This month is a 10th anniversary for me.

An anniversary that isn’t cause for celebration.

But is cause for acknowledgement and reflection.

10 years ago this month, I woke up on a Sunday morning and couldn’t stand. For a few days, my left calf had felt sore and tight – the leftover feeling you get after a muscle cramp.

But on this particular Sunday morning, my calf wasn’t just sore and tight. It was red. Elmo-red. And swollen. And I couldn’t stand up. 

I knew something was wrong when the emergency room nurse admitted me as quickly as she did.

My prior emergency room experience was more than five years earlier when I cut the palm of my left hand while trying to cut open an avocado. I remember sitting in the waiting area that evening, my arm raised, my hand wrapped in dishtowels waiting to see a doctor. Waiting for stitches. 

This time I was immediately admitted.

I knew that wasn’t a good sign.

But never could I have imagined that my left calf’s “issues” weren’t a temporary problem. Never could I have imagined that Sunday in July was just the beginning. 

And never could I have imagined that my life would forever be changed.

“Even though my disease has been a part of my life for several years now, I don’t feel as if I’ve reached a level of total acceptance and understanding. I am more and more convinced that living with a chronic illness is synonymous with living a life full of contradictions.” 

That passage is from my essay, “Chronic Contradictions,” which is included in the recently published anthology, The Things We Don’t Say – An Anthology of Chronic Illness Truths.

Though I wrote those words about three years ago, they’re just as true today.