Saturday, November 9, 2013

Post #114: In the business

Welcome to my office. 
Yesterday some good friends who live out of town came to visit. Sometimes, with old friends, I'll get portals into what my life was like pre-AAC-little windows into who I was and how I was before my life was overtaken by Crohn's. That last part sounds melodramatic, and it is, but it's also pretty accurate. 

My friends let themselves into my house and kicked off their shoes, raiding the fridge before grabbing my blanket and making themselves comfortable next to me on the couch. My cupboards are a showcase of beige gluten free simulations of real food, but I managed to find some ancient girl scout cookies in the freezer, which seemed to suffice and prevented me from feeling like a total failure in the hostess department. 

As we sat around and caught up, a weight fell from my shoulders, and for one brief moment I got a glimpse into what I had before, and what I'm missing now. Easy camaraderie with people who knew me before my AAC came out in full force, and know that I'm not really "like this." People who knew me from a time when I was more social and adventurous and funnier and happier. I was never much of a risk taker, never the life of the party-but I was not what I am now. I feel like I need to be reminded of that, by seeing that old version of myself reflected in the memories of some of the people I know best. It's a kind of gift, to have that easy report, with people who know that I am more than my symptoms and disease and don't treat me differently than they did a decade ago. 

I was catching them up on my latest weird medical testing, and one of my friends, who works in a doctor's office, started discussing a bunch of diagnostic procedures. She was unsure of the difference between two procedures (that I've had), and as I was explaining the differences she laughed and said, "I knew you'd know! You are in the business, after all."

That one little comment, offered without malice or judgement, jolted me out of the portal and yanked me back to reality. 

I realized that my AAC, my illness, was now an established part of our shared timeline. It was, in their minds, what I do now. It was my business, my specialty, my vocation. And they're right. 

I'm in the business because I spend so much time around doctors and nurses, and undergo lots of testing, and allow so much of my daily thought process be devoted to thinking about (ok, obsessing over) my disease. I used to have a different business, a teaching job, but not anymore. I'm in the business because I try to be an educated patient and make the best health decisions for myself, even though I feel like I fail a lot of the time, on both fronts. 

I'm in the business because I don't have a choice. 

My friends still love me, and accept me, new business and all. Still, I don't want this to be my job. 

I'm coming up to my two year diagnosis date, and this whole time, through all of the testing and treatments and medications and special diets and new plans and failed plans, I've been waiting to feel better. I've started to, a dozen times, but it never seems to stick. So I've stopped making plans or trying to structure my life in any way that involves responsibility, because the only thing worse then letting other people down is hating yourself for it. 

But sometimes, it hits you in the face, how other people see you. You see through the portal-how you were-and you miss parts of your old life. You see your present, and there's a lot you'd like to change. And since you can't see the future, you put a smile back on your face and eat a girl scout cookie (mistake!) and reminisce, hoping hoping hoping that at some point your AAC stops being your only business.