My Evolving Self-Care Journey Through Chronic Illness

A summer cold has made me review how I care for myself.

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash

When I was younger, I felt invincible. As a full-time working mom of two, I managed a career and maintained a faithful exercise routine. My energy seemed boundless and unstoppable.

Back then, my Lipedema was at a stage I. My extra bulgy hips didn’t cause me any problems except finding pants that fit right or regretting dessert, which caused me to bloat and gain 8 lbs overnight.

When I got the inevitable cold bug (kids, ya know), it didn’t stop me. I don’t remember ever being down for the day or sick in bed. Instead, my day looked like every other day, except with a sore throat and a headache. I pushed through whatever ailment I had because I had only myself to rely on, and I was otherwise a healthy person. I could ignore my body’s need to slow down and rest.

As I got older, my body started to ache all over. I got terrible migraines. I still ignored the signals to slow down, but I was paying for it. In my 30’s, I was tested for rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid disease, Lupus, and any other inflammatory conditions. I was finally diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Of course, my doctor didn’t do anything to treat my condition; it was a trash diagnosis because he couldn’t figure out what else was wrong with me.

In my mind, stress caused my bodily problems. But I didn’t slow down. I still had to keep my life going.

It wasn’t until my migraines got debilitating that I started taking some downtime. By the time I was in my 40s, I’d learned how to nap. I would feel the headache coming on and put myself to bed with all the curtains closed.

I guess that trained me for Lipedema. When I hit menopause, my Lipedema kicked into full gear. The pain was my constant. I had trouble sleeping. I couldn’t stand for more than a few minutes without becoming exhausted.

This was when I genuinely learned about self-care.

I only wanted to feel better, to feel normal. I did a lot of research about my strange symptoms and how to relieve them. That devoted internet searching is how I found out I had Lipedema.

At last, I had a label for what was going on with my body. So, I switched gears from dieting to learning about getting anti-inflammatory relief.

I also learned how to recognize when I was crashing and how to do extreme self-care when I needed it. If I hadn’t learned about conservative care for Lipedema, I’d be in a worse place right now.

When I had surgery, I came to realize it wasn’t the end of my self-care.

I still needed to manage my body because surgery, although it relieved most of my pain and increased my mobility, was not a cure for my Lipedema. I’ve had to learn this kind of the hard way because I’ve had other stresses this past year; a major car accident and a knee replacement surgery were the most significant ones that threw me backward in my health. I was hard on myself because I felt that since I had lipedema surgery, I should have been fine.

But I wasn’t fine. The ongoing assaults on my body last year wiped me out. I couldn’t get up and engage in my life and felt like I was letting everyone down. I felt like a failure.

Over these past eighteen months, I’ve had a lot of physical and emotional trauma; I’ve realized I can’t be hard on myself like that. My body’s been through hell, and she deserves better!

When I committed to non-guilty self-care, I slowly started feeling better. I became more active and social. I’ve been feeling great in the past two months! I was working more, getting out with friends, and doing things that interested me. I turned a corner. Finally.

Photo by Kristine Wook on Unsplash

That was until about two weeks ago. I came home from work feeling great, went to bed that night, and woke up with a sore throat in the middle of the night. Two days later, I was sick. Very sick. I tried to carry on, but that virus hit me so hard I couldn’t.

I had plans! I was going to meet up with some Lipedema women in my area, do the Lipedema Fitness challenge, work on my workshops, and connect with friends. I also still had to work. But I couldn’t do any of it. All I could do was lay in bed and feel miserable.

So I gave in and let my body be ill. I canceled everything. I only called in sick one day, and then it was the weekend. I returned to work the next week, still managing my summer cold. I’d go to work, come home, and crawl into bed.

It has taken me a long time to recover from this virus. I’m still at the tail end of a cough and sinus problems. My body also needs extra time to get stronger. At some point, I know I must push myself to start exercising again when the timing is right. That timing is based on intuitively reading my body and slowly testing my limits, inching along until I’m back to the place I was before this illness. It seems like a long road for me back to recovery.

I don’t know if this was a particularly nasty bug or if my older body now has a more difficult time recovering back to health. Maybe it's both. But I can no longer ignore my body’s signals. I can’t push through an illness anymore. When I get sick, I need to baby myself.

I’m okay with that.