The Beginning, again

The worst thing that ever happened to me in my life is happening again.

I've written about it before a long time ago in a galaxy blog far far away. You can read it by clicking on this sentence. Bear in mind that it was written several years ago, and my thoughts may have changed. But if you go to the earliest posts, you'll get a good overview of the story.  I don't have the heart to go into details now, but here's the cliff's notes version:

When I was 17 I spent 10 days in the hospital.  I was diagnosed (after three horrible days that belong on an episode of House) with Wegener's Granuomatosis (WG).  I went through two years of treatment before remission.  It derailed my entire life.  I have post-traumatic stress about it (officially diagnosed btw).

Anyway, after 10+ years of remission, I'm 95% sure I'm having a relapse now.  I have yet to see my rheumatologist, so it hasn't been officially confirmed yet; I have an appointment in mid October.  I've had two non-rheumatologist doctors tell me it's a relapse though.  So, I've given up hope that what's wrong with me can be anything else.

So.  I'm very sick.  Again.  And I'm freaking out, because post-traumatic stress stuff mostly, I think.

The point I wanted to get to today though is that one of the things I regret most about when I was sick before is that I completely stopped writing in my journal.  All through high school I religiously kept a journal.  But I stopped writing in it about a month before my diagnosis (my last entry: "I'm so fucking sick of feeling so sick and tired") and didn't start up again until about 3 months after (dear diary, guess what?).

I have decided that this time I am going to write about it.  There are several reasons I want to do this:

• I think it might be a story worth telling.  There may be people out there who can relate, and need something like this to relate to.
• Forcing my shit into coherent thoughts and sentences that can be written down really helps me work through things.
• It's hard to talk about in real life, and especially in public (I'm likely to cry uncontrollably).  If I can point people to this and say "hey, this is what's going on with me right now" that takes a huge burden off me.  That said, I will make an effort to talk about it to friends and family because that's kind of important too.
• I know there are people who care about me who I am not going to be able to keep updated on everything that's happening.  This is a place they can look.

I think a State of the Cassie Address is probably in order, but I think that should go in a separate post.