Redheadeddead

I am living with severe #MECFS and autoimmune autonomic neuropathy for the last decade. Some days I cannot stand. Other days I get by fine and can stand and walk a bit. Chronic illness has a way of taking what is the normal bare minimum to exist and making it into a marathon your body isn’t ready to run. Before I was sick I never gave much thought to taking showers, cooking meals, gardening, keeping house or making art. It was normal. I was very active. Then came exhaustion, pain, sleepless nights and anxiety of not understanding why my body was betraying me at such a young age. Unexplained symptoms, scans, appointments, more needles than I can count. I have 52 hospital bracelets. Each time I added another to the pile I questioned myself. I questioned God. I hated my body and the fact that I was still the same me, just trapped in this body that betrayed me. It turned 80 before I turned 30. Specialists, complications, physicians who found it easier to tell me I was depressed than to believe my experience. Medical gaslighting. I finally met a neurologist who changed my life. He said let’s investigate this together. A decade to find the cause. In that time I watched my health bar decrease the same way it did when I played Streetfighter in an arcade as a kid. Research. I did so much research after my diagnosis. I modified my life, my diet, my habits and regiments. My family adapted, stepped up to help. We’ve prayed and cried a lot. I don’t get around very much, I don’t go in public much because I’m too immune compromised. But I’m here and I have a voice and I’m finding support here in X in the #chronicillness and #mecfs #autoimmune communities. I’m surviving and I have a voice and if you’re chronically ill, you do too. Sometimes just having someone who “gets it” can be a lifeline or a laugh when you need one. If that’s you, 👇let me know and I’ll follow you. We can be chronically cool together