12 cakes for 12 years of M.E.
It’s that time of year again! When I treat myself to an M.E. Anniversary cake to mark another year of trying to make the best of a very hard situation.
Self-indulgent? Probably. But it’s the least I or anyone else living like this deserves.
I couldn’t find the right number of candles this time, but felt that some was better than none.
Twelve years. Oooof. I got an unidentified virus in September 2010 and had my first medical appointment related to it on 10th September. Blurred and out-of-focus vision was my first symptom and remains the most prominent one. That virus turned my whole world upside down. To have been debilitatingly unwell for each of those 4380 days is mind boggling.
I don’t think I thought I’d still be doing these ‘celebrating survival’ cakes. I mean, when I was diagnosed in 2010 the Neurologist told me to “have a quiet Christmas and see how you are in the New Year.” Which New Year do you think he meant?! There have been many since then! I mean he didn’t specify but it was heavily implied that I’d be back to my best over a decade ago đŸ˜‚
I implore you to reward or congratulate yourself in some way, every now and then, for living this restrictive, messy, soul-destroying, wonderful, testing, joyful, contradictory life with chronic illness. For giving each day a go, but also allowing yourself the odd day off to wallow and cry and get angry about how awful and how terribly unfair life can be.
Congratulate yourself for even attempting to unlearn and relearn absolutely everything you thought you knew, and remould something of a life from the ashes of your beloved old one. Do you know how much strength there is in all of that?! It’s an inner grit and determination unlike any other.
M.E. myself and I 