Looking Up

I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...

Ah, well, the sky isn't exactly blue here in Portland today, but I feel so good! This latest round of antibiotics seems to be finally killing whatever has been left of the urinary tract/kidney infection I've had. My kidneys hardly hurt at all. I can actually twirl my hips around as if I was hula-hooping. That burning pain that's always been sorta on like background music for years has disappeared thanks to the Neurontin. And my boyfriend is coming three weeks from today. I'm practically bouncing off the walls. :)

Whenever I'm in a run of bad health, I always have to tell myself that I will feel good again. The good days will come back. And I hold on to that with everything I have.

Likewise, whenever I start to feel better after a bad spell, even though I've had CFIDS/ME for almost 6 years now, I somehow think that, this is it: I'm finally all better and life is going to go back to the way it was before the surgery and blood clots in my lungs and hemorrhaging and all. But I've had to learn to do the opposite of the bad days. To tell myself that yes, today I feel good, but that doesn't mean I don't have CFIDS/ME anymore. That I don't know how I will feel next week. I only know that today I feel good. And if I want a chance at feeling good for more than today, I have to make sure and not overdo it too much.

The other day when I was looking through my old Arabic textbooks, I could see where I had written in the answers to various drills. Remembered how I used to sit in class, figure out which sentence I was going to have to translate or figure out the cognate accusative for, or whatever one of the five zillion grammar concepts we were studying that day, and do it there in class before it was my turn because I hadn't done it the night before. Remembered how I used to berate myself for being so half-assed with my school work. Looking back now, I realize I had Fibromyalgia that whole time and with the schedule I had, it's amazing I got any work done at all. My only salvation was that I was smart, so my half-assed work was still excellent work by most academic standards (got accepted to Harvard, Chicago and Georgetown for grad school).

God, I wish so much I could have that back! Could still study two languages (as half-assed as it was), take other coursework, do homework, work (10-12 hours a week) and still go to church and hang out with my friends (though admittedly, my social life was fairly limited because of my fatigue). Yes, I struggled with it all, but compared to now where I'm lucky if I can leave the house, it seems like the pinnacle of health.

And it feels silly that every time I have the good days after a lot of the bad, even after all these years, I still think that pinnacle is just around the corner.