But you don't look sick...

“Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. The day after, we fight. And if this disease plans on whipping us, it better bring a lunch, 'cause it's gonna have a long day doing it.”
- Jim Beaver

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks now. I have two very good excuses for this....the first week I was visiting with my family in Scotland and the second week I spent in recovery.

I put up a ridiculously good fight against my lupus when I was back home with my parents. Don't get me wrong, I was no poster girl for health and fitness. My family and my closest friends know and understand what I am going through and I don't have to hide my illness from them. Nevertheless, I do put pressure on myself to push through my lupus when I am with them.

In my own experience, people will sometimes pass comment on how well I look or remark upon how nice my skin is. These comments are either made with the best of intentions or because the person doesn't want to deal with the fact that I am unwell. In these situations I usually just nod and smile and say, "Yes, today is a good day". Social convention dictates that I don't announce that inside I am a screaming fireball of pain and that my skin only looks good because the steroids give me a puffy hamster face which irons out my wrinkles.

Sometimes people will take a different approach, telling me that their sister's neighbour's best friend's chiropodist cured their lupus in two weeks by doing a particular thing. These 'cures' usually involve some form of meditation or yoga: following a highly restrictive diet: taking a prohibitively expensive herbal supplement; or sticking my head in a bucket of honey and dead frogs whilst hopping on one leg during a full moon. I would love to point out that if there was an actual cure for lupus, my doctors would probably have told me about it by now. But I don't....because it's simpler to nod and smile and say I'll google it later.

Getting back to my week with my family, I genuinely had a lovely time. However, by the end of the week I was a completely exhausted shell. I had nothing left in the tank. When I got home I went to bed for two days and I have to admit that for the past week Lupus has had me beat. You won lupus!
I have found that down-playing how I am feeling and pushing through the pain and fatigue makes it easier for other people to cope with my illness. I am not alone in this strategy; other Autoimmune Warriors frequently write about hiding their symptoms because it makes it easier to cope with social interactions.

But tomorrow is Monday and the start of a new week.....