Lemonade Pt 2: the path of least resistance

So I had my follow-up appointment with a liver specialist last week.

"I'm not going to start any treatment yet. Just stick to what you've been doing, and come back in three months," says the nice lady at Tulane Organ Transplant Center. 

Time. What I've been doing is buying myself more time.

In future blog posts, I'll be writing about things I feel might be helpful to anyone on a similar healing journey. But before any of that happens, I needed to be okay saying I have this thing. This chronic dis-ease. And I needed to believe that it doesn't make me defective. That I am not a fraud posing as a healer because I have something that is one of the most common and misunderstood epidemics of my generation, affecting more women than breast cancer or heart disease.

"While 2.2 million women are living with breast cancer and 7.2 million women have coronary disease, an estimated 9.8 million women are afflicted with one of the seven more common autoimmune diseases." -Donna Jackson Nakazawa

I'd love to de-stigmatize the word disease and to provide an emotionally safe environment for my clients to share their journey, which can often be isolating. The more we connect and empathize with each other, the better we feel. This philosophy has been the foundation of my professional practice for 18 years. It's the walk I am committed to. 

But talking about your disease with friends and loved ones can be hard. I, myself, needed to cocoon for a while. To get used to the idea of living with something that will never go away. Like with any major transition in life, I needed time to adjust to my new reality without the pressure of a million reactions and well-meaning opinions. I have a lot on my plate, and it's my right to take care of myself in the way I need... apart from the needs and demands of others. 

"We are human. Of the nature to grow older, to get sick, and eventually, to die." My therapist Nancy shared those words with me, and they are actually quite soothing.

While I don't want to think about aging, illness or death, it's been a relief to face such a giant a fear and retrain myself to believe nothing terrible is happening. My goal now is to learn how to adapt to these new circumstances, and override any hope of being the exception. Being part of the pack, embracing life as a moment to moment gig, feeling my feelings. That's the approach that feels most sane to me. 

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