Status Updates From Increased Risk

“Some days I think I might dislike the chronic part
more than the illness part.”

“When you speak the words filter through the claws and come into my head in ribbons. I piece them back together and send my own out through the grinder.
This part takes a third of what remains, so really,
there is so little of me left.”

“When I am in pain I am only half of myself. The other half taken up by hurt. My brain works in half-time.
I am talking to you but my words come out
dripping, colored red. And then I halve the half— you see, it takes that much effort to act like I'm not in pain. So I am a quarter of myself. The rest has gone to hurting and pretending not to hurt.“

“What a humbling gift you have been given, the reminder that a body is more than the way it looks.
For a while the idea of a good body will just be having a body that works. What a gift. And what a price to pay.”

“My body and I are often on opposite sides of the fight, but I'm learning to love it anyway. I dress it the way I like and make my hair the color I always wanted and still, I look into the mirror and my eyes fix first on what I dislike. ‘I have power over you,’ I tell it when the hateful thoughts creep into my head. I am the person and you are just the body—you don't get a say in how I feel about myself.”

“My body and I are always at war but I'm trying to make peace. I take it to the doctor and I feed it things it needs and still it makes me sick like a taunt. ‘I have power over you,’ it says when I call out from work again or cry on the way to the clinic or crawl back into my bed. ‘Listen, please, I'm hurting,’ is what I think it really means.“

“Your peers will call you lazy. You will thank your friends for their prayers. You will learn to say ‘it’s okay’ a thousand different ways. You will drive home for an appointment. You will not get to eat. You drive home for surgery. You will sleep through the weekend. You will tell your mum you are fine and then you will cry in the bath. And then you will be alone.”

“Here’s the lonely thing about it: they rally around you at first…They call, text, check up on you. But then your appointments become scheduled. Friends stop calling to see how you are…and once sitting around with you gets dull they decide to go out instead. You’ll watch movies from your bed where protagonists will go…You will be too tired to go out-you will be called lazy.“

“… A clawing, constant battle to be healthy like everyone else is most of the time.”

“Nothing compares to the agony of not knowing what is going on in your own body…The part you just have to live through.”

“It was the kind of pain you learn to grow around.”

“But I will try to love my body despite its inconsistencies because of the things it holds. Because my heart is the one that’s inside of it.”