I am ill

Not life-threateningly ill. Not even stuck-at-home ill. But I'm ill
nonetheless. I say this because I've actually been ill for more than
nine years, but it's only in the last six months that I've actually
admitted it to myself. I have ulcerative colitis, which normally gets
lumped into the rather broad group of illnesses that get called
Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It's basically an inflammation of the lower
intestine, which causes pain and prevents you from really digesting
food properly. It's also one of those diseases which until you've got
it, you've never heard of, but suddenly when you start to talk about it
you realize there's a huge number of sufferers.



One of the problems with being ill over a long period is that you
forget what being truly healthy is like. I'm generally okay - a few
weeks ago I went skiing, and managed to out-ski almost everybody there.
When I got home, however, I crashed and burned for about two days,
because unlike most people I simply have no reserves of strength; when
I start to fade, I go downhill rapidly. When I had no peripheral
worries and could concentrate on skiing, I was fine - but as soon as I
was home, and I had all those normal niggling worries of life gnawing
at the edges of my attention, I struggled. I tire easily, I get bored
easily, I get emotional and fractious. I get abdominal pains - mostly
nasty trapped wind, but sometimes genuinely ominous stabbing pains with
no apparent cause. I have one particularly delicate point in my
gut, near my left hip, which always hurts if I press it. Just
recently a new and alarming symptom has reared its ugly head - anemia.
I spent a week in bed, unable to do anything more strenuous than the
washing up without feeling dizzy.



So what do I do to control my condition? Easy: nothing.



To be honest, there's not a lot I can do. I've tried different diets,
and basically come to the conclusion that my condition is 100%
stress-related. Now, the weird thing is that anyone looking at my
lifestyle would assume that I am under very little stress indeed - my
job is very very low-stress, I do some exercise but not an excessive
amount, I sing in a choir and I play lacrosse occasionally, I drink and
dance in moderation - so I have a very quiet, well-balanced lifestyle.



And yet there it is, a stress-related illness.



Partly, I can pass it off as genetic - my family suffers from a range
of diseases which (this is my theory, anyway) can be put down to not
handling stress gracefully. My mum has... thing with scalp, oh, damn,
forgot the name... psoriasis! My sister has psoriatical arthritis
(yeah, I got off lightly). I get ulcerative colitis. It's my theory
that there's some sort of link between the three. But it
must also be to do with the way I live my life, and
that really undermines my self-confidence, because I worry about the
direction my life is going. I worry about the big things: I have a
professional career as an engineer, but I'm not really very good at it.
I live on my own, and I've been single for a while now. I live at the
opposite end of the country to most of my family. Finally, I'm not one
of those people who makes friends easily.



The question is: what is my body trying to tell me? Where did I go
wrong? Did I go wrong? How the hell does my body
know, anyway? If I quit my job and moved back in with my parents, did a
degree in journalism and started all over again, would my health
improve, or worsen?



I just can't help thinking that my health is strongly intertwined with
my lifestyle, but I can't find the crucial thread. The only options
left seem pretty radical, and pretty terrifying. So I content myself
with doing little things (current project: buying my own house) in the
hope that some little extra comfort will lull my digestive system back
to sleep.



But I can't help feeling that I should be doing something radical. If only I knew what.