This is all new to me, so I look for insight wherever I can find it. I'm a reader, so of course, I head for books! Wonderful, wonderful books!
When I look to books for inspiration in living my life with this new awareness of what my body can and cannot do, I find titles like these:
Being Sick Well: Joyful Living Despite Chronic Illness
Being Well (Even When You're Sick)
Doing Well at Being Sick: Living with Chronic and Acute Illness
How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers
There is nothing wrong with the content of these books - most are helpful. But I have trouble with the word "sick".
People with chronic pain/fatigue syndromes often use the words "sick" or "ill". But the word "sick" bothers me. I don't feel sick. I have a genetic collagen defect - the "glue" that is supposed to hold my body together is less Super Glue and more that paste glue you ate in 1st grade (you did, didn't you??). Because my bones often subluxate ("sublux" is when they shift out of joint but shift right back in again, unlike a dislocation where they are really out and stay there a while - only my knee and some little bones in my feet have dislocated, as far as I know), and because I have muscles desperately trying to do what my joints, tendons and ligaments cannot do, I have chronic pain + fatigue. Sometimes I don't even notice it's there because it's there all the time - until I get a pain burst: from a pull, or a microtear from a sublux, or fall because my coordination is a less-than-stellar (that's called "lack of proprioception" - our joints are loose so we're not sure where they are in space). That's not "sick" to me. That is "disabled".
"Sick" is when I get the flu. "Sick" goes away. "Disabled" means my abilities have changed - they have become more limited. "Disabled" does not go away. Saying I am "disabled" doesn't bother me. Saying I'm "sick" or "ill" does. It just doesn't feel right.
I love words and their usage, and these words bother me in this context. I don't really know why this is. Maybe I haven't been living it long enough to know yet. Or maybe I'm just cranky ;)
Don't worry, though - I'm not gonna get upset or or judgie if you use those words. (However, I will still judge you on "their", "they're", and "there"!)
When I look to books for inspiration in living my life with this new awareness of what my body can and cannot do, I find titles like these:
Being Sick Well: Joyful Living Despite Chronic Illness
Being Well (Even When You're Sick)
Doing Well at Being Sick: Living with Chronic and Acute Illness
How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill and Their Caregivers
There is nothing wrong with the content of these books - most are helpful. But I have trouble with the word "sick".
People with chronic pain/fatigue syndromes often use the words "sick" or "ill". But the word "sick" bothers me. I don't feel sick. I have a genetic collagen defect - the "glue" that is supposed to hold my body together is less Super Glue and more that paste glue you ate in 1st grade (you did, didn't you??). Because my bones often subluxate ("sublux" is when they shift out of joint but shift right back in again, unlike a dislocation where they are really out and stay there a while - only my knee and some little bones in my feet have dislocated, as far as I know), and because I have muscles desperately trying to do what my joints, tendons and ligaments cannot do, I have chronic pain + fatigue. Sometimes I don't even notice it's there because it's there all the time - until I get a pain burst: from a pull, or a microtear from a sublux, or fall because my coordination is a less-than-stellar (that's called "lack of proprioception" - our joints are loose so we're not sure where they are in space). That's not "sick" to me. That is "disabled".
"Sick" is when I get the flu. "Sick" goes away. "Disabled" means my abilities have changed - they have become more limited. "Disabled" does not go away. Saying I am "disabled" doesn't bother me. Saying I'm "sick" or "ill" does. It just doesn't feel right.
I love words and their usage, and these words bother me in this context. I don't really know why this is. Maybe I haven't been living it long enough to know yet. Or maybe I'm just cranky ;)
Don't worry, though - I'm not gonna get upset or or judgie if you use those words. (However, I will still judge you on "their", "they're", and "there"!)
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