I went for a check-up yesterday. It was nice to see my specialist smile after he read my test results.
Every trip to the hospital makes me think about my journeys; the one to a proper diagnosis and the one to Healthy Town. Since I started writing this blog, the appointments have also brought back memories of what I did to isolate myself.
Even the most anti-social guy is a social being. To be truly anti-social, you’d have to live in the woods by yourself completely off the grid and off the land.
I’m not very good at catching fish and I’ll never know a poisonous mushroom from a good one, but I wanted to learn when Dr. HC diagnosed me with that shit condition. Instead of watching reruns of Survivorman, I stayed in the city with Tim and the doctors.
Living with neighbours, co-workers and family can be tricky when there’s a part of you that you’re unwilling to share. Luckily, there are a few ways to tell a non-truth.
Misdirection: You weren’t here yesterday, says a co-worker. Are you okay? Ah, I wasn’t feeling well, I reply, but I’m great now. Hey, how did the big meeting go? Was Frank super pissed about your numbers?
Side step: Do you have Fibromyalgia? Well, Boss, there’s a lot going on right now.
Denial: I’m fine, don’t worry.
The truth is, in order to segregate my illness from certain parts of my life, I had to lie. I remember one test that required me to wear a pretty bulky piece of electronic equipment for 48 hours during the work week. My first thought was about hiding it from my co-workers.
And I did hide it. If anyone noticed, they didn’t say. There are enough people there who would say something, regardless of my attempts to stay distant.
Lying takes tremendous energy, which was something I didn’t have to spare. I had to map out escape routes beforehand, because I wasn’t good at thinking in the moment. I had to pin down distractions.
At first, my heart would pound with every spoken lie, and then it became routine. Easily ignored. Just like the middle-aged panhandler, who made me sad at first. His sign said he needed money because he was travelling. Three days later, that same man was there with the same sign. After two weeks, I was annoyed, and a month later I didn’t care. The sign might have been more effective if he travelled to another intersection.
In my life, I at least had the decency to change my sign according to circumstance. But it didn’t really matter, because with every act of misdirection, the adrenaline slowed and I became a liar.
Showing posts with label private. Show all posts
Showing posts with label private. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Reason # 1,843
People who know me, as a close friend or an acquaintance, know that I don’t talk about my health. Not many know why.
I’ve been a private person most of my life. In the beginning, I was emulating the behaviour of role models without knowing why privacy was coveted, or what parts of my life should remain confidential. At some point, I found my own reasons, especially when it came to my health.
Right after Dr. HC’s diagnosis, and months before anger settled into my chest, quickening the pace of my pulse, leaving me almost breathless far too often, I stumbled through my days without a clear purpose. The future was suddenly frightening. Every new or worsening symptom, like blurred vision or more dizzy spells, was a sign that my body was failing.
In those stunned days before I decided that I didn’t have Fibromyalgia, I told three people at work about it. One person was shocked that I confided in him, another was extremely sympathetic and told me about her sister who had the same thing, and another suggested time off work.
There was no way in hell I was taking time off work. Taking time off meant that I really was sick and I couldn’t face that possibility. No, the only solution was to shut up. I didn’t tell anyone else, and I sewed a glossy, magazine cut-out smile over my tired, pinched lips. I’m great! How are you?
Six months before meeting Dr. HC, my mother-in-law, who was like a mother to me, was diagnosed with Leukemia. Supporting her as she fought for her life gave me a certain perspective about illness. She never made me feel like my pain was less important than her cancer, but that’s because she was a great woman, not because it was true. Despite her encouragement, I was ashamed to talk about it. My symptoms were an inconvenience, nothing more.
This thing I was suffering from, whatever it was, wasn’t going to kill me. Complaining about my pain at work wasn’t going to make friends, and it wasn’t going to get me promoted. In fact, my sickness would probably hold me back. Keeping it to myself made me feel safe during a time when there wasn’t much to feel safe about.
There were a bunch of things that I assumed would happen if I told people. Here’s what I didn’t want: to be treated differently, to wallow in self-pity, to explain that I was sick with something I didn’t fully believe in, to be labelled as a sickie, to worry my friends and family, to hear about off-the-wall natural cures, to think of ways to bring it up seamlessly in conversation, to draw attention to my on-again-off-again relationship with intelligence.
Tucked near the bottom of my list of reasons to stay quiet was a reason that might have been at the heart of many others. Who cares?
I’ve been a private person most of my life. In the beginning, I was emulating the behaviour of role models without knowing why privacy was coveted, or what parts of my life should remain confidential. At some point, I found my own reasons, especially when it came to my health.
Right after Dr. HC’s diagnosis, and months before anger settled into my chest, quickening the pace of my pulse, leaving me almost breathless far too often, I stumbled through my days without a clear purpose. The future was suddenly frightening. Every new or worsening symptom, like blurred vision or more dizzy spells, was a sign that my body was failing.
In those stunned days before I decided that I didn’t have Fibromyalgia, I told three people at work about it. One person was shocked that I confided in him, another was extremely sympathetic and told me about her sister who had the same thing, and another suggested time off work.
There was no way in hell I was taking time off work. Taking time off meant that I really was sick and I couldn’t face that possibility. No, the only solution was to shut up. I didn’t tell anyone else, and I sewed a glossy, magazine cut-out smile over my tired, pinched lips. I’m great! How are you?
Six months before meeting Dr. HC, my mother-in-law, who was like a mother to me, was diagnosed with Leukemia. Supporting her as she fought for her life gave me a certain perspective about illness. She never made me feel like my pain was less important than her cancer, but that’s because she was a great woman, not because it was true. Despite her encouragement, I was ashamed to talk about it. My symptoms were an inconvenience, nothing more.
This thing I was suffering from, whatever it was, wasn’t going to kill me. Complaining about my pain at work wasn’t going to make friends, and it wasn’t going to get me promoted. In fact, my sickness would probably hold me back. Keeping it to myself made me feel safe during a time when there wasn’t much to feel safe about.
There were a bunch of things that I assumed would happen if I told people. Here’s what I didn’t want: to be treated differently, to wallow in self-pity, to explain that I was sick with something I didn’t fully believe in, to be labelled as a sickie, to worry my friends and family, to hear about off-the-wall natural cures, to think of ways to bring it up seamlessly in conversation, to draw attention to my on-again-off-again relationship with intelligence.
Tucked near the bottom of my list of reasons to stay quiet was a reason that might have been at the heart of many others. Who cares?
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