No, I’m Not Dying

So regular followers know that periodically I have to go dark for days/weeks and stay offline, usually to protect my mental health (and if I don’t say this ahead of time, I get panicked phone calls…I’ve had to learn I can’t just disappear, and I will probably never get used to people worrying about me). This was intended not so much to protect me, but protect you (the collective you). You know the scene in Exhumed where Zara’s hovering on the knife’s edge of grief and rage, and she attacks the pizza boy, and then lies in the guest room in the dark? And Nic comes to see what’s wrong and Zara merely has to warn that she’s not safe to be around, and Nic goes on her way?

Zara gets that from me. Even on a good day, I have to work very hard to keep all my sharp edges nicely tucked away. It just takes a nudge in the wrong direction and I am not safe. Unless you’re Dina James, because she is like a brick wall and immune to my destructive forces.

You will also note that I tend to get very quiet when I’m sick; last year when I was often bedridden, I stayed offline because I am just not going to be one of those people who whines constantly and makes every update about how ill she is (because believe me, that was pretty much all I talked about to people IRL then).

So I typed up a quick post on my phone so I didn’t have to field phone calls of panic after I’d been absent a while. Still, I inadvertently worried everyone.

In a nutshell, although I’m in remission, there are still a few rather significant problems with my health. Being seriously ill for so long might’ve had several consequences. It is also possible that my immune system has been attacking more than we initially thought.

That vagueness is about as detailed as I’m going to get. I actually don’t enjoy discussing details of my health on the internet (a. it gives stalkers ammo, and b. increases the likelihood of receiving unsolicited advice about toxins and cures from Dr. I Googled It, which is one of the reasons I’ve never named my primary autoimmune disease publicly).  But I’m dealing with a lot of doctors, a lot of tests, and a lot of bad news, and most of the time I am shaking with grief and rage and doing this a lot:

I am working. At least as often as I can, when I’m not running here and there to get poked and prodded and the like. I do not have the spoons for much else; I can’t really do idle chatter and I am not very good at being patient or nice or any of those things. I can keep my own head above water at the moment but that’s about it. I am staying off of social media for the most part; it’s not good for my stress level. Send me an email if you need to–your kind words are appreciated, I am just not always able to answer. (I am still out rescuing strays, though, so there’s that.)

I hope one day this will just be a brief blip in a future blog post about Lessons in Being Sick with Skyla that is helpful for people and I will have great news, but I am terribly pessimistic at the moment.

I miss the days when all I worried about was being crazy.

BTW, Amends has also started, so patrons can check that out (or newbies can join Patreon to play along). That’s about my only writing commitment at the moment.