I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…..

There’s a Thomas the tank engine book, in which, the story goes, there’s a small engine (possibly the Thomas himself, I’m not sure) trying to pull several long carriages up hill. At first he looks at the bill with trepidation and disbelief, frowning that he cant possibly conquer what, to him, looks like a never ending mountain. He shouts in protest ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it’, over and over. The book then uses the word fat. I prefer the words jolly or cheerfully chubby. Controller comes along and comforts his upset little friend saying ‘use the words to yourself: I think I can, I think I can‘. The already red-faced and tired little engine, with all his strength, powers up the hill. He chuffed loudly, groaned, but pulled his heavy load up the steep path to the very top, all the while using his new mantra: ‘I think I can, I think I can, I think I can‘… And of course does!

I hate Thomas the blooming tank engine!!! Why? Because 1) I once got a beating for touching my elder brother’s train set. I was lying on the floor where he left it, having a rare old game of plastic cowboys running after a speeding wind up train, shouting yee har!!!!!!!!! as their open mouthed steeds galloped beside the black engine. It was the best game ever, until I felt the lash of the tomato cane across the backs of my bare legs as I lay on my tummy playing happily, and 2) I lived for many years with someone obsessed by them. Drove me to nearly pulling my hair out! That said, I remember the story of Thomas and his heavy load well. (Whyyyyy? Because it’s how I feel right now.)

I’m on month five of recovery from Corona virus, or Corvid 19, depending what you wish to call it, ( I want to call it every bloody name I can think of, and some, I’m sure, I can come up with later). The actual first few weeks were mild: high temp ( which I think I told you in my other post was, to me, a blessing. I actually felt warm in this icy bedroom of mine for two whole weeks. LOL), hot uncomfortable throat though not painful, headaches that lasted for days and nights but, again, doable, shivers ( well hell I’d been doing those for months)… all in all I didn’t feel too bad in all honesty. But then, after a fairly okay week in which I thought I had recovered, it hit me like a truck going 100 mile an hour… I didn’t see that coming!

My already auto-immune-deficient body just struggled to cope. All I had strength for was to lay upon my bed… that and heave myself up and down the stairs to the bathroom. Nothing interested me. I hurt in every joint, every muscle. Breathing from time to time became wheezy and hard going. The ability to breathe is highly recommended, so I stuck at it. My head no longer just ached, but now pulsed with pain behind each eye. And don’t ask what delights befell upon my already troubled stomach, but it involved racing this pained carcass up and down the stairs many times daily to try and make it to the bathroom in time before it… (No. Don’t askkkk!) well, you know, without the goary details. With all this goes nausea, acid reflux, sounds emitted from one end or another, constant cramps, total lack of appetite, malaise, dehydration, hair loss, vision issues and just feeling like I wanted to lay and let the world happen about me.

Believe me, I know pain. It’s a dear old friend of mine from a very young age, and I can do it well, without much ado, fuss or bother and have. But it’s not the pain that hurts, like as a child when I tried desperately to get mum or dad to believe I hurt somewhere, for them only to shrug ohhhh it’s nothing!, it’s just growing pain. Go away. Don’t be a bother. But it was very real to me. It was not only real, it was every joint in my body dislocated and left it’s socket. I had sickening migraines from babyhood, stomach issues, bladder issues, chest pain and this is just some of it. I grit my teeth hard as I’m doing right now and got on with it, (I was being a trooper as they say) no one believing me until I was in my late thirties when I had an issue. A random physio looked at my oddly shaped joints and announced ‘ohhhh you have HMS!‘ (Well hallelujah and pass the collection plate!) I could have and did later go home and cry. Here I was, someone finally believing me about my pain. There was an answer to a million questions my body was attacking itself. And now I knew what deep down I had known all along: I wasn’t lazy, I wasn’t workshy… far from it. I was doing my very best while in extreme pain! It has a name, my foe, my invisible enemy, but although I knew my enemy’s name now and knew of it’s existence, to the outside world, I looked healthy, looked ‘normal‘. I was just funny Treez… lazy, a bit lacking in brain function, but on the whole, okay. Hmmm. My own mother just raised her shoulders and said ‘that’s nothing‘.

It’s just a nothing that affects every cell in your body, your heart, your liver, kidneys, bowels, bladder. Your body works against you. I’ve had illness so long now I can’t remember ever feeling healthy. LOL Add to this anxiety, depression, and mental health… it’s wonderful, a perfect storm. ( I jest here folks with my black humour.) I always jest. It’s how I get through. But, because I do, don’t think I’m not feeling that usual daily pain of HMS life. Then add on nobody but nobody believing the agony you go through because, hey! you look well so you must be…..right?

Hell no! I’m going through torment inside daily, and what makes it worse is I was raised to maintain a lie. My mother would mock my pain. I think she thought if she didn’t believe her child, of course it wasn’t happening… it didn’t exist!!!!!!! I was just clumsy. I fell over a lot. The headaches were made up, the pain in my joints as I said were just growing pain,s, that ache in my chest likewise. But it wasn’t the pain that hurt though, folks, it’s not being believed, it’s teachers making my painful body run in PE, laughing at my odd gait and pointing. As I said, I can do pain; I’ve known nothing else. But when I give you all I have and I’m shutting down mentally from exhaustion,… still no one believes the pain I’m in. I want to scream, if only I could raise the energy. I want to shake you and say ‘I can’t do this right now, I’m tired let me just be, please! I beg you let me damn well lay here and get my breath!’ I’m fighting so much right now. Why all this you ask? Because the long term side effects of having Corona/Corvid isn’t believed either. It’s a silent illness that invades and is destructive… what’s worse, I hate myself for not being able to move that day. I feel all you can lay your minds to call me and worse, I feel a bloody burden, a burden on society, my loved ones, those I try to protect from how I feel deep inside with a mask. When they ask, I lie. I lie because I don’t want to bore or upset them by a constant dialogue of illness. I don’t want to worry them, I just want to portray that jolly old Treez whose doing okay… the Treez that’s a laugh.

This week alone I had to go about life as if I was okay and for a few days I lied like a bloody politician. Hell, you would vote for me! But then I paid fully. I pushed my body to do just what, to you, is trivial… a nonsense thing… but to me it was Herculean. Today I woke after a restless night, my body aching, breathless, head ready to explode and I’m tired… I’m tired before the day’s begun. I wash, sat on the bath with cool water, gingerly brushing my teeth, trying to avoid the mouth full of ulcers. I dread the day ahead, the long uncomfortable day of not being believed once more, as I spray my welt-and-rash-covered body. The phrase I started with goes through my head as I slip on my big baggy shirt: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can… right???????