The Power Of Unburdened Truth

There are times we don’t talk about my sarcoidosis for weeks at a time. It’s almost as if my disease has just become part of the fabric of our lives. There is little need to discuss it. It is, after all, a known quantity in our lives. I am sick. What else is there to say? Why should we dwell. When all is said and done, we don’t need words to know the impact sarcoidosis has had on me and on us, the loss of income, the slower pace of life, the ease with which I now cry and feel helpless and ineffectual because my lungs burn in a fiery blaze, a blistering ache every time I take a breath and my body writhes in unexpected and mysterious discomfort for reasons no doctor seems to understand and, always at the most inconvenient of times.

Tonight for the first time in quite awhile, we did talk about it. I talked about it. I admitted a rarely spoken ugly fact about living with a chronic disease. I said that it’s hard. I said that I hate it. I don’t like to say these things. I feel like when I do, I give the disease power over me, power I loath to feed that horrible ogre who took up unwelcome residence inside my flesh and organs, my bones and limbs. I do hate it though and that’s the simple truth of the matter.

There are things about becoming persistently unwell that actually make you appreciate life in deeper and more profound ways. Time changes because you realize how much of it you wasted when you were well and worried about stupid, mundane, often petty things, stuff beyond your control, outside of your grasp, the injustice of things not going your way. What I know now because of my sarcoidosis, is that most things don’t turn out as planned and that this is meant to part of the adventure of life, not something to fret over. The unplanned events in life are what build our character because they are what shape us through the choices we make about how we face them.

I am grateful for the knowledge about life that I have gained from being knocked out of the rat race, the constant chase for the next best thing. I no longer have the drive or the need to be the best at everything I do or in the know about every stupid latest fad or fashion. Instead, I find my life of forced simplicity to be an unexpected blessing. There is ease in it. It does give me pause to be still and know that life is not only fleeting, it is profoundly short and when every breath you take is literally painful, well, this just gives you a better understanding of life and death, how the two are intertwined and cannot be unwoven from each other. There is a humanity and a humility that comes with the knowledge that death is forever chasing life. This is a little secret that can only be understood once your very being has been threatened by the mayhem of disease.

Most of the time, in my acute awareness that life is a fragile momentary passage of time on this insanely beautiful planet and, despite the unyielding stumbling blocks of life inside an uncooperative skin, I choose to be grateful. I choose to focus on contentment rather than disappointment. I seek serenity instead of worry. I long for peace instead of disturbance. However, I would be remiss and even a liar, if I didn’t once and awhile admit, despite my abhorrence to the fact that I loath to acknowledge it, having this disease is hard and I do hate it.

So tonight, I let the floodgates open but, only a crack. I released the burden of the all too often unvoiced reality about life with a chronic health condition. I admitted that I feel weary sometimes. I disclosed my loneliness and insecurities. I shed light on the ugly sorrow of a body burdened by disease but I only did this so that these demons cannot swallow me whole. Sometimes the only time the truth can hurt you is when you’re not honest. Feelings are only as powerful as you allow them to be. I do grieve and this disease does make me sad but when I am honest, when I acknowledge my broken heart and liberate myself from being mostly stoic and strong and outwardly fearless in the face of constant uncertain health, I am better able to appreciate the simple joy that is life and I am free to continue living with grace and acceptance of what is rather than what will never be.