As a kid, I always had a pretty good hold on life. Despite my father being deployed during my formative years, I played sports, made good grades, and had great friends.
Outside of the occasional vomiting of bile, fainting and blacking out, I was generally happy.
But in college, my health started slipping and being more and more unreliable. I was irritable because I was always tired compared to my peers.
I ended up in the hospital no less than seven times due to chronic swollen lymph nodes, flu-like symptoms and fainting.
My college boyfriend was so confused as to why I needed three-hour mid-day naps, or why the hospital visits would result in “I don’t know why you’re acting this way…” from clueless doctors (because apparently you can “act” swollen lymph nodes). He suggested I might be depressed even though generally I was happy… but sometimes being tired and irritable are signs of the mental condition.
By the time I got to DC and started my professional life, I got into a long-term relationship with someone who also had what we considered to be minor health problems. I was still fainting on the way to work, my health problem progressed into horrible stomach problems and pain and neuropathy on my arms.
At 23 years old, my head was always hurting, I was falling asleep at work, and my stomach couldn’t digest average food.
By the time we were 25, my then boyfriend was diagnosed with Lyme disease for what we thought was post-concussion syndrome. I was his at-home nurse to care for the IV antibiotics.
Within a year, I was diagnosed with the same. My Western Blot blood test was unequivocally positive and the years of vomiting bile, fainting, joint pain, and overwhelming fatigue finally had a name to it.
As a lot of relationships do, ours ended as a result of my Lyme disease diagnosis.
At the end of treatment, I was 5’3, 89 lbs and in no condition to think about dating. But after a year of recovery, at the age of 28, I thought it was time to get back in the game. Little did I know, dating people who weren’t also chronically ill would be a bigger challenge than I thought.
The first person I dated LOVED to party.
Of course he did, he was a 20-something male. But I couldn’t keep up. I didn’t judge his drinking habits, but I found that I was “turned” off by it because I was always sober given the effects alcohol had on my health. Seeing a guy drunk every weekend takes it’s toll and I eventually called it quits because his just wasn’t a lifestyle to which I was willing to adjust.
But the second guy also loved to party.
And also the third.
And I just was exhausted from pretending to be cool with partying being a priority because frankly, my health is my priority.
And the two priorities are inevitably competing. After months of this, I started thinking: All guys my age are the same, and I should probably just not date until I’m in my 30s, when they’re less likely to be addicted to the bar scene.
Then, I met someone new… at a bar. Through mutual friends.
A 20-something man who works out the same amount I do (about an hour a day), likes the outdoors, and just isn’t interested in partying the last year of his twenties away. He’s not sick, he’s just into eating and living healthy. He doesn’t lift weights or try to change his physical appearance to look a certain way… he’s just interested in feeling good and energized for his demanding job and for his hobbies.
I didn’t think it was possible, but I met someone who had my diet and lifestyle who wasn’t also chronically ill!
While this is a huge step, we still have to have conversations regarding my health, why I am tired, and if I am having a flare. But he’s as understanding as a healthy person can be, and that’s all I can really ask for.
And while it’s still new, this experience has instilled hope in me that there are non-chronically ill people out there, who can take on the lifestyle that us spoonies have to take on, in order to keep our symptoms in check.
