In the Recovery Zone, and How to Avoid Despair with Illness (and Writing)

In the Recovery Zone

Happy fall! To the left is a shot from a local winery of a rose growing in a most unlikely way through an evergreen shrub. I thought it was a good metaphor for something – stubbornness and beauty in unusual places?

So, now I’ve been home a few days from the hospital, still taking large doses of medication, and just in the last day or so have restarted solid food. I am still in a gentle phase called “recovery” in which I must rest more than I like, not overdo, and try to ramp back up and get back into helpful routines. This morning to help regain my equilibrium I sang, opened the blackout shades and curtains to watch the sunrise, read Psalm 73 (a good one if you’ve been recently in misfortune) and tried to meditate a little and see if I could learn anything from the last terrible month.

How to Avoid Despair with Illness (and Writing)

One day home from the hospital, even though I was still on a clear-liquid diet and my legs awfully shaky, I wanted to go visit a local garden (the pic at left is at Willows Lodge gardens) and spend some time outside. I’d been inside –  not just in the hospital, but being so sick for a month I basically wasn’t leaving the bed except to be violently ill and go back and forth to docs and ERs – for almost a month, so it was important to me to feel the late September sunlight, to see growing things, to breathe around some flowers, so give my eyes some beauty and my lungs some fresh air. For a month I saw specialists, ER docs, and others who told me I was a mystery, they didn’t know how to help me, and they really couldn’t. I continued to get sicker and sicker until I was admitted to the hospital and given a shotgun approach – everything from heavy duty steroids to nutrient IVs to mega-doses of anti-nausea drugs – and something finally triggered my body to start to recover. Last year around this time I was also in the hospital for similar symptoms, and they diagnosed me with MS. This year they did tons of tests, and now they know I have MS, but not why I have the symptoms I do or how to control them. This is very frightening, of course. But I didn’t give up, and I didn’t let the doctors give up. A lot of them shrugged their shoulders at me over the past month – infuriating when you’re looking for help – but eventually I actually got help. So one lesson: Do not give up and do not stop asking for help. Second lesson: Remind yourself (and your body) of the good things in life, the beauty, the reasons you want to keep being alive.

Most of my family lives out of state, so Glenn was really my only support system during this really horrible month. Fortunately he is a wonderful caretaker. And I want to not just be his caretaking burden, but I want to still be in a relationship too, you know, make sure he’s okay, he’s getting to have some rest and some fun. If you have people who are taking care of you, try to take care of them too. So we had a little mini-date, to go see some local glass artist (Tacoma Glassblowing Studios traveling NW Glass Pumpkin Patch) and Glenn got to sample local food vendors and a band played and we felt almost normal again. Then I had to come home, drink broth and sleep. So, not totally normal. But close.  A reasonable facsimile thereof.

How Not to Despair in Your Writing Life

This was reminding me of the writing life too. The writing life can feel like these awful stretches of rejection, of non-recognition, of not getting the grants or jobs you feel you’ve got a shot at. Why are you even writing when it feels like no one cares or pays attention? The same frustration you can feel in the doctor’s office in a sea of shrugs. Why do we do this? Why do we bother? But then an editor will call with an acceptance and some perceptive advice or you’ll get someone, somewhere who cares and shows it and it will make your month. It can feel like a terrible slog, most of the time, reading and writing and practicing in a vacuum. I think a lot of women writers, especially, tend to over-give and over-volunteer and forget to take time for themselves (I managed to get myself in some trouble this month because while I was in the hospital, I had an editing project and a contest I’d promised to judge – and I was absolutely out of my mind – intractable brain problems tend to do this – and not able to do jack. Sometimes that happens. We have to forgive ourselves and also, maybe don’t commit to too many projects in the first place.) There was a conversation today on Twitter about how many male “geniuses” are only where they are because of the support of the women around them – unpaid editors, caretakers, supporters. Treat yourself like your time is limited. Because, not to be too grave here, but it is.

So I have to think of some of the same “survival” skills that apply to recovering from illness and apply them to the writing life. Say you haven’t been writing, you haven’t been feeling like you’re doing enough to promote your work, you don’t feel like you have a support network for your writing, etc. Be kind to yourself – relax and give yourself downtime. Be kind to your support system. Subscribe to journals that support you. Write a thank-you note. Read a book just for fun, not for self-improvement or critique, but fun. And if a bunch of editors are virtually shrugging their shoulders at your work, just like with doctors, keep going until you find the editor that gets you. Remind yourself why you are writing in the first place, spend time with what is beautiful, and try to give yourself some joy.