I truly exhale. And when I make it through a day, or even a half-day without crying or feeling extreme anger, that’s when I know I will get through it, and I really am OK.

Coming out of a flare of any kind feels like a reset. It feels like work to put the pieces back together, but it feels more worth it each and every time I recover. There is always a thought lingering in the back of my mind (especially when new MS symptoms are involved) that I am now carrying this damage with me forever moving forward, but it feels lighter now.

I know it will always creep back in expected or not, covert or overt, physical or emotional; these things will never go away for me. However, when I am able to see that light at the end of each tunnel, I am reminded that the permanency of it all is not the worst-case scenario. The hope and the good days are truly the reminders that I am, as the kids say, living my best life — to the best of my abilities.