I had a really really bad time this year. I spent the last 10 months almost completely bedridden. For a while, I thought I was dying and my organs were shutting down. Since then I have been aggressively resting and pacing, and have improved enough that I can sometimes do things like wash my own hair or make a sandwich without crashing. Sometimes.

A couple of months ago, I had a horrible ordeal and had to spend about a week in the hospital for an emergency situation. As soon as I got out of the hospital, completely exhausted, I had to be carried back inside because I can’t walk up the stairs.

Two days later, I found out my dog was dying of cancer. She lived a couple of weeks and that was it.

I’ve started having seizures this year. My dad has cancer and has been on chemo all year. As soon as my dog died, I got the flu and I had that virus for an entire month. Only in the last few days have I started feeling like I might be past that virus.

My body is still Physically very exhausted from the ordeal and I am terrified that I am one wrong step away from being fully bedridden again. I can’t survive another year staring at these walls, too weak to even think or stand up. My mental health is not strong enough to undergo that again.

My partner is extremely extroverted and social. The entire month that I had the flu was like pulling his teeth out every time I told him I was still too sick to have friends come visit. He will wait three days and then assume I am well, over and over.

He went ahead and scheduled some friends to come over on January 19. That is far enough away that I was hopeful I could do some more aggressive resting between now and then and maybe get past a little bit more of the fatigue left over from the flu.

Yesterday he rescheduled that for January 8. He doesn’t understand why I want and need those extra couple of weeks to recover further before I attempt to socialize. I should add these are people I have not met before and we are trying to make friends with them. I don’t want to be so tired that I can’t participate in conversation or get so sick I have to tap out anyway.

My partner and I are both very frustrated with each other right now. I offered him the compromise of he could spend time with our friends without me on the 8th, like go out for drinks or something, and they could still come over on the 19th to meet me. he doesn’t want to do that because he doesn’t want to hang out with them without me. That’s so much pressure for me to be of better health than I currently am!

What can I say to this man to help him understand better? He’s not unkind or lacking in compassion, just severely lacking in an understanding of this illness sometimes. I tried to explain to him that usually when I am standing or moving around, it’s not because I feel well, it’s because I’m trying to avoid blood clots. When really I want to collapse and cry from exhaustion. And I’m terrified of being more sick again.

Telling him things like this doesn’t sink in to where he really understands.

Or am I being unreasonable and those two weeks won’t matter??

Edit typo