A blog about my experience with chronic illness and finding hope in the darkest days

Tag: invisible disability

You Are What You Wear: Superhero Edition

Even with my eyes closed, the fluorescent lights were bright–too bright. I would’ve tossed and turned, done anything to rid the restlessness, except for that I was exhausted, too tired to move. My body tingled, my muscles twitched, I lay still in the hospital chair. The nurses let me be.

I felt like I hadn’t slept in a year. I mean, I had, but when you wake up more tired than when you went to bed, does that really count as sleeping? Sleep should leave you feeling rested, refreshed; I hadn’t felt that way in a long time. 

Eventually, I heard someone call my name, softly.

“Ms. Howells,” they cooed. They sounded a million miles away. I began to blink my eyes open, and found two white coats standing above me.

The ER attending and her resident were tall, slender, looming. Through the fog that swaddled my brain, I questioned whether they were real. The woman in the white coat spoke carefully, saying, “We’re so sorry, but there’s nothing we can do to help you right now. We recommend you follow up with your primary care provider and…”

I tried to follow to the rest of their words, but they were leading me somewhere that I didn’t want to go: more frustration, more disappointment, deeper despair and terror. I tried to keep my composure and nod at all the right times, but it was so hard. I wanted to go home. Not back to my dorm room, but home. I wanted to be anywhere else in the world but that overflow ER room with its needles and saline and doctors who couldn’t tell me what was wrong. 

The mouths of the white coats continued to open and close, their voices coming in and out like radio static. I wanted to shut it off. The frequency was piercing. 

As the attendee finished her final discharge instructions, her face softened and I watched her mold into a mother. At once, her fierce features relaxed and the secure command she’d worked years to obtain as a woman in medicine fell away before me.

“I have a daughter your age,” she spoke into the space between us. “It must be so tough going through all this in college.”

I was unaware that what she’d say next would anchor me in the approaching medicine-filled months. I didn’t realize that such a brief display of empathy would salvage my tarnished relationship with doctors and remain as proof throughout my diagnosis journey of real goodness amongst all the terribleness in life.

“You’re superwoman,” she continued, implying strength, “and you’re gonna change the world someday.”

Her kindness stunned me, startled me, snapped whatever shabby thread that was barely holding me together. It was like a flash of light, so bright and intense, I had to look away.

With my eyes to the floor, the physicians left and I broke apart in the hospital chair. Having lost the willpower to fight back, I released the tears that were already flowing. They covered my face like wounds, like war paint, like a shield. In my tears, I found my armor. In my vulnerability, I found strength.

This past Thursday was the two year anniversary of my POTS diagnosis. The day marked two years of progress and recovery, two years of healing and brokenness, two years of learning to navigate life with a fussy, dysfunctional nervous system. Last year, December 16th felt like a funeral. This year, it felt more like a birthday party, a celebration of strength reborn.

To honor the day, I dressed up as Superwoman. The costume felt significant not only because it links to the impactful encounter I had with an ER doctor, but also because it relates to two of my favorite poems written about disabilities: “Wonder Woman” by Ada Limón and “Going Blind” by Rainer Maria Rilke.

A photo of me dressed up in a Superwoman costume. I’m holding up a peace sign, to symbolize my 2 year anniversary of being diagnosed with POTS.

“Wonder Woman” by Ada Limón shares the story of a woman’s experience with chronic, invisible pain. After a discouraging ER visit, the woman spots a girl dressed as a superhero and is reminded of her own, “indestructible” strength:

“Standing at the swell of the muddy Mississippi
after the urgent care doctor had just said, Well,
sometimes shit happens, I fell fast and hard
for New Orleans all over again. Pain pills swirled
in the purse along with a spell for later. It’s taken
a while for me to admit, I am in a raging battle
with my body, a spinal column thirty-five degrees
bent, vertigo that comes and goes like a DC Comics
villain nobody can kill. Invisible pain is both
a blessing and a curse. You always look so happy,
said a stranger once as I shifted to my good side
grinning. But that day, alone on the riverbank,
brass blaring from the Steamboat Natchez,
out of the corner of my eye, I saw a girl, maybe half my age,
dressed, for no apparent reason, as Wonder Woman.
She strutted by in all her strength and glory, invincible,
eternal, and when I stood to clap (because who wouldn’t have),
she bowed and posed like she knew I needed a myth—
a woman, by a river, indestructible.”

“Wonder Woman” by Ada Limón

“Going Blind” by Rilke recounts the isolation of illness and how the idiosyncrasies of disability can access a world unreachable to the abled person. In the last line, the poem’s translation suggests that in some ways, having a disability is like having a superpower:

“She sat at tea just like the others. First
I merely had a notion that this guest
Held up her cup not quite like all the rest.
And once she gave a smile. It almost hurt.

When they arose at last, with talk and laughter,
And ambled slowly and as chance dictated
Through many rooms, their voices animated,
I saw her seek the noise and follow after,

Held in like one who in a little bit
Would have to sing where many people listened;
Her lighted eyes, which spoke of gladness, glistened
With outward luster, as a pond is lit.

She followed slowly, and it took much trying,
As though some obstacle still barred her stride;
And yet as if she on the farther side
Might not be walking any more, but flying.”

“Going Blind” by Rainer Maria Rilke

I’m a big fan of the way these poems showcase the inner struggles of illness that often go unseen. I love the way Limón and Rilke find power in debilitating circumstances and see strength in moments of weakness and vulnerability.

It’s taken me a while to uncover strength in my worst memories (and a lot of work with my therapist). For the longest time–two years to be exact–I saw only pain, tears, and terror when I reflected on my lowest moments. I’m learning that strength doesn’t always look how we think it should. Contrary to popular belief, it takes strength to let yourself cry, or to ask for help and receive it. Sometimes, strength can look like weakness.

In full disclosure, the Superwoman shirt was actually supposed to be a Halloween costume. It was to be a costume only I knew the true significance of, but when it arrived late on November 2nd, I had to reassess my plans. Instead of returning it, I figured I’d save it for a day when I needed some strength. As December 16th rolled around, the shirt felt increasingly more relevant.

A picture of my Superwoman costume.

The day before Halloween, an intern at physical therapy asked me if I was dressing up for Halloween.

“I’m gonna be a superhero,” I said. “Superwoman.”

Despite her mask, I could see her eyes crease into a grin.

“You already are,” she said.

Begin Again

Hi blog. It’s been a little while.

I wasn’t planning on taking a break, and I also wasn’t planning on having such an eventful summer. Two summer classes kept me busier than I thought I’d be, and I took my first solo trip to visit my brother in North Carolina. Traveling alone taught me that I’m capable of more than I believe, and through my physical anthropology course, I learned more about being human. Weeks later, when my uncle and grandfather passed away, I learned a lot about grief, too.

I learned that grief can be sneaky. It can show up in unexpected ways like stress, poor sleep, and sharp, short tempers. I learned that grief reveals as much about death as it does about life, and that in many ways, grief is like plunging the heart in frigid water. Once the initial, blinding shock wears off, the fierce cold intensifies each and every breath, reminding the body it is acutely alive.

In the midst of my grief, I started a new semester of school. With a heart stuffed with sorrow, hope, and longing, I stepped foot on a college campus for the first time in 2 years. Feeling more like a kindergartener than a junior in college, I navigated quaint classrooms and picked seats in rooms full of socially-distanced students. The ordinary had never felt so peculiar. In the excitement of a new school year and the heaviness of my grief, I had never felt so sad yet so hopeful at the same time.

Going back to school has been a fresh new beginning for me. I entered a new school with a new major and a body with a new baseline and limitations. Walking around campus with a backpack full of beta-blockers, I felt nothing like the freshman I was in 2018. Strolling underneath the verdant trees on campus, I’d almost forgotten how traumatic my prior college experience was. Almost.

Last Friday, as I made my way out of class, another student stopped me in the stairwell.

“Do you watch Grey’s Anatomy?” she asked, catching me by surprise.

It took me a moment to register that she was talking to me, and another moment to realize the weight her question held.

In an instant, I was transported to my freshman dorm room where I was limp in my bed, watching Grey’s Anatomy on repeat. Exhausted from the ER visits and doctor’s appointments I’d wedged into my full schedule, I used the television series as an escape, as solace. Grey’s Anatomy eased my initiation into the medical world, and some part of me cherished watching the fake doctors fight hard for their patients. In my fear and overwhelm as mysterious symptoms took hold, I couldn’t help but hope some doctor would do the same for me.

“I used to, yeah,” I managed.

“You look a lot like Jo. You know, the one who was Alex’s girlfriend.”

Under my mask, my face flushed and I smiled.

“I take that as such a complement, because she’s so pretty!” I said.

We pushed through the heavy doors, ripping our face masks off as we plunged into sunshine. The humid air felt tangible as she asked me where I was from.

“You’re from overseas, right?”

“I’m not but my parents are, actually.”

Too stunned to do anything else, I smiled. In some way, it was like she already knew me. Like we were already friends.

We chatted for another minute before parting ways. I walked away, feeling a little dumbfounded by our conversation.

While her questions were fairly typical, and her comment a mere passing thought, what she said felt profound to me. It was a complete, full circle moment.

Immersed in my Fresh New Beginning, I naively thought my past couldn’t catch up to me. I thought what had happened in Nashville would forever stay in Nashville, and that as I healed, the hard memories would rest somewhere far behind me.

But as I drove home that day, I realized that even though the past is the past, we carry every moment of our lives with us, into the next. The part of me that was sprawled out on my dorm room bed, glued to episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and gaining awareness that an illness was beginning to wreck my life, walks with me on UT’s campus. She looks up at the same beauty in the sturdy trees overhead. She feels the same shimmering sunlight glittering upon her face.

That girl’s comment felt like a reminder to take note of where I am, how far I’ve come, and how much of my life has changed. Her words were like confirmation that I’m in the right place upon the right path and no fatal mistakes have been made. In her encounter, I found permission, encouragement, and guidance to keep going, to keep moving forward, to have faith in what comes next.

Sometimes I wish POTS had never happened to me. Sometimes I wish my life had never been interrupted by the pain, the loss, and all the grief it’s brought me. Without POTS, my life would certainly be easier, and if I could wake up tomorrow cured, I would in a heartbeat. But I also know that without this deep well of pain, my joy would be much more shallow. I wouldn’t know how lucky it is to stand in the shower because I wouldn’t know how much it hurts to have the ability taken away. I wouldn’t live my days with as much intention as I do, because I wouldn’t value my energy as a currency that’s finite.

In the words of Nora McInerny, “We don’t ‘move on’ from grief. We move forward with it.” And each day, as I load my backpack with books and salty snacks, I make some space for that exhausted, fearful freshman. She deserves this new beginning just as much as I do.

Swimming Lessons

Yesterday marked the last day of the 2021 Olympic Swimming Trials. My family and I have been watching it throughout the week, eager to turn on the tv and dive into a world we no longer inhabit. 

Swimming was a large part of my childhood but it was an even bigger part of my family. In fact, it’s how my family came to be: my parents met at a swim meet. My dad excelled on the high school swim team and my mother was born a water bug. Growing up, I watched her direct a swim lesson program, teach lessons to the neighbors at the local pool, coach on a club swim team, and even petition for a local natatorium. For my mother, water is a magnet and she can’t resist its pull.

My middle brother swam briefly before switching to basketball and my oldest brother competed nationally before going on to swim in college. I myself swam for ten years on club and summer league swim teams, but halfway through high school, I left to pursue musical theatre. Swimming was a rite of passage shared by every member of my family, and we each have our own unique relationship with the sport.

A picture of my dad and me at a swim meet.

Watching the Olympic Swimming Trials has brought me back to my swimming days, which could also be considered my pre-POTS days. They were the days of boundless energy, of two hour swim practices and the sweaty dry-land conditioning sessions that followed. They were the days of eating whatever I wanted, of killing time on deck with friends, of giggling underwater and fiddling with my goggles on the wall as my coach yells at me to keep swimming. I never loved swimming enough to commit to the sport the way others have–the way my oldest brother had–but there was enough love to look back fondly on the memories, which is what I’ve been doing a lot of lately. 

I’ve swam laps at the neighborhood pool twice this week, mostly to keep up my POTS treatment but also to pretend I am an Olympic swimmer (no shame). Swimming is actually great for POTS because it’s horizontal exercise. Plus, the pool water helps me get some sun without overheating. Major win! My olympic fantasy collapses after 100 meters in the pool however, when I come up gasping for air and realize how much distance lies between my daydreams and the swimmer I am now. 

In passing, I mentioned to my mom how I can’t wrap my head around the fact that at 15 years old, I swam an average of 7,000 yards at 2 hour swim practices, 5-6 times a week. Sometimes, I had swim practice twice a day. And although I was certainly ravenous and ready for a good night sleep afterwards, my tiredness was minuscule compared to the exhaustion I experience from POTS. 

“I took my abilities and accomplishments for granted,” I told my mom, whilst feeling compassion for my 15 year old self who couldn’t possibly understand. She didn’t know what she could lose, what she would lose in time, and the privileges she’d one day learn to live without. 

A picture of me diving into the pool for a relay.

The memories of what it’s like to be normal, to go to swim practice and stand in the shower and still have energy left over, flicker in my mind briefly before quickly fading away. They’re like a name I can’t remember but lives on the tip of my tongue, or like a person that looks familiar but whose face I can’t quite place. They are a sketch of my old life, a rough outline but nothing more. The memories are my childhood, the majority of my life, yet they are so hazy that I question whether or not they were a dream. 

Last Thursday, I stopped by the local tax office to pick up my permanent disability parking placards. They’re mostly for school, so that I can park in disability spots closer to classes and reduce my amount of walking across campus, but they’re also for flare days or gigantic, Texas-sized parking lots. It felt surreal to hold them in my hand and recognize they were prescribed for me, not for my grandpa or anyone else, but me: the same girl who swam two hour swim practices six times a week. Plus dry-land.

There’s no shame in a changing body or having disabilities and limitations. There’s no failure in using a disability parking placard or any other form of accommodations. Yet as I held the plastic placards on a steamy Texas afternoon, I wondered how many other people felt like I did: shocked to be acquiring these blue signs much sooner than expected. 

I thought of all the other POTS patients like me, who lived active, athletic childhoods before they were debilitated by chronic illness. Are their hearts also filled with grief for all they’ve lost? Are they too wandering around in their post-diagnosis life, dazed and confused and maybe even a little embarrassed, wondering where that little sporty kid went and if they’re ever coming back? 

Picture of me as a kid, standing behind the block before my race.

Thanks to a year and a half of physical therapy, these days I feel strong. I can go out dancing with friends, complete grocery shops with no problem, and spend over an hour in fitting rooms, trying on dress after dress after dress. In many ways, I feel the healthiest I’ve ever been, even if I do still have limitations. But feeling my strongest and most vibrant whilst picking up disability parking placards makes that whole experience even more confounding. 

In some ways, I wonder if my time as a swimmer equipped me for the challenges of chronic illness. Through swimming, I gained grit, endurance, and resilience. I learned how to keep pushing when the set got hard and my heart was pounding and all I wanted to do was quit and float in the middle of the pool. When the coach wrote a set on the board that looked entirely impossible, I understood nobody could finish practice for me, that I’d have to just keep swimming, no matter what. 

Packing, with POTS

It’s mid-morning and the sky is threatening a gloomy May day. We suit up anyway, dressing in swim gear and sunglasses, and our summer garb hugs us like armor, like hope.

My brother is in town for the weekend so we’ve made plans to go stand-up paddleboarding, or kayaking for me. It’s our first family outing in I don’t know how long so I hide my phone in my bag. I want to be present today.

My mother buzzes around the house, evaporating from the living room then reemerging like a magician. Her packing frenzy convinces me I’ve inevitably forgotten something, so I mount the stairs and head back to my room.

There were times, in The Dark Days, when I crawled up these stairs to bed. Today, I bounce, skipping every other step.

As my mom loads the car, I pack up too, taking inventory of my cream-colored tote bag.

Liter water bottle full of water, check.

Water bottle filled with electrolyte drink, check.

Backup packets of electrolytes, check.

Salty snacks in case I get hungry and/or dizzy, check.

Beta-blockers and backup meds, check.

My pill organizer for the day, check.

Personal fan (that makes only a marginal difference but for some reason I bring anyways) in case I get hot and symptomatic, check.

Regular human things I need like my wallet and driver’s license, check.

Hand sanitizer, check.

Face mask, check.

Keys, check.

Okay. We’re ready to go.

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