Your world shrinks when you are seriously ill.  Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, but as time goes on horizons fold in on themselves, like origami, until only a tiny facsimile of what was your life remains.

The first thing to go is a social life.  I are too tired to go out in the evening, and I can’t drink.  Being the only sober person in the room is very boring.  Suddenly one’s friends, who I adore and think of as witty and urbane, just look like drunken fools.  It is painful to be with them, I am so out of rhythm with their lives.  They are talking about work, holidays, getting married, having babies.  Their lives appear frenetic.  So busy it makes me dizzy.  I can’t keep up.  So it becomes easier to stay in.  Anyway, I am ready for bed by 9pm, and I am no sort of company.

Initially the staying in is ok.  Quite cosy.  I have a fantasy of inviting people around for dinner and having fascinating intellectual conversations about the meaning of life (something you are suddenly acutely interested in).  So I try it once, but have to admit defeat and leave the table at ten.  I lie awake upstairs listening to the drunken laughter and wishing, wishing, wishing I could be there, laughing too.

So dinner parties are out.  Even the cinema can’t lure me, because I fall asleep within the first twenty minutes.  Eyelids heavy in warm, red plush velvet.  Better get a dvd instead.  But put it on early.  Seven at the latest, and I might just make it through. 

 The first fold.

The second is any sort of exercise I used to take.   Anyone who knows me will be snorting with derisive laughter over the image of me and exercise, and it’s true, gym bunny I ain’t.   However, my greatest love was walking the dog.  Being outside and getting a meditive rhythm going.  I know, I know, it was painfully slow, toddlers overtook me on the steep bits, but I enjoyed it so much.  We live in an area of outstanding natural beauty and getting outside and witnessing it was a large part of the joy of living here. 

Now, I am too weak to walk far.  And I feel the cold.  Instead of striding out, head up and arms swinging, I am huddled beneath layers of jumpers and coats.  Burdened by the weight of it all.  I can walk about a third of the distance I used to.  Less if it is uphill.  So I stay in and get fat.  I have increased at least one dress (probably two), which is surprising since the next thing to go is the pleasure of food.

I love food.  I have never been one of those women who don’t eat.  I despise the ruse of a healthy appetite whilst nibbling on a cracker.  But now everything tastes peculiar.  The medication leaves a metallic taste in my mouth that nothing can remove.  Some days I need to binge eat, just to try and get rid of it.  All my favourite foods are pale imitations of how they should be.  Other days I can’t face the disappointment so I don’t bother.  The food appears to expand in my mouth, tasteless like cotton wool.  The only comfort is hot buttered toast.  No wonder I’m so fat.

Work, of course, was really the first thing to go.  At first I don’t mind this so much.  The pressure and stress of work is something I am keen to avoid.  However, after months, I miss the company.  I miss the satisfaction of a project working out, or speaking well in a meeting.  Of being an adult, contributing to the world and having that contribution valued by others.