Secrets of the Chronically Ill

I haven't really posted on Facebook in over a month.

What do I say?

I'm not calling family or friends. I ignore their calls, letting them go to voice mail.

What do I say?

I haven't figured out how to pretend that my life hasn't been consumed by a medical Chinese fire drill. I'm too upset to hide it well.

Everyone knows the basics,what started this mess. The Facebook crowd knows about the asthma ER visit. I can't say anything more. Some of my Facebook relationships are more superficial, more professional, and I can't taint the network with too much information, you know?

My family knows about the lung nodule and the thyroid stuff, but I've stopped talking about anything else. The look on my Father's face earlier this week; pity, anguish, fear for his child, stops me cold whenever I go to open my mouth.

So I'm silent. Avoiding his calls. Thankful my Mother is in another country with horrid phone lines.

I don't want pity. Some empathy would be nice, but I don't want pity. I don't want to think my parents are afraid of what will happen to me. My own fear is enough, thank you.

I am not good at secrets. So instead I disappear.

Going through infertility, I lost one very good friend due to collapsing into myself. A loss I regret to this day. I apologized, but she wasn't interested any more. That's okay, I don't necessarily deserve to be forgiven, but I hope she knows it wasn't her, it was me. I hope she knows I still love her. I just didn't know how to nurture our friendship and keep myself together at the same time.

Now the struggle is to not repeat that experience. To find the 'zone' in my head where I'm just 'me' and not the Pissed Off Patient.

Only you, lurking internet readers who rarely comment, only you know everything.

You're the only ones it's safe to tell.