The War

Please bear with me for a moment of venting: I don’t know what to call the past 3 days in terms of how I’ve been feeling, I wouldn’t call it a flare even though all of my symptoms seem to be exacerbated, this just feels different. I can feel my body attacking itself, it’s a cellular rebellion and wars are breaking out all over my body. Abdominal pain and swelling (something I’ve lovingly named giant belly syndrome), hives, hot flashes, dry mouth, chills, unbearable flank pain, among other GI disturbances kept me up until 3am Friday morning. I slept a half hour on a half hour off for the rest of the night, I woke up still feeling ill, very groggy, and overall like I had been hit by a truck. I made it to an appointment on campus at 10am but couldn’t make through the rest of the errands I had planned. Headed home, tried to eat something and 20 minutes after my first bite, I was on the floor in tears curled up in a ball with the same issues from the night before. Add on difficulty breathing from pain at the base of my ribs, and I’m ready for a full-fledged panic attack. But for what? Why bother to panic? This is just how it goes. But you know what? It is just too much. After a nap, a few heat packs, and a hot shower, I was able to enjoy our weekly evening with friends. My energy was poor, my pain was lessened but still there, either way this flare or whatever it was seemed to have passed and I was grateful. Until around 5am when my hips and shoulder started burning. It felt like I had been sitting on the hardest and hottest surface in the world for way too long, except I had been in bed for hours. My right shoulder was crunching and hot and tingling, I could feel the knot in my muscle pulsing between my neck and shoulder, pulling my head down and my shoulder up, my entire arm, into my fingers even is numb with pins and needles, and feels like it could explode. 6am, I am wincing and making a heat pack, there is no chance to get comfortable, or to rest. I want to run away from my own body. It’s now 7:30pm, my shoulder has not let up despite heat packs, a hot shower, and some expert massage therapy from Ian. My range of motion is limited and I’m exhausted. Pain has also gone to my lower back, to my right knee, and left ankle, and I can feel my muscles tensing up around my left shoulder. I want a break. I hate that this is consuming hours of my day. Moving, breathing, eating, sitting, standing, walking, laying down even, seem like challenges. And I could just about lose my mind. It’s not that I’m tired, it’s not that my muscles are sore, or that I have some achy joints.  It’s that I am exhausted and overwhelmed! It’s that it feels like my muscles have been chopped up with sharp, hot knives, and that someone is digging into them and twisting and pulling them off of my bones! It’s that my bones feel like they are breaking, like they are being crushed with a mallet from the inside out. So now I’m on the couch with a heat pack on my shoulder, and ice on my thigh in preparation for my weekly Humira injection, my eyes are tearing all on their own because I am just so tired of being so sick and tired. 

I am so relieved that I don’t feel like this everyday, I know that this could be so much worse, but right now I am begging for a break, for a moment where my mind and body can be still and I can breathe without pain.