Here I am, ready for my morning time breakfast cornucopia of pills and vitamin supplements. Insert deep sigh. This breakfast will be followed by morning sickness bouts of nausea that will fade away sometime around one, where I might be able to choke down some vegetable juice, and if I’m feeling really adventurous—hold on to your seats—a rice cracker. This from the girl who used to be able to stay up all night, drinking whiskey and howling at the moon, and could still be ready at 6 in the morning to go to the action. It’s a long way to fall.
In a more positive note—I think I’m getting better. Not just better for now, but better for real. I went into flare on Monday, and being faced with another bout of pain, sleepless nights, and not being able to pee (as well as a partner who is less than responsive and empathetic when things turn for the worst) I fled back to my lady friend’s house the next town over, for the lady love and the hot running water and my beloved vegetable juicer. I braced myself for the worst (usually 2 weeks at least of fairly unbearable symptoms) and tried to love myself through special foods, positive visualization, hot showers, and herbal teas. I was sick Monday, sick Tuesday, kinda sick yesterday, and today I don’t feel sick at all! I’m on my fourth week of Doxycycline, and I started L-arginine and quercetin supplements, so it may be the new pill 
protocol, and I had some really powerful energy work done along with my acupuncture last week, or it just could be that my body is remembering how to be well. I know that the body has the ability to heal itself, and I am constantly trying to renew my faith in it, because that faith is likely to get me farther along the healing path than any allopathic interventions. I walk and I pray to Big Mama and I try to keep myself out of stressful situations and limit any self-destructive behaviors, and I know that I can do it, but it can be hard to temper my optimism with enough of a reality check so that I am emotionally prepared for the bad days when they come. I know that my illness brings with it gifts—spiritual strength, the motivation to make changes in my life and relationships, closeness to friends, prioritizing my family, being grateful for small things like walks in the woods and sunshine, and I’m going to work hard at looking at this sickness as a catalyst for positive change and turn my attitude from one of “fighting the disease” to accepting my body for what it is and loving it anyway. I just read Andrew Weil’s “Spontaneous Healing,” which was very helpful in regard to positive thinking and acceptance.
No art has got done in the midst of all of this self-discovery—the full time job of living with chronic illness has temporarily eclipsed my artistic ambitions. All of my newsboy caps have sold on Etsy, so it’s time to make some more, but that seems more like a chore than an artistic mission, and I don’t have the energy to make another dress yet—though maybe if I make one for myself, I would feel motivated! The art bug will return when she’s ready.
