This week i've had a bit of a milestone: I have been given a diagnosis of a condition called Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). It falls into the ME family which is basically a family of conditions for which there is no defining diagnostic test and for which there is no cure. On a basic level, sufferers get very fatigued and experience a lot of pain...thus impacting their lives quite significantly. I have had diagnoses before - fibromyalgia was the one which really stuck for quite some time until a consultant told me that couldn't possibly be the case. To be honest, I'm not really bothered about the label because it doesn't make any difference to my everyday life or the symptoms I experience. I guess with a thing like CFS though it will make it easier to explain things to the relevant people at university and when I get a job. It’s good that it’s also a google-able term so when I tell people I’m feeling and tired and need to go home, they’ll know I’m not just a spoil sport!
Over the past few months my health has deteriorated - at times my housemate has had to lift me out of bed in the mornings and sometimes im so tired it feels like a huge effort to even get words out in a conversation. Waking up feels like a fight to come up for air when you've been swimming. Except that someone has also hit you round the head with a sledgehammer and been punching you all over your body. And you feel hungover. And this is despite turning the lights out at 11pm and waking up at 8.30am.
I didn't understand really what the term "mental strength" meant until the past 4 months...but now I'm starting to get it. Life has become a fight. It's a fight to wake up. It's a fight to get vertical. It's a fight to get to class. It's a fight to stay awake. It's a fight to socialise. It's a fight to pray. Everything is a battle and when you're battling all day...it's pretty draining. You need a lot of stamina to keep going! And you need stamina to not let the fight consume you. I am not my illness. I am not my fatigue...there is more to me than that. But at the same time, I do feel like I've joined this community of people that I never really noticed very much before. Recently the government announced its spending cuts which included ending the mobility allowance for disabled people in residential care. Ever since my pain has progressed to the point of me having to have special equipment to do my work and the fatigue has progressed to the point where I need either my own car or a lift to get around, I've started to take more of an interest in some of the stories which hit the headlines about disabled people. I really feel for the people who won’t be able to get out now because of that cut. If you have severe physical disability it's like being a prisoner in your own body – so to be denied the chance to get out of the house must be devastating. I remember sharing a link on Facebook where a disabled person talked about that particular cut... I got to comment of “yawn!” from a friend... and I was surprised at my reaction. I was furious. It nearly made me cry. It felt like someone was mocking “my" people!
But at the same time, I have to fight to conquor the desire to wallow in my own situation. To conquor the jealousy. When I look at those who are my age and my contemporaries...they work demanding jobs with long hours and lots of pressure, they are climbing the career ladder, they are partying at weekends, they are going out and meeting people, they are leading ministries in churches and seeing lives changed. And before I know it I've turned into this big ball of green envy, salivating over the life I would like to live!
And I start to ask myself - how are you going to handle this because this is your life and like it or not, it's the only one you've got. I don't want people's pity - of that I'm sure. Once a lady I know came over to me and greeted me by saying "poor Becky, you always look so ill." I'm not sure which was worse - the pity or the you always look so ill bit! One thing I know for certain though. I'm not just going to curl up in a ball and let this take over. Yes I may not be able to stay out until 2am but I can still go out for at least a little while. Yes I may not be able to study for 10 hours solid but I can study for a little while. Yes I may not be able to go on a walk in the Dales - but at least I can take a little walk [and have a drink at a pub whilst everybody else is sweating away!] Yes I may not be able to play football but at least I can watch it and get excited when Utd stuff Chelsea! Yes I may not be able to have my dream job but I can still make a difference in peoples lives in whatever job I end up doing.
- belong with God. I am important to him. I benefit from his love, attention, care and protection. He is thinking of me, working in me and through me and plans for me.
- I am a child of God, his heir and co-heirs with Christ
- I am precious, honoured, glorious in Christ! I am not a mistake, but designed by God for his pleasure
- I am competent and strong in Christ, gifted for a special function and involved in God’s great purposes. We are citizens of heaven!
I think my health is something I very much took for granted. Before I broke my ankle, I took for granted the fact that I could take free kicks in football, smash a backhand in tennis and doodle on the guitar for three hours at a time. Even when those things went, I still took it for granted that I could go out with friends every night of the week and go after the career I wanted to do.
But the fact is that my health is a gift -- like every good thing, good health is a gift from God. There's a song which says “you give and take away, you give and take away, my heart will choose to say, Lord blessed be your name.” Every day I pray for healing. I did give up for while, but a friend of mine who has had a bit of experience in the area of ill health himself, encouraged me to keep praying. So every day I pray for healing and ask God to restore my physical strength. But at the same time, my heart has to make a choice – am I going to praise God in the meantime or am I going to resent him and push him away? It is a conscious choice that you have to make I think. And a choice that you have to keep on making on a daily basis. To be honest, I feel much happier when I am praising God -- when I delight in him, I feel at my strongest. I'm a Christian hedonist! But despite this, there is such a temptation to wallow in the pain, in the fatigue, in the loneliness, in the self-pity. So I think it has to be a daily choice, a daily decision, daily vow to love and serve him... which is renewed consciously. The fact is there are lots of people in the world who are a lot worse off than me. I work in a sector which reminds me of that every day. Loving God means loving others...which means I’m not focussing on my own situation 24/7...which is actually good for my health!
I know the choices I should be making. All the same...its not always easy to make the right choices.
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