A Year in Bed

Sounds heavenly, doesn't it? A whole year in bed? But in fact, that's how I spent all of 2008, and it ain't' what it's cracked up to be.

I started off the year with a knee damaged in a faint from 2007. Knee surgery early in February. That was quickly followed up by a Crohns Disease flare, and introduction onto Cimzia by summer.

I was still sick over summer with no specific cause, and it carried over into fall and all the way to present. Doctor after doctor, test after test. People doubting that I was even ill, and thinking I was maybe a little bit more than a hypochondriac.

But I've just received the best holiday gift ever. As I've had an ever-increasing fever over the past six-to-eight weeks that reoccurred every single day, my doctors started looking more diligently. And we got a diagnosis!

I have a bacterial infection that could possibly have been fatal, but is treatable. It's symptoms closely mimic Crohns Disease which is why it was so hard to pinpoint. Everybody - including me - thought that the Crohns was flaring when, in fact, it was the other.

I have a mixture of emotions.

Relief of course, and happiness that we can do something constructive to get the problem under control.

Anger. At the people who doubted that I was ill; at the people who minimized what I was experiencing; at the people who made fun.

Frustration. A whole year wasted. I've looked and looked at my New Year's resolutions, agonizing that I have not completed a single one. But in truth, there just wasn't a chance. I was way too ill.

Joy. That I may be well on my way to recovery before 2008 rings out and 2009 rings in. For wouldn't it be a wonderful thing to start the new year on the real path to feeling well?

Here's to a productive 2009.