Chronic Illness Is a Life Sentence

There is no gentle beginning to my days...

Sometimes the medication comes before I even open my eyes.

Sometimes it comes in the middle of the night, when pain drags me out of sleep and I take more just to make it through the dark hours...

Sleep is never whole.

It is broken and shallow...

Interrupted by pain, bathroom trips, and trips to the freezer.

Ice caps for my head. Ice packs for my back.

Over and over again.

Get up.

Pee.

Replace the ice.

Go back to bed.

Repeat.

When morning finally comes... my body feels locked, stiff, and inflamed, like it has been hit by a truck overnight.

The massage gun comes first, still in bed, to release a neck that feels fused in place and to loosen a spine that will not allow me to get up quite yet.

I do not get out of bed and start my day.

No. That is the luxury of normal people.

I start on the floor.

Stretching, not for flexibility...but to pry movement out of joints that have stiffened overnight. Pulling on muscles that feel shortened and inflamed, trying to convince them to lengthen enough to move.

Foam rolling, pressing my body weight into hard pressure points, slowly cracking through tension along my spine and hips. It hurts. It always hurts. But it is the only way to break through the rigidity and get my body to respond.

Neck cloud, placing my neck into the ninety degree angle it is supposed to hold. Forcing space where there is collapse. My cervical spine curves in a C when it should be an S, and no amount of chiropractic adjustments has ever reversed that. This is maintenance, not repair.

Slowly trying to unlock a body that does not want to move.

My pelvis is rotated... My body compensates constantly.

One side works harder.

One side bears more load.

Everything pulls unevenly.

I am not easing into the morning.

I am manually realigning a body that wakes up misfiring.

Only after all of this can I stand.

And even then, standing is not comfort.

It is simply the next level of tolerable.

The first one to two hours of my day are pain management, just trying to reach a point where standing upright is possible.

Then comes the shower...Long...Hot...Letting the water run over my body until the pain dulls just enough.

Rinsing off with cold water at the end to shock my nervous system into... some kind of reset.

After that, I move into survival mode.

Skin care. Bathing myself in CBD cream and Biofreeze like it is moisturizer....If I could bathe in that stuff I would...

If I could fill a bathtub with it and sit there until the pain softened, I would.

I coat skin that already hurts, trying to quiet nerves that will not settle.

Then it is shock o’clock!!!

(Which means my TENS unit goes on)

The electrodes attach directly to my back and spine, sending electrical pulses straight into my muscles.

It is not gentle.

It is not soothing.

It is shocking my body on purpose.

My spine.

My nerves.

My muscles.

Over and over again.

Enough that if you touched one of the pads while it was on, you would get shocked too.

I know this because it has happened... to airport security when someone tried to grab the pads before I could turn it off, they jumped back from the jolt clutching their hand.

That is how strong the pulses have to be to cut through the pain.

The electricity buzzes through my body all day so I can move at all.

I need every single one of these tools to survive.

I cling to them the way a body clings to oxygen when it is deprived of air.

They are not optional.

They are not comfort.

They are survival.

Only after all of that do I try to accomplish something. Anything. Just so I do not feel like my entire existence is reduced to managing pain.

Sometimes I find myself wondering when all of this will end. Wishing it could. Knowing it will not.

I do not remember the last day I woke up without pain.

I do not remember a day where my body did not require immediate intervention just to function...

People understand terminal illness as a death sentence.

They take it seriously.

What they do not talk about...what they do not understand...what they do not take seriously is

that chronic illness is a life sentence.

There is no ending.

No cure.

No finish line.

Just waking up every day and doing it all again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

It is grief layered on top of pain.

Chronic illness does not come with an ending.

This is not a battle you win.

This is a sentence you live inside.

Even through the pain... through the hopeless moments...My brain still reaches for small chemical relief.

Tiny bursts of serotonin and dopamine.

Moments where my nervous system gets a brief signal that I am safe.

That I can unclench.

That I can keep going.

The small things...

•A really good iced coffee.

•A show that holds my attention long enough to quiet the noise.

•Cuddles that slow my heart rate and bring my body out of constant alert.

•Sweet treats like Ice cream.

•A care package from my mom.

•A massage where, for a short window, the pain fades into the background and my muscles finally let go.

These moments are not about happiness.

They are about regulation.

About giving a body and mind stuck in fight-or-flight a few minutes of calm chemistry.

That's all I want.

Enough relief to reset the system just slightly.

Enough quiet in my nervous system to survive the next hour.

This is not indulgence.

This is how I keep my body from collapsing

under the weight of constant pain.

“My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word.”

Psalm 119:28

Kristen, Unfiltered Xo 💋