Five years

**warning, major emo in this post**

Five years ago today, I got put in hospital.

Five years ago today, I started living a freaking nightmare.

I was in a lot of pain, as far as I could remember, and I don't think I was far off being a vegetable.

I've been thinking a lot about this stuff, because my doctors said after your first case of TTP, if you're going to relapse it'll be within ten years, so I'm at the halfway mark of the danger zone (or nearly, anyway).

When I first came out of hospital, even though I was exhausted and slow and couldn't understand simple things, I didn't feel all that different. It took a few days for reality to bitchslap me. And then I got really into my writing and reading, trying to recreate some form of a brain cell, or part of my personality. I took on anything and everything, just trying to prove that I would NOT be beaten by this illness. And yes it took most of my blood, and a lot of my memory and energy levels, and yes it gave me a lot of fatigue, but I'd survived and I wasn't going to let it affect me.

And I think I realised, some time in the last year, that I just tried to take on too much to compensate. I get too tired too easily, and I just cover issues rather than understanding I have to work around them. I think I'm getting better about it, but I still take on a little too much.

I'm not having a great time on this 'anniversary' ... I still have bronchitis, and I've pulled a muscle in my back. I've coughed so hard I've puked. Back pain and vomiting were part of the reason I got hospitalised five years ago, so it's probably the shittiest way to mark the halfway point.

I think in the next five years, I'm going to try to get more of a balance. Like I've started doing. Realising your limits and re-evaluating what's possible is difficult when you can't remember what the limit was in the first place.

I won't be posting when it's officially my fifth anniversary of remission by the way, which is in about two weeks, because I'll be in Italy with my son and parents. Hopefully, I won't still be ill and in pain. I can't be doing with cancelling this trip, I had to cancel a trip to Disneyland five years ago because of the TTP.

And I also want to be well enough that I can do my hospital's annual bridgathon in September (it's a half-marathon walk across the bridges along the Thames) ... you'd think that'd be enough time, right? Although, this bronchitis has stuck around for three weeks now, so who Goddamn knows (and hey, it's acute bronchitis up to three weeks, and chronic after three weeks, so even more awesome for me right now!).

On a slightly unrelated note, it's almost my son's sixth birthday. It's also almost the fifth anniversary for my sister getting some crappy health news, and the sixth anniversary of my brother officially being diagnosed as type 1 diabetic.

My family is clearly full of win.