'Some days I’d be paralyzed with pain, and then it would mysteriously disappear for months at a time.'
A week before my wedding, I was in the ER with a doctor standing over me, flipping my eyelid back. As he looked for the cause of searing pain in my eye and a vampire-like sensitivity to light, I was trying to convince him not to prescribe me eye drops, which would preclude me from wearing mascara on my wedding day. Before he sent me off with some drops, he cautioned that if this eye inflammation came back, it could be the symptom of something more serious. As it turns out, it was.
Prior to my eye incident, I had chalked up my chronic back pain and exhaustion to having overdone it at the gym, sitting at a desk all day, wearing stilettos for too long. But something was wrong. Every possible yoga class and appointment—massage, physiotherapy or chiropractic—would give me a few hours of reprieve, but then such stiffness and deep pain would set in that I couldn’t stretch, rub or vinyasa my way out of.
Like many people living with an autoimmune condition, I look healthy—so much so that up until writing this story, I never really told anyone that I had a problem. Some autoimmune diseases make their mark on the body immediately; others silently progress. Mine is still invisible, though very much at play in my body. I have never asked someone to give up their seat for me on the streetcar, for example. I’ve dragged myself to the office, even if I’ve barely slept a wink.
Coming to terms with how my body really felt came to a head when I took off with a good friend for a weekend in New York. Every few hours of walking required a half hour of stretching. A day spent doing what we’d normally do completely levelled me. By dinner, I struggled to carry on a conversation. I found myself apologizing—my friend likely didn’t recognize her travel mate. I felt frustrated and defeated.
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