I had hundreds of little ideas floating around in my head like dandelion fluff when I decided to write a blog, and now that the time is here, all I can do is stare at the cursor blinking like a cautionary traffic light and think, “Oops.”

What could qualify me to write a blog? Nothing in particular, though:

• I do have the suitably vague humanities degree of a BA in Literature.

• I speak 3 languages well, 1 more passably so, and am struggling with Polish. But it’s Polish.

• I’ve lived in 4 countries and have stood on 5 out of 7 continents. Plans for the other 2 await me. (I've always thought "Have suitcase. Will travel." is a sound motto.)

• I learned to scuba dive in Cambodia while doing seahorse research. And I’m not even a marine biologist.

• I recently married a man who predicted said outcome within 45 minutes of meeting me. Cue backup Hallmark career.

• I'm an American in London. I'm counting on this giving me certain Insights into Something.

• My main mode of being is learning. I’m a champion researcher; Google is my playground. Organizing may be my second mode of being — neck and neck with human-form based design (dwellings, furniture, apparel).

• I’ve now got a Masters of Interior Design from a little school in Florence, Italy where I trafficked high-quality gelato to my apartment by the kilo container. And I only gained 5 pounds.

• I can’t readily design real-life residential spaces at the moment (though I find ways to persist with imaginary ones), so I’m taking out my creative frustration on my closet, which is a throwback to my roots and my first job at W Magazine in New York. (See Instagram account and upcoming blog posts for attempts at Style Content.)

• I’ve got an impressive-sounding chronic-illness story that has kept me almost entirely housebound since last spring…

That last point is what made me finally step up to the idea of a blog and embrace it like an old friend. See, I’m stir crazy. I only run across strangers on my infrequent trips to the grocery store. Those are on good days when I can muster enough willpower to sort of roll downhill to the bus stop. But I start shaking if I stand too long, so it’s never really a good time to make friends. So, I mostly chat to my new husband exclusively, and I’m pretty sure all my new material has run out on him. He’s still a good sport, though.

So, confession: I can barely function. Here’s what that looks like [italicized content below] if you are morbidly curious. (No judgment—that’d be clickbait for me, too.) Alternatively, you can skip to the bottom of the italics for the rest of the abbreviated version.

I have a postviral condition characterized by Hashimoto’s Disease—and therefore involving the thyroid—gut dysbiosis, and various other elements of autoimmunity that impact the metabolic and endocrine systems and affect me neurologically. Don’t understand what that means? Neither do I. This is the territory of Mystery Diseases, a grey world past the limits of medical certainty where current medical research is only now beginning to cast a shadow. All I know is that last year (after a subtle sense since I was 17 years old that something about my health was very “off”) my body systematically shut down. In January, I thought I was fighting a cold all month. I declined steadily through my move to the UK. In March, I could still push through when I had to. It didn’t feel good, but I could make it. By May, I could hardly move.

My doctor says it resembles ME / CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis / Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, which is not at all what I thought it was), but only a neurologist can make that determination. (The neurological symptoms are the most worrisome.) Either way, that diagnosis—in addition to the Hashimoto’s—doesn’t explain the cause of it all, it only hints at the resultant disease(s), so it wouldn’t change my functional medicine doctor’s methodology and treatment plan (which is a lifestyle change worth sharing at a later date). If you’re curious, I’ve included a list of my symptoms. My husband always prefers bullet points.

• neurological “brain fog” (processing problems, missing simple words, unable to complete sentences/thoughts, memory issues, slow)

• muscle weakness / shaking (I feel like I’m trying to walk under the weight of a lead suit.)

• muscle pain (I am chronically sore from head to toe. It's exactly as fun as it sounds.)

• shortness of breath / difficulty catching my breath, sometimes after simply standing up

• dizziness and balance problems

• nausea

• heart palpitations

• bone-crushing fatigue that feels like the Hulk Flu and worsens with even the most minimal activity

• digestive symptoms

• impaired motor skills (trouble holding small objects)

• chronic sore throat (WTF)

• blurred vision

• body temperature deregulation (I'm boiling, but only when I'm not chilled.)

• sleep problems

• etc.

Some days it’s really bad (I have trouble walking to the bathroom) and some days I can make it to the grocery store down the street and back or even take an Uber to the movies with my husband. If I push, my symptoms accelerate and I pay for it, often for days. So I’ve stopped pushing at all—doctor’s orders—because the lengthy setbacks, like the one after the Christmas holidays, are costing me healing time. 

One of the hardest parts is that I look completely normal. When I say I’m sick, people don’t really clock that I feel like I’m smooshed like a bug by the weight of these symptoms. How could they? On the rare occasions when I am in contact with someone other than my husband, I don’t want to dwell on how bad it is. So I keep a smile on until I can feel my brain start to slip, and then I go home to bed.

As for Instagram, those photos are hard won. I can spend about 5 minutes per outfit—usually a maximum of 3 in the span of a weekend—and my husband has to help me shuffle out to street level and push me back up the stairs when we are through. That’s usually the only thing I can do that day, aside from making meals for us that comply with my rather restricted diet. But I’m making it work. And I am beginning to heal. I’m even optimistic after some uplifting blood test results that I am on the road toward recovery with a doctor who takes the more progressive “functional medicine” approach, but the current estimate is that it will be another 8 months to a year, in addition to the year I’ve already lost, before I am back to health. I am grateful, though, that there is reason—including mounting anecdotal evidence of others beating strikingly similar situations—to believe I will get back to health (though, honestly, to what extent is still unclear).

So anyway, a blog. Just one of the many slightly desperate things you resort to when you’re housebound for extended periods of time and need a pick-me-up (and a heal-me-up). See also: chopping off your all your hair and buying a small, portable sauna for your living room. But more on that later.

For now, this has been a start.

Officially, I blog.