When Healing Knocks The Wind Out Of Your Sails

My pit crew - Icoone, IV fluids, and my maintenance team

When Healing Knocks the Wind Out of Your Sails

There is a particularly cruel little trick that happens during healing.

You string together a few really good days.

You wake up feeling almost normal. Your energy is coming back. Your brain is working. Your body is cooperating. You start doing more without thinking about every single thing you're doing.

And somewhere in the back of your mind, you start to wonder:

Is this it? Am I finally back?

Then you wake up one morning and your body says:

Nope. Not today.

Yesterday was one of those days for me.

And if you've lived with chronic illness, dysautonomia, nervous-system dysregulation, or one of those complicated illnesses that doesn't fit neatly into a conventional medical box, you know exactly what I mean.

When There Isn't an Obvious Reason

Sometimes you can point to the thing that knocked you down.

Maybe you stayed up past 9 p.m.

Maybe you skipped your magnesium bath, red light, deep breathing, or whatever nighttime ritual your body has come to depend upon.

Maybe you traveled.

Maybe you exercised harder than usual.

And sometimes?

There isn't an explanation that makes any sense at all—at least not to the "normies."

Yesterday morning, Gio flung his arm across the bed to see if I was still there.

He does this all the time.

Usually I'm already up and in HBOT, so apparently finding me there startled both of our nervous systems. 😂

I woke up instantly in fight-or-flight.

Panic.

Adrenaline.

That awful feeling that something is wrong even though absolutely nothing is wrong.

I figured it would pass.

So I did what I do.

HBOT.

Morning manifestations.

Primal Trust.

Cold plunge.

Sauna.

Then I started my day.

Except the feeling didn't go away.

It got worse.

Like Walking Through Concrete

As the morning went on, I felt like I was trudging through deep, wet concrete.

Every movement took effort.

My legs felt heavy.

My energy disappeared.

My nervous system was unhappy.

And there was no obvious culprit.

The funny thing is that Tuesday afternoon, driving back to the clinic after a session with my demon—also known as my trainer, Doug 😂—I remember thinking:

Gosh, I feel incredible. I've really done a ton lately. I hope this holds.

Well...

Maybe don't say that out loud. 😂

Did simply thinking about a possible crash somehow prime my nervous system?

Was it the long weekend in Minneapolis?

The functional-neurology work?

Having my otoliths put back where they belonged?

Travel?

Training?

Accumulated exertion?

Or was yesterday simply one of those days?

Sometimes, despite everything we know and everything we do, we don't get an answer.

And I think learning to tolerate that uncertainty is part of healing too.

Then My Pit Crew Showed Up

There is one enormous blessing in all of this:

I work with two of my best friends.

And they know me well enough that they don't need me to announce that I'm struggling.

They can feel it.

As soon as they realized I wasn't myself, it was all hands on deck.

Rhonda got me on Icoone.

Hubs got an IV going.

We canceled our team meeting.

I rested.

We added the things my body needed—including a small amount of Cortef under my medical plan—and suddenly I felt a little like a pristine race car that had been pulled into the pit.

Tires off.

Hood up.

Everybody working.

Get this girl serviced because we have somewhere to be. 😂

And we DID have somewhere to be.

After my final three patients, we were heading to Milwaukee because two of my favorite teammates, Aaron and Rhonda, needed their Global Entry interviews.

Because if we're going to keep taking international adventures together, nobody has time for those giant customs lines. 😂

A few hours earlier, I wasn't sure I could lift my legs.

But after some TLC from my TLC family, I was back in the race.

And We Had an Incredible Night

We made it to Milwaukee.

We had dinner at Carnivor and got to see my old friend Sparky, whom I knew from years of dining with him at Republic.

We met his wonderful new team, including our fantastic server Erik.

We laughed.

We ate.

We enjoyed each other.

Then we headed to the airport and got those Global Entry interviews done.

It turned into an incredible night with our little team.

And I kept thinking:

This night would not have happened if the people around me hadn't stopped what they were doing at lunchtime and helped put me back together.

That may actually be the biggest lesson from yesterday.

Healing Was Never Meant to Be a Solo Sport

Chronic illness can be unbelievably lonely.

You can be surrounded by people and still feel like no one understands what it's like to negotiate with your own body all day long.

Can I do this?

Will this make me crash?

Should I rest?

Am I resting too much?

Should I push?

Did I push too hard?

Why was I able to do this yesterday but can't do it today?

Am I ever going to be normal again?

Those questions can consume you.

And when you've been sick for a long time, independence can become almost sacred.

You desperately want to prove:

I can do this myself.

But sometimes healing means letting somebody else help carry you.

Yesterday, I needed my people.

And they showed up.

Even When You Can See the Light

I am nearing the end of an extremely long healing journey.

Sometimes I feel like I'm practically being blinded by the light at the end of the tunnel.

I can do things today that would have been unimaginable at other points in this journey.

And yet every once in a while my body taps me on the shoulder and says:

We're not quite finished yet.

That can be frustrating.

It can be heartbreaking.

Because once you've tasted "normal" again, you want ALL of it.

You don't want another lesson in patience.

You don't want another reminder to pace yourself.

You don't want another day on the bottom of the hill staring back toward the top.

You just want to be done.

But a bad day doesn't erase the healing that came before it.

One crash does not put you back at the beginning.

Read that again.

You are not starting over.

Your body may simply be asking for support.

So give it the things you've learned help you rebuild.

Rest.

Hydrate.

Breathe.

Support your nervous system.

Feed your mitochondria.

Move when movement feels appropriate.

Be still when stillness is what your body needs.

And perhaps most importantly:

Let your people love you.

Let them be your pit crew when you can't keep the car on the track by yourself.

Yesterday reminded me how extraordinarily grateful I am for mine.

Because I couldn't keep showing up every day for all of the hurting warriors who walk through the doors of TLC if there weren't people willing to show up for me too.

So if today happens to be one of those days for you—the kind where yesterday you thought you were almost healed and today you're wondering whether this is ever going to end—remember:

You didn't lose all your progress overnight.

You are still healing.

You are still moving forward.

Sometimes forward just happens to look like lying down for a while, letting your pit crew work on you, and waiting for the green flag again. ❤️

And when it comes?

Get back in the race.