📖 A Quick Note Before We Begin
If you live with chronic illness, you probably understand this feeling all too well.
You wake up one morning and something feels… different.
For the first time in what feels like forever, you don’t immediately begin taking inventory of everything that hurts, everything that isn’t working, or everything your body might refuse to do that day.
Instead, you simply wake up.
And for a brief moment, life feels normal.
Those days are precious.
They are also slightly suspicious.
Because when you live with chronic illness, feeling good can sometimes trigger more anxiety than feeling bad.
☀️ Today Was a Good Day
Today was a good day.
Not just a manageable day.
Not a “well, at least I didn’t have to schedule an emergency nap between brushing my teeth and making coffee” kind of day.
A genuinely good day.
My breathing felt okay.
My muscles cooperated.
Fatigue wasn’t sitting on my chest like an elephant demanding rent.
I wasn’t counting steps, conserving energy, or calculating whether unloading the dishwasher would require a three-hour recovery period.
For a few hours, I simply existed.
I laughed.
I accomplished things.
I moved through the day without constantly negotiating with my body.
And honestly?
Those days almost feel foreign now.
Sometimes I wonder if healthy people realize what a privilege it is to wake up and simply assume their body is going to cooperate.
They make plans for next week, next month, even next year without giving it a second thought.
Meanwhile, those of us living with chronic illness are over here negotiating with our immune systems like:
“Listen, if you let me fold this laundry and go to Target today, I promise I’ll rest tomorrow.”
So naturally, in the immortal words of Ice Cube…
🎵 “Today was a good day.” 🎵
Cue the music.
Because if you live with Crohn’s Disease and Myasthenia Gravis, a day without a new symptom, unexpected bodily betrayal, or a spontaneous need to lie flat on the floor absolutely deserves its own soundtrack.
Honestly, if I managed to avoid both fatigue and a random bathroom emergency, somebody should hand me a Grammy.
🤔 The Problem With Good Days
Most people celebrate good days without hesitation.
Those of us living with chronic illness celebrate while simultaneously waiting for our bodies to send us an invoice.
And let’s be honest—the invoice is rarely itemized.
You don’t know whether you’re going to pay in fatigue, muscle weakness, abdominal pain, shortness of breath, brain fog, or all of the above.
Chronic illness really said, “Surprise me.”
Because experience has taught us about “the crash.”
The payback.
The flare.
The inevitable aftermath.
My body’s occasional revenge tour.
The worsening symptoms that sometimes arrive after we’ve dared to enjoy ourselves a little too much.
So even while we’re smiling, a small voice in the back of our minds whispers:
“Don’t overdo it.”
“You’re going to regret this tomorrow.”
“Remember what happened last time you felt this good?”
“Sit down before your body sits you down.”
And sometimes, that fear steals a little bit of the joy.
🎭 Living Between Gratitude and Fear
I am incredibly grateful for good days.
I never want that gratitude to be overshadowed by fear.
But the truth is, living with Crohn’s Disease and Myasthenia Gravis has taught me that my body can change without warning.
I have gone from feeling relatively okay to struggling to breathe.
I have gone from making plans to canceling them.
I have learned that symptoms can appear overnight and disappear just as quickly.
When your body has betrayed you enough times, trusting it again isn’t easy.
Even on the best days.
Especially on the best days.
Because those are the days when I find myself wondering:
Is this my new normal?
Am I finally turning a corner?
Or am I simply borrowing energy from tomorrow at ridiculously high interest rates?
💜 The Mental Burden We Don’t Talk About
People often see chronic illness as a physical battle.
What they don’t always see is the mental tug-of-war.
The constant hypervigilance.
The analyzing.
The waiting.
The wondering.
Every symptom.
Every sensation.
Every unusually good day.
Every unusually bad day.
Sometimes I catch myself wondering if I’m overanalyzing every little sensation.
Then I remember that ignoring symptoms has landed me in an emergency room before, so hypervigilance has become less of a personality trait and more of a survival skill.
We become experts at reading our bodies because we have to.
Honestly, if overthinking were an Olympic sport, the chronic illness community would sweep the podium every single year.
But sometimes, that expertise comes at a cost.
Sometimes we become so busy waiting for the crash that we forget to fully experience the calm.
🌻 Learning to Accept the Good
I am still learning this lesson.
A good day does not guarantee a bad one.
And even if tomorrow is harder, that doesn’t mean today’s joy was undeserved.
I deserve to celebrate the days when my body cooperates.
I deserve to laugh without guilt.
I deserve to make memories without spending the entire time anticipating their cost.
Will there eventually be another difficult day?
Absolutely.
Crohn’s Disease and Myasthenia Gravis have never exactly been known for respecting my schedule.
But today wasn’t that day.
Today was a good day.
And for today, I’m choosing to turn up the music, enjoy the moment, and ignore the imaginary invoice my body may or may not send later.
💭 Final Thoughts
If you’re living with chronic illness and find yourself anxiously waiting for the next flare, the next symptom, or the next difficult day, know that you’re not alone.
Many of us live in that space between gratitude and fear.
But when the good days come, I hope we all learn to embrace them a little more fully.
Not because we know how long they’ll last.
But because we deserve to experience them while they’re here.
After all, surviving chronic illness isn’t only about enduring the hard days.
It’s also about learning how to live during the good ones.
With hope.
With gratitude.
And maybe, just maybe, with a little less fear.
So if today is a good day for you, I hope you embrace it fully.
Turn up your favorite song.
Make the memory.
Laugh a little louder.
Take the picture.
Water the plants.
Eat the dessert if your stomach allows.
Because good days deserve to be lived, not just survived.
Living with one autoimmune disease is challenging. Living with two requires resilience. Welcome to The Dual Diagnosis Diaries, where I share the realities of navigating life with Crohn’s Disease and Myasthenia Gravis—one day, one treatment, and one lesson at a time. 💜
Kia Lorice
Founder • Author • Advocate • Future Wellness Coach
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