Going to the hospital when you are chronically ill is always a gamble - that for me ends mostly in me leaving the hospital in tears after yelling at yet another doctor. Nearly every doctor I have ever been to has seen me angry, like almost wanting to tear the hospital walls down level angry. Now, while I haven't been kicked out of a hospital yet, I soon expect to be, because my rage at my illnesses can never seem to die.
The situation is all the more worse when my illnesses act up to create new symptoms, and I deal with them for the very first time. This often feels like trying to fit in an old pair of jeans when your hips cannot anymore or trying to clear a captcha test but repeatedly failing because you cannot identify all the bicycles on your screen. It feels frustrating.
The situation is all the more worse when my illnesses act up to create new symptoms, and I deal with them for the very first time. This often feels like trying to fit in an old pair of jeans when your hips cannot anymore or trying to clear a captcha test but repeatedly failing because you cannot identify all the bicycles on your screen. It feels frustrating.
At any time when my body thrusts a new medical experience at me, all I can feel is frustrated, because it seems like whatever solution or key I had found to make my body tolerable to live with has now immediately become redundant and I must now embark on a process of self discovery again. And this self discovery does not involve solo trips, boho fashion, and reading new literature. Rather it involves figuring out the perfect balance between exercise and staying in bed, trying multiple medicines to see what works, using aroma oils, ointments, homeopathy and what not. Which is NOT PLEASANT.
I got my very first diagnosis when I was 6, and I had no idea what it meant then, and no understanding of how it would impact me even today. I was tiny, and to me, a diagnosis was a series of long words my parents used to describe me to doctors. It was my story, my journey and my pain compacted into 3 words, even though I had a lot more to say.
I think what our medical professionals forget is, that we are real people behind our diagnosis. That we have frustrations, anger, grief, and unhealthy relationships with our bodies - because how do you love your body when it refuses to work as it is supposed to? When in medical spaces and hospital cabins then, our body is spoken of as being separate from us, suggestions of self care are made when we have always thrived on self loathing - when our physical diagnosis is reduced to words we must now accept as parts of ourselves forever, it is natural to feel angry. It is natural to feel grief at what your body could be and what it instead is. It is natural to feel jealous of the able-bodied doctor who gives you your diagnosis in a matter of fact way without considering for a moment how they are changing your life.
I received my latest diagnosis yesterday. And it still feels unreal - it still feels like a joke played on me by my body right when I was almost comfortable with all its other problems. I was still told of a diagnosis that would change my life with a straight face, without empathy - in a monotone which felt frustrating. Did this doctor not realise what he was saying to me? Did he not realise how I would feel after it?
I received my latest diagnosis yesterday. And it still feels unreal - it still feels like a joke played on me by my body right when I was almost comfortable with all its other problems. I was still told of a diagnosis that would change my life with a straight face, without empathy - in a monotone which felt frustrating. Did this doctor not realise what he was saying to me? Did he not realise how I would feel after it?
However, I refused to give him my anger. I also refuse to give the same anger to my body - my gentle broken body which is only doing its best considering what it is going through. Instead, I throw this anger back at the system today, the system which expects me to accept my permanent diagnosis in a 15 minute long appointment. Which expects me to have no feelings about it while I suffer, because if I have feelings about it, then I must be hysterical. I cannot walk out of this system - but I can shout within it, and I have every intention to.
As for my body, I am still learning to love its new flaw. I may not be good at catering to its needs with this diagnosis right away, but I seek to learn for it. I seek to give it the love, care and understanding it deserves. I seek to also cry with it, about how unfair it is to be broken.
And the reason for this is that - it is only my body which has gone through years of diagnosis and misdiagnosis with me. If there's anyone who understands the pain of these completely, it is my body. And with love, we shall get through this as well, as we have for the last 21 years.
