I woke up last night. I forgot to undo my alarm from the night before, so here I was at 4:40 in the morning in extreme pain. I glanced at my body. My legs were swollen like logs, my gut looked like that of a hard-core drinker. My face almost felt numb because of how swollen it was. Every bone and joint in my body ached, especially my foot which I had sprained or jammed about a week ago. I had an almost acid taste in my mouth since my body’s PH had risen. I lay there, hot, tired and aching for a while.

The only thoughts in my brain were simply of how the heck was I going to make it through the next week? I’m better today, after I have spent almost 12 hours doing nothing but trying to bring the inflammation down but I still don’t know if I will be able to do everything I need to.

I didn’t’ do anything drastic, I hadn’t had a night of drinking or partying. I hadn’t done much that would be different from most people. Heck I even got to sleep at a fairly respectable hour. But this is the reality of living chronically ill. I genuinely don’t know if I will be able to get everything done this week that I need to. I hope I can, I’m planning on, heck other people are counting on me. But I just don’t know.

How do I try and prepare for a life on my own? How do I prepare to take care of and provide for myself, as well as others? How do I find a job that meets my highly specific ever-changing needs?

I don’t have the answer to those questions. I guess I’m just going to have to wait and see. And to be clear, I’m not trying to complain. I’m merely trying to describe what its like to live chronically ill. I have a hard time describing it to people and helping them understand. Because to be honest, if you have never had to deal with things like this, you would have no benchmark for understanding. I have friends who do their best to understand but I know its hard for them and I want to be better able to describe to them what its like, for their sakes.