For the last month or so my life has been extremely bizarre. A trivial infection got into my blood and almost killed me. The Drs saved my life using evidence based medicine. Blood tests showed the infection and it felt real. It definitively happened.
However the lasting impact has been considerable and it’s not definitive yet. It’s all based on what I feel and can do. My legs are weak and I am relearning how to walk. I’m almost unable to hold myself up and sit without support.
These things are life changing. My home has become a huge barrier and I am experiencing a massive shift in what is accessible to me.
However, it doesn’t feel real. It feels like I am pretending. Part of my brain believes if I really wanted too and tried hard enough I could just ‘get on with it’. In short it feels like I am faking it or being dramatic.
It’s a horrible feeling and it’s hard because the emotional feeling is at complete opposite odds with the logical thoughts. I know this is driven by past medical trauma.
I keep hurting myself because I refuse to believe I am injured so I intentionally attempt to walk. It almost always ends in a fall, collapse or injuring myself on a door handle or other object.
I would definitely prefer to believe that I am just a massive fraud. Emotionally I would rather believe that I am faking it and then go get therapy to understand why, rather than truly accept what it happening.
I am working to try and process these emotions. I have support from a fantastic counsellor and I understand that denial is part of grief. There are probably more medical interventions and explorations coming up so we may get an answer to what’s happened. If we don’t perhaps we get a clue and some hard evidence for what’s happening to me.
Until then I need to try and focus on the logic. I embrace the engineering and problem solving. We’re treating the thoughts where I feel like a fake as intrusive thoughts but I wanted to write about them because they are a significant part of the experience.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. We’re about to start another round of medical testing. I am fearing for the future but I am refusing to be scared.
The changes will eventually stop and I will engineer something awesome with whatever body I have at the end of the process.
