Day seven

Another strange day yesterday, starting with pain and nausea. The nausea is new. It didn’t last. But what it made me think about was how people talk about illness. I have had a few emails in this past week which begin, “Hope you’re feeling better “. I’m not. Hoping is OK and maybe after 13 months I should be feeling better, but I’m not.

I started, a few months ago, being honest about this, and it’s not easy. It has become a custom to greet people with words like, “How are you?”, or “Are you well?”. And it is expected that the answers will be, “I’m fine/well/OK”, or “Yes”. I started giving honest answers.

It has been interesting to see the responses. And the experience made me think that we are very superficial and maybe we should either stop asking the questions, or only ask them if we are genuinely interested.

I have my appointment with the GP tomorrow, so maybe I’ll be able to answer the questions with more accuracy after that!