Those are the same stars, and that is the same moon, that look down upon your brothers and sisters, and which they see as they look up to them, though they are ever so far away from us, and each other.~ Sojourner Truth
It’s 2 o’clock in the morning and I’m wide awake; fretful and fitful and just a bit teary.
Maybe it’s the Full Moon…
Or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had three days of doctors, more tests and been given my new expanded treatment regime for Chronic Lyme.
I’m introducing three new drugs to the existing two.
That’s a lot of drugs…
And there’s a super-duper new restricted diet to go with that.
I don’t know why that should bother me. I’ve spent thirty years following various diet plans, supplement and medicine plans and assorted other ‘get-me-well’ protocols. It’s not like I’ve gone from a normal life to this strangeness. This ‘strangeness’ is my normal!
I even have a helpful letter from one of my doctors, that I must use to release myself from a program I am now unable to complete. I had to open the letter so I could fax it off to the recipient. My doctor’s final words caught me by surprise, “her prognosis is guarded: I do not anticipate any form of recovery in the next twelve months. This is a most regrettable situation.”
Regrettable? Yes, I guess it is. And he makes me sound so sick.
Oh wait. That’s right. I am.
I’ve been mostly coping okay, and I’m sure that after a bit more sleep I’ll be fine. But tonight, as my skin itches as if I’m being bitten by a thousand angry ants, as my left eye throbs and pulses from the bacteria inflaming my optic nerve, as my joins swell and pain, my head pounding, my ears burning, my gut a tortured length of misery, I am sitting in overwhelm.
I just want to howl.
I can imagine the wild dogs tonight, back at my farm, full voiced as they scream their collective angst and passion and solidarity to the sky.
I wish that I could join them. The howl’s just there. A primal thing pressuring the back of my throat.
But the neighbours in this respectable Brisbane suburb might think it strange to see a pyjama clad, tear-streaked woman howling her pain and frustration to the heavens. They’d probably call the police.
If I feel into this unvoiced howl though, if I lose myself to the pain, something comforting happens. Beyond the suffering and the infinite sadness at the loss of so much of my life to this damned thing, I find a strength. If I keep feeling into the howl I find a kinship.
I belong to a kind of fellowship, its members bound through the most primal and visceral of suffering. And I know something powerful about this membership – it transforms you.
Through this journey of chronic illness and pain I have found beauty, wisdom, courage and kindness. It has opened me up to a depth in myself I would never have otherwise explored.
I lay down on the couch, looking out the leaf-framed window to the silver moon above me. I feel the voices of the wild dogs. I feel the kinship of the suffering on whom this same moon shines.
I am comforted. I am connected. And I know it’s already okay. I am okay. I will be okay.
So I’ll keep gazing at the moon, bathe in her light, and wait for sleep to claim me.
Namaste ♥ xx
