A few weeks ago, I was told by someone that they felt I was sucky friend for not going out/inviting them out and I deserved to have no friends. (That was the gist of the whole long spiel I received.) Ever since then, it’s really irritated the hell out of me.
Here is a day in my life:
Get up…it some days takes me more than one, or even two, tries to get out of bed. Changing positions trips up my blood pressure and can make me dizzy or nauseous depending on the day.
Get moving…I go downstairs. Again, sometimes it takes more than one try, or I have to take breaks. Once I get downstairs, I choke down my meds (thankfully nowhere near as many or as bad as other people’s) and try to have something to eat. Regardless of what I eat, the act of eating itself (and the food) causes all of the blood in my body to rush to my core to try and digest it. The blood pressure difference makes me immediately nauseous, dizzy, lightheaded and (sometimes) cuts the blood supply off to my extremities making them cold and numb. Any specific food can make it worse, and even just drinking something can set this off. I constantly have to fight my food/drink down and fight to keep it down. Or, occasionally….even sets of bouts of diarrhea. (Pardon the TMI)
Next: I shower. Depending on the temperature of the water, I can have a full out ‘cardiac event’. These events range anywhere from having my heart race, dizziness, blacking out, nausea, and arrhythmia. My heart will skip or miss beats or race out of control. My heart pounds painfully in my chest and I gasp for air. Even a degree or two can make a difference. Afterward, comes the joy of braving the 20+ degree temperature difference getting out of the shower…which changes my blood pressure yet again and it starts all over again. Sometimes, I even have to lay down.
After that, I attempt to do something with my day…I get outside to another large temperature difference, and have another attack. Which, I push through and go to the store. Walking into and around the store is yet another temperature/pressure difference that can set off another attack. It feels like a severe anxiety attack, yet I’m not scared…my hearts just racing, my body sweats, I feel dizzy and go pale. Try on clothes at the mall? Forget it. The movements of my body to pull the clothes on and off set off another event. I sit gasping in the clothes changing stall waiting for it to pass enough to get to my car.
I go home after just a brief hour or two out of the house. It’s time for lunch…(see breakfast’s nightmare).
I try to clean the house…see movement nightmare.
It’s time for dinner…see breakfast’s and lunch’s nightmare. Only it seems to be worse at night…because my body is weakened from the ten attacks I’ve had so far.
Then it’s time to choke down more pills and head to bed…
Rest and relaxation right?
So you would think…except that at night, you relax and you blood pressure lowers. So, I’ll drift off to dream land, only to wake up in the middle of the night once again dizzy, with heart pounding, and gasping for air because my blood pressure has dropped too far. I’m too relaxed. I get maybe four or five fractured hours of sleep. Sometimes I wake up to frightened to even go back to sleep.
Yet, one thing I’m proud of is that I don’t ask for anything from anybody. I don’t want pity…so I don’t complain in ‘real life’. (instead, you poor 43Thingers have to hear about it- I’m sorry again!) I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me…I don’t even ask for compassion. But I do ask for a little bit of credit or understanding. If you don’t understand, or have a problem…ask. When you don’t bother to ask what’s going on, how can you even feel you have any right to attack someone over something like this?
This will make me sounds like a terrible person, and I apologize ahead of time…but if I had cancer or a heart attack, you (the friend) wouldn’t be saying this to me. But because I have an ‘invisible illness’ and look fine on the outside you don’t even think twice.
So dear ‘friend’, you’re right. I haven’t called or written to check in…yet neither have you. I haven’t invited anyone to go out because I don’t go out. I don’t invite anyone over because it’s humiliating to me to be so sick in front of other people. If you had the stomach flu would you invite a whole bunch of people over to experience it? Maybe you would know some of this if you made any sort of effort once you knew I was sick.
Maybe trying to take care of my own life, and trying not to lose my life, is selfish. How dare I think of myself at this point in time instead of calling to find out about the ‘nothing new’ that’s going on in your life? Maybe I am the bad friend.
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