It’s been months since I’ve done much of anything creative. I’ve worked at keeping it alive in my heart, even if I haven’t had time, energy, or inclination. The past year has been medically strange. What I thought was going to be a straightforward diagnosis has led to a year without an answer. I’ve experienced progressive and sporadic symptoms of what I feared was a neurological problem.
My hands and head sometimes shake, my muscles twitch, and my legs lack the stamina and feeling they used to have. My hands have been numb for weeks at a time while doing something as simple as holding a pen. Yet, I have muscle strength and there doesn’t seem to be any urgent problem. I’ve been to three specialist doctors besides my GP, and have performed easily a dozen tests. Potential diagnoses that have been posited include: conversion disorder, essential tremor, small fiber neuropathy, and fibromyalgia.
I had months in which I couldn’t stop researching, trying to figure out something. Does someone else have this? Is there some piece of the puzzle I am missing? Can I figure this out by myself? What do I need to have in mind so I know what tests the doctors should be running? I have developed a greater sense of insight regarding people who don’t have answers for their medical symptoms, and for people dealing with a life-changing diagnosis.
My body going haywire opened me up emotionally. I wrote pages and pages in my journal about my feelings, my worries, running through the logic of what the diagnosis could be. I admit, I was in despair and spinning psychologically, running every possible scenario.
One day, after being exasperated and realizing I was actually stressing myself out and causing my symptoms to worsen, I stopped. I stopped exerting energy toward a problem I couldn’t solve myself. There was no amount of reading on the internet, or putting my symptoms into a spreadsheet, and hyper-focusing that had made my life better. My happiness, and my creative energies were empty, because I had been obsessing about my health for so long. I forgot how to be myself. I forgot what I really cared about, and what I used to spend my time doing.
In the time to come, there are more tests. I will seek answers. There will still be visits to doctors. This mystery ailment will continue to occupy some space in my life. But it doesn’t have to be my life. Maybe it’s a big thing, maybe it’s small. Maybe it’s physical, maybe it’s mental. I don’t know. I don’t have control of that outcome. I do have control about my time, my resources, and what I think about. I choose to think about poetry, writing, and drawing. While spending what functionality I have on what builds me up and makes it all bearable and worthwhile.
With extra doses of love and insight,
