Tag: chronic illness

Chronic Migraine, Coping

Keep Trying

Kerrie Smyres

I’m celebrating using the last class on my 20-class yoga pass. It only took 10 months to go to 20 classes! Each card is good for a year and the last one expired before I got to use all the classes on it.

I mention yoga so much that it probably seems like I go to classes all the time.  I have all five classes I like most on my calendar and try to go to almost every one. About an hour before class starts, I begin assessing whether or not I’ll be able to make it through the class. The answer is far more often “no” than “yes.” It’s frustrating and sometimes infuriating to not be able to make yet another class, but I love it so much that I keep trying.

Hmm, that pretty much sums up my approach to chronic illness. Can’t do the things I want to do? Keep trying and every once in a while I’ll get to. Had another treatment fail? Keep trying and maybe I’ll find one that helps. Feel like there’s nothing good in a life with chronic illness? Keep trying to appreciate even the smallest things and I’ll notice some of the goodness that surrounds me.

I know few things for certain, but am positive that I feel better than I have in ages because I kept trying when all I wanted to do was quit. I threw myself pity parties (sometimes for months) and took treatment breaks; I yelled a lot about how much it sucks to have chronic illness. But time after time, I picked myself up and tried again.

Giving up is a great way to stay exactly where you are — or to get even sicker. That wasn’t an acceptable choice for me, so I kept trying. It often felt like I was going nowhere, like my symptoms would never improve, that all the work was for nothing. But when my options were keep trying, stay stuck, or feel even worse, there was only one way I was willing to go.

My diet has the same frustrations as chronic illness on a smaller scale. Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s terrible. Most of the time, it’s something I really don’t like, but accept that I have to live with it for now. While a diet of 40 foods is wonderful compared to a year or two ago, it’s not enough. I won’t stay here forever. I see no way out of the current restrictions, but there has to be something. Despite not knowing how I can possibly expand my diet (preferably by reducing my reactivity to foods), I keep trying. I can’t not.

Coping

Redefinition is a Nightmare, Yet the Essence Remains

Kerrie Smyres

“This is not what they signed up for, not at all. . . . Redefinition is a nightmare — we think we’ve arrived, in our nice Pottery Barn boxes, and that this or that is true. Then something happens that totally sucks, and we are in a new box, and it is like changing into clothes that don’t fit, that we hate. Yet the essence remains. Essence is malleable, fluid.” Anne Lamott, A Slow Walk into the Amazing Now

Anne Lamott’s writing has hit me straight in the heart once again, this time in an essay about a friend who has ALS. Usually I’d add my reflections, but this doesn’t need much. Almost everyone reading these words knows that redefinition is a nightmare — a gut-wrenching, life-twisting, heartbreaking nightmare that feels like it will destroy the very essence we hold dear. Amidst that, it’s difficult to see that one’s essence not only remains, but is stretching toward the light and growing ever stronger.

I spent many years lost, not knowing who I was under the onslaught of chronic illness. I mourned for my lost self, sure I’d never see her again. Even though I couldn’t see it, my essence was still there. It was, in fact, what carried me through, changing in the ways necessary to keep me going. In this year that I’ve had remarkable physical improvement, I still haven’t seen the Kerrie I used to be. That’s OK. I like this redefined version so much more.

Coping, Favorites, Friends & Family, Symptoms

The Eternal Asterisk of Chronic Illness

Kerrie Smyres

“Join us for dinner, I feel like cooking.”*
“Yes, get me a ticket for the baseball game.”*
“See you at yoga tomorrow.”*
*unless I’m too pained, dizzy or nauseated to do so

For about 10 years, this was the pattern whenever I’d make plans: My excitement would build as the dinner/concert/play/party approached. I’d spend the day resting, hoping to build energy reserves, and give myself a couple hours to shower and dress. The migraine pain/exhaustion/dizziness/nausea would persist despite my best efforts to supplicate it. I’d push myself and become distressed, and worry and panic would fuel the migraine. Angry, I’d crawl into bed (or sometimes collapse on the floor) and ask Hart to call our friends to cancel.

After years of disappointments — and lost friendships — from last-minute cancellations, I stopped making plans. The pattern was just too painful to repeat. I withdrew further into the isolation of chronic illness, dragging my husband in with me.

Moving back to Phoenix, where my friendships are long-established, I began making plans again, knowing my friends would understand if I had to cancel and that, if we had couple plans, they’d welcome Hart even if I couldn’t come. So now I make plans with an asterisk. I’ll come to your party, meet you for tea, go to a mini high school reunion, as long as I’m up for it. I still don’t like rescheduling and am reluctant to buy tickets for events that I’m not sure I can make, but I am no longer ashamed or embarrassed when I have to stay home.

Shame or guilt were only part of the problem. If I couldn’t go out, I felt like I was letting migraine win. Like my default mode was healthy and deviance was an anomaly. Truth is, my default mode is migraine (“chronic” might have been the first clue). I’d been too stubborn to see and too ashamed to admit that I was too sick to live a “normal” life. Coping with chronic illness isn’t a matter of winning or losing, but of being honest with myself. And that may be the biggest challenge of all.

Community, Reader Stories

Migraine and Chronic Pain in Teenagers

Kerrie Smyres

Having a chronic illness or chronic pain is life-altering and the stigma of invisible illness can be infuriating for anyone, but it can be especially difficult for teenagers. Sometimes the very people who are supposed to support and protect them — teachers, coaches, school nurses, doctors and even parents — don’t even believe them. (Sadly, many of you don’t have to imagine this scenario because you lived it.)

Psychology professor and Psychology Today blogger Nancy Darling, whose teen son has migraine, provides an insightful and touching take on migraine and chronic pain in teenagers.

Withdrawn, Irritable Teen? Is It A Migraine? points out that migraine often doesn’t look like migraine and that the associated absentmindedness, irritability and isolation can look like a normal “teenage funk.” She also explains why migraine looks so much like a kid trying to get out of going to school.

Children Who Go to School in Pain walks readers through a day when her son has a migraine. The most poignant part is “faking being well.” That’s right, despite the common accusation that the chronically ill are faking illness, many of us are actually faking being well. Whether you’re a teenager or adult, I’m betting that resonates with many of you; it certainly does me.

Please take a look at Dr. Darling’s posts. Even if you’re not a parent, the struggles she describes are important for everyone to be aware of. As a former teenager with chronic illness, I’m relieved to read about a topic that gets far too little attention.

Chronic Migraine, Coping

Chronic Illness Perspective: Life’s Minor Inconveniences

Kerrie Smyres

A tiny fire started in my microwave last Friday and I didn’t catch it until the smoke rolled into the dining room. We were 20 minutes from leaving town for the weekend, so I set up the medical-grade air filter and figured the smell would be gone by Sunday night. Um, no. Although I never actually saw flames, the smoke damage ruined the microwave and permeated the walls and cabinets.

This was a minor household mishap — no one was injured and the damage is small and fixable. What I can’t get over is that I found the situation funny.

Really? Who reacts to a house that smells like smoke and days of cleaning with amusement? Yet neither daunted me. I could only see that my kitchen would be the cleanest it has ever been and that I might be required to paint the kitchen cabinets, which I’ve wanted to do for years. Isn’t that weird?

Trying to figure out the sources of my amusement led me to chronic illness. The many strategies I’ve learned to keep illness from subsuming me are useful for managing any sort of distress. A problem that doesn’t bring harm to anyone and doesn’t permanently damage my home just isn’t that big of a deal.

The fact that I actually feel well enough this week to do the work played a large role in my response. If I were relegated to the couch and had to smell the smoke without being able to do anything about it, I’m sure I’d be pretty frustrated. Still, this is the kind of thing that would have sent me into a tailspin even in the years before I got too sick to cope with the world. Being stuck on the couch this week would have been annoying, but I don’t believe I would have been fretful and distraught.

Chronic illness has given me so much valuable perspective. I’m not grateful for being sick and I will never say it is a gift, but after being so sick for so long, the minor inconveniences of life don’t matter all that much. I do appreciate the perspective.