This post was written on August 21, 2023 but posted on October 20, 2023.
I’ve been stuck in bed again this summer and I’m miffed about it.
My Crohn’s decided that it’s been long enough since my last flare-up and I needed to have the extra layer of challenge. So after a short stay in the ER with a possible partial intestinal blockage (again…ugh), I was put onto a new round of meds to reset my immune system and hopefully get my tummy to calm down! Just because the rest of the world is going crazy, doesn’t mean that my blobby tummy buddy needed to join in that party and be all extra like that!
Thankfully, after two months… two long months of pain, isolation, fatigue, and insomnia, the medication was done and I was finally feeling better. People that knew me said I was looking healthier and more alive again! Finally, I had energy to do more than simply…exist in my apartment.
But during those sixty(-ish) days, my emotions and mind were all over the place. The only thing that was consistent, was a quickly-building sense of restlessness and need to be doing something— anything! I tried to do things that were within my reduced abilities, but it was so difficult. I had no drive or spark for anything. If I had energy, I would start to do something, like work on a web project with an online friend. But as soon as I would start, I’d feel… so empty and that there was… I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like the energy was immediately zapped away. The little something inside that makes me excited about doing things in which I have interest has been snuffed and, even though I’m trying to relight that little something, it just won’t stay lit.
But the restlessness was still there. The feeling of wasted time was growing. Even though my main focus was my health and taking care of myself during this flare-up, I just couldn’t deal with it. I wanted to get beyond these unexpectedly imposed physical limitations that I now had to deal with. Again.
And this was coming during a time of great mental distress with my chronic, clinical depression and anxiety (among other mental health and personal issues) that were not definitely not helped with this time being bed-bound. It was getting quite severe and compounded after a few weeks of the flare