In the blink of an eye everything can change. One minute you’re out enjoying life to the fullest, and the next moment you can’t do anything. Everyone assumes that they’ll never get seriously sick. I mean, yeah, every once in a while some of us get a cold, or the flu, or get a fever, but few people realize that they can get really sick, too.
I never thought that I would be one of those people who had their life change because of an illness, but here I am. Almost everyone at the Gallagher Academy is healthy, besides the colds here and there, but not me. For some reason my immune system decided to stop working and not fight off illnesses. Because of that, my body couldn’t fight off the virus that entered my body. From just one illness I got a much bigger one in return. Now I’m trying to get through life with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. It isn’t your common cold, or the little stomach bug. The tiredness, which isn’t your typical ‘it has been a long day and I’m tired’, is a ‘bone crushing, want to curl up in a ball and cry myself to sleep, exhaustion.’
Month One:
Month one was the easiest for me. It was just the beginning, and for weeks I thought it was just a cold, but I knew that I would get over it. After all, you always get over colds.
After a month I still wasn’t better and the doctor wasn’t sure why; that’s when it really started to hit me hard. At that time, though, I didn’t know what was to come. I didn’t know how much it would take out of me, take out of my life. When I told the doctor what I felt, extreme tiredness like no other, she said I probably just had a virus. When I told my boyfriend, Zach, that the doctor still didn’t know what I had, he wrapped me in a hug and held me tight for a long while.
Three months later:
I’m still not better. The doctor believes I have Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome, and recommended that I do some blood treatments to help reboot my immune system. I finished the blood treatments five weeks later.
There isn’t any improvement yet, and school is almost nonexistent. I make it maybe three hours in the entire week. The work is starting to pile up to the point that I can’t keep up with it anymore. Zach stays with me when he can, and he does his homework while I watch murder mystery shows. Sometimes I try to do some schoolwork, but I can’t think. It takes too much energy to focus for long periods of time. It’s a big difference from the schoolwork and working-out I once did, to now not being able to get off the couch to do anything.
Journal Entry #1: Rain
I wish for rain. Not just because I love everything about the rain, and the soothing look and feel from it, but for the fact that when I feel so bad the sun that streams down just isn’t right. It doesn’t match how I feel; with feeling this horrible it seems like a waste of a perfect day. It’s beautiful, and I’m just sitting here not being able to enjoy it.
If it were dark and gloomy the weather would express just how I feel and it wouldn’t be so chest tightening, because I couldn’t do anything anyway. So, I sit here feeling miserable, trying to keep the tears in as I get on with life because no matter how I feel, or what I get done in a day; life goes on, the world keeps spinning, and I try and make something of this perfectly-beautiful-heartbreaking-miserable-sunny day.
I always try not to pity myself, let the darkness overcome me, but sometimes the build-up is too much and my walls crack a little bit more, and the water that’s held behind that wall leaks through before I can stop it.
People say it’s unhealthy not to cry, and I guess they’re right because when the water builds up too high, the dam breaks and the emotions come out. I can’t stop it, so I just let everything go and envelope myself in the facts of how I feel. No matter what I do I can never truly hide how I really feel anyway. At one point or another my walls will crumble and people will see how I truly feel. All I have to do is wait and it will happen.
For now, though, I’ll be weak when no one can see me, and put on my strong face when everyone can, and pretend like I’m not hurting as much as I really am. So, let the rain come because then when I stand outside I can pretend it’s rain running down my face and not tears.
The other night when my friends went out for a run, I decided to try and get some conditioning done. I was so used to working out before. It was like I became someone else when I got sick; I wasn’t able to do anything. I almost never cry, but I just couldn’t handle this anymore. Zach had come into the gym looking for me and all of a sudden the tears I was trying so hard to keep in started streaming down my face.
“Hey, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?” Zach said with concern.
“I tried. I tried and I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it.” I was sobbing, having trouble getting the words out because I couldn’t catch my breath.
“What did you try? What can’t you do?”
“I can’t do anything. I’m just so tired. I can’t do anything. I’m just so tired of being sick and tired. I’m so sick of not feeling well.”
“I know baby, I know.” He pulled me close to him and just held me. No talking, no nothing, just him hugging me as I sobbed in his arms. I’m pretty sure it was past eleven o’clock when Zach carried me into the school and straight into my room. Once he laid me on my bed I was sure that he would turn around and leave. He didn’t, though; instead he removed his shoes, and climbed into the bed right along next to me. As I was pulled back into his arms I felt my hot tears soak through his shirt, the same shirt I was clinging to.
When I woke up Zach’s arm was wrapped around my waist and the comforter was pulled over us. I felt drained as usual, but I didn’t have that overwhelming feeling of holding everything in anymore. Zach shifted next to me, and when I looked down at him his gaze was on me.
“Hey,” he stated after a moment of silence.
“Hey,” I said awkwardly, lifting the comforter up higher as coldness seemed to find its way to me.
“How’d you sleep?” he asked, sitting up straighter and really looking at me.
“Fine, what about you?”
“Good, how are you?” He was looking at me like he could see into my soul. Maybe he could, he knew me so well.
“Good,” I answered a second later.
“Now what’s the truth?” He saw right through me. It wasn’t quite a lie, it’s just what I always say when someone asks me that. It’s my mechanism, and I guess he could see through that also.
“I’m… I’m okay.” I had to think for a moment of what I was going to say.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I nodded before looking down. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” That was a good question, what for?
“I don’t know, I just didn’t know how much I needed someone to be there. You were there in one of my weak moments.”
“Yeah, always, I’ll always be there for you.” He smiled before realizing what I had said.
“Wait, you think crying shows weakness?” My slight nod had him pulling me into his arms as his back came into contact with my headboard. “Cammie, you’re the last thing from weak. Crying doesn’t mean you’re weak. It shows that you’re human and you have emotions. It shows just how strong you are for going through this.
He didn’t wait for my answer, though; he just wrapped me into his arms and kissed my temple. We just sat like that for a while, his back against my headboard, and my back against his chest.
Journal Entry #2: Blossoms
I can see blossoms on the tree outside the common room window. The smell of blossoms reminds me of the closeness there is to spring. I smelled the blossoms while I was lying on the couch, too exhausted to do anything except stare blankly ahead at the running TV. The smell of blossoms made me feel guilty, because I was lying on the couch on such a beautiful day, doing nothing. I did do some homework, but it’s not enough. I’m falling further and further behind. It’s so hard focusing, though, because I feel too bad to even think straight.
I feel guilty because I know I should be doing homework, but I just…can’t. I want to cry but I can’t. I feel hollow, empty, and it’s almost like I don’t have enough energy to cry. I started off the day all right. I had some energy, but it just started going downhill from there. It reminds me how everything can change in the blink of an eye. I just want to curl up in a ball and disappear. It’s hard to believe that all these thoughts started with the smell of blossoms through the open window.
Life goes on even if I can’t truly live it. Not yet at least. Hollow. Empty. I feel like I’ve lost myself. I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know how I should feel.
Journal entry #3: Forgotten
It rained yesterday. Not a downpour like I wanted, but a nice sprinkling. I didn’t feel the helplessness like I did last week. Some days are better than others. It’s in those bad days that I think about everything, every little thing - the good, but mostly the bad, of everything that’s happened. It’s in those times that I feel crushed and helpless. Those days don’t come too often, but when they do it’s like a tidal wave and I can’t keep anything in anymore. It’s a spring downpour of the build-up of emotions I’ve been trying to harbor for so long, too long.
One of my biggest fears right now is that I’ll be forgotten. That’s the one thought that has been circling around for a while now. I just don’t want to be forgotten. I feel like I’m slipping away from life, my sense of normalcy is disappearing and there’s nothing I can do about it; it’s like I’m out of sight, out of mind, but at least I have Zach here to help me with that, and my friends stop in when they can.
I feel like I’m on house arrest without the ankle bracelet. I spend all day everyday inside not able to do anything, and it’s hard. At least before I could go to class, and work out in the gym, and walk around the school grounds. Now I don’t have enough energy to do any of that. I want to be out living life to the fullest, and here I am not able to do anything.
There’s no one that knows what it’s like; that’s one of the hardest parts - no one knows what this illness is like; I’m truly alone. I have support, don’t get me wrong, everyone is completely supportive, but they don’t know what it’s like. Zach’s always there for me, but he can’t know exactly how I feel. “You can see my tears, but you can never feel my pain inside.” I just hope I’m not forgotten.
Journal entry #4: Hidden
One of the worst things about being sick is that no one can see what I’m going through. This truly is a hidden illness. “We may not look sick, but turn our bodies inside out and they would tell a different story.”
If it weren’t an invisible illness people would see what it really does to someone. I didn’t get this just because life got hard; it’s not all in my head, and just because I look perfectly fine on the outside doesn’t mean I am. I’m not.
Everyone here is supportive, but at the same time they can’t understand to what extent my tiredness goes. It isn’t just ‘it’s-been-a-long-day-and-I’m-tired’ kind of tired. It’s the ‘I-just-want-to-curl-up-in-a-ball-and-collapse-because-I-feel-completely-miserable-and-exhausted-to-no-end’ tired. “Tired” doesn’t even cut it. Fatigued… Exhausted… Comatose… Chronic Fatigue is an invisible illness, and I’m disabled because of it. It truly is a disability. I never thought at such a young age I would be considered disabled. I should be out enjoying life. Instead I find myself watching everyone else doing it, and me too exhausted to keep up. I’m hidden; I’ll always be hidden with this disease.
Month six:
Last night I crumbled. The smallest thing can become the biggest thing. One minute I’m crying over a death in my book, and the next second I realize it’s no longer about the character’s death, but about me; it’s about feeling so bad, not knowing what to do anymore, having my life on stand-still; everything. I sat at the edge of the bed and just cried. It’s not those loud, obnoxious tears, but the silent ones that show just how much you’re hurting.
Zach came in and found me like that. He didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. He came over and just held me. Zach’s shirt had tearstains on it, but I doubt he cared, and neither did I. I realized in that moment that he had seen every part of me. The strong, the weak, the healthy, the sick, the happy, and the sad, and he would always be there to see them. I also realized that I no longer cared if he saw me weak and crying, and maybe he was right; crying wasn’t a weakness, it just shows how strong you are for going through this, that you don’t let it stop you. Yes, you cry, but you’re showing strength by showing emotion, by showing how you truly feel. I curled up into his side with those thoughts swirling in my mind. Crying wasn’t a sign of weakness; it was a sign of strength. For if there’s no struggle, there is no strength, and that just shows what kind of struggle you’re going through. “‘People cry, not because they’re weak. It’s because they’ve been strong for too long.’”
Journal entry #5: Blockade
I just realized that somewhere along the way I’ve lost most of my stir craziness. Not all of it, there are some moments, but most of it is gone. In the beginning it was the hardest part because I was so used to doing everything that not doing anything just about killed me. I’m too fatigued to even think about working out or conditioning right now.
I’m at a wall now; instead of taking two steps forward and one and a half steps back, I’m taking two steps back each time. It’s discouraging and I can’t do anything about it. It’s frustrating when I want to be doing all these things and can’t.
What I need is a dam because then at some point it would break and I could move forward just a little bit. What I have now is a brick wall that’s ten feet high. I just want to be healthy again, and I don’t know exactly when that’s going to happen.
One night Zach and I went out to lie in the grass looking at the stars and I told him everything from my thoughts, to my feelings, to what it was like, and he asked his own questions. It was simple, yet it was the perfect night. Just being there under the stars with Zach made everything right for just a moment.
“Thank you for always being there for me, Zach,” I said softly.
“Always. I love you, Gallagher Girl,” Zach whispered in my ear as he wrapped his arms around me, pressing a light kiss behind my ear.
“I love you, too.”
Maybe nothing is okay with me at this very moment, but I have my friends, and I have Zach, and as long as I have him by my side I feel that I can get through anything. Nothing is clear for sure, but in time the fog that’s over my life will clear and I’ll see the light at the end of the tunnel that will tell me it’s almost over. For now all I have is Zach, and I guess for now that’s enough; he’s my rock and I don’t know what I’d do without him. I have to believe that someday life will get back to the way it was, and until that happens; I’ll just keep waiting and hoping.