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Being Chronically Ill, and Feeling Well

March 5th, 2009

I woke up feeling well, and well rested, before my alarm went off this morning. That may not sound like a big deal, but it is very unusual for me, and worth commenting on. I went to bed last night with a Migraine that hadn’t fully resolved, and with a queasy stomach, which I thought was nausea from the Migraine. The head pain was completely gone this morning but now in early afternoon my stomach has gone back to feeling a bit queasy, so I am wondering in retrospect whether the stomach gripe yesterday was Migraine nausea or IBS or whatever else this may be that I am feeling today. Having multiple chronic illnesses is like that. Most of the time I’m grateful if nothing really major is going on. It’s rare that some degree of minor ick isn’t happening, and it’s also rare that I can sort it all out and say definitively what is bothering me on a given day.

I felt so well that I set my Facebook status this morning to say “Megan Oltman is feeling really well for the first time in weeks.” Within a few hours I found myself musing on what exactly “feeling really well” is, whether it’s a moving target, and whether it’s a claim I can make. I’m not feeling as well as I was when I got up this morning. On the other hand, I don’t have a Migraine, my stomach is only a little queasy with no major pain or cramping, I don’t feel fatigued, I am mentally clear, I am not congested, I am fairly energetic – this is a good day! I might even color it pink!

I have a Wellness calendar which I color code to indicate how well I am on a given day. This allows me to keep statistics and track trends. I calculate how many Migraines per month I have, how severe, how long they last, what triggers them and what I do to treat them. I calculate how many days I am sick but functioning, how many days semi-functioning, and how many completely out of action.  Each type of day has a color. Days I feel great I am “in the pink.”  Then I calculate percentages of wellness and illness for a given month, for two and four months trends, for a year.  Yesterday I caught my statistics up and discovered that 2008 was my worst year for wellness since I started tracking.  Not that I couldn’t have told you that by gut feel, too, but it’s a rude awakening to see it in black and white and pink and orange and brown… I really think I deserved a pink day after that.

A dear friend, who lives far away, and who I don’t talk to nearly often enough, read some of my writing recently and told me she was surprised to hear me describe myself as having been chronically ill for the past 14 years. She thought I must be uncomfortable talking about it, or why had I never told her? Laura’s a perceptive one, and of course it has been uncomfortable to talk about, especially in the first 8 or so of those years where I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me, blaming myself, thinking I was a hypochondriac, all the things that so many of us do. Now I think it’s not so much discomfort as just a long story to catch people up on. That’s part of what I try to do here. I am chronically ill. I have chronic Migraine disease, chronice fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, multiple allergies, and chronic, or at least frequently recurrent, sinus infections. The good news is that I am actually up and functioning about 75% of the time!

February was a bad month. I was sick 14 out of 28 days, and that doesn’t even count days I was okay all day but was knocked out with a Migraine in the evening. Today I got out for a walk. I am clawing my way back to the top of the mess in the house and on my desk, and feeling caught up with my work again. The sun is shining, the snow is melting, and I feel well. Pink? At least pinkish!

– Megan

Tags: allergies, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic illness, chronic migraine, irritable bowel syndrome, sinus infection
Posted in Communicating, Musings | Comments (2)