Here’s what I want to memorialize today: My head is heavy and cloudy, but I don’t have a headache. My neck is stiff, but not sore. My muscles are weak, but they don’t hurt. My throat – this throat that has felt as if I have strep every day for a year, maybe two – is not sore and has not bothered me in a while. My mood is miraculously light. I may grimace, I may be grumpy and curse this wretched illness, but I haven’t felt sad or despairing in a long time. My period this month came as a quiet, rolly-polly visitor. It shifted and moved around some, as if trying to get comfortable, but didn’t bother me too much.

I worked on the computer today for a few hours, gathering info on doctors, clinics and tests, readying myself for the eventual disability application. I then stood in the kitchen for a while, washing and chopping vegetables and preparing some food. I was dizzy and slurry and weak, but, after lying down to meditate for a while, I was able to go the cemetery on my mobility scooter with the dogs and hubby.

Don’t get me wrong, my vision is still blurry, tinnitus is deafening, hair is falling out, voice is weak, energy is preternaturally low, and nighttimes are torturous battles with my ever-present sleep spectre… But. I’m getting stronger.

I waited a week to post this to see if I jinxed myself and the chronic illness gods would strike me down… I have taken a downturn in the last few days, but I still feel like a different person than I was over Christmas, so I’m posting it. Publicly proclaiming to all and sundry: there might, after all, be life after lifelessness. Universe, please don’t let this slip away.