Immunocompromised Vs. The World

I am sure all of my readers have been sick at least once in their lifetime whether that be a cold, strep throat or just a stomach virus. It also probably didn’t take long for y’all to get over those illnesses, Maybe 3 days to a week max? Well how would you feel if I told you it would take 2 to 3 weeks to get over your cold or your stomach virus? What would go through your head knowing you have to deal with this for a while and only with medicine that simply masks the symptoms for maybe a couple hours at a time? Well I can literally answer all of those questions.

My disease I have that required me to get an organ transplant made me become immunocompromised as well as the disease itself. Some of yall may ask what in the world is immunocompromised??  Well let me break it down for you… My body has a weakened immune system. It basically acts like a child's immune system to where I can get sick- it seems just by seeing someone sneeze or cough sometimes. Then when I do become sick, it takes weeks to get better or to at least get back to feeling somewhat my new normal self again. It can even be just a simple cold and it wipes me out completely. It's even scarier when it is the bigger illnesses like the flu because those earn me a one way ticket to the hospital for breathing treatments because my lungs hate me lol. I know some of y’all are probably like (umm why is she laughing that's not funny) well turning my disease into humor helps me cope so bare with me please.

So when COVID became a thing it was honestly one of the scariest things for me. With my immune system the way it is, my Transplant team was nervous about me being in public due to the fact if I were to get COVID it would kill me. I did find it funny that everyone went nuts on the hand sanitizer and lysol haha I was just thinking “wow welcome to my world!”. Everyone was suddenly wanting to be clean and was covering their mouth when they coughed or sneezed. It was crazy just seeing everyone shift into the clean freak mode when I’ve been doing that the last 7 going on 8 years. I was told to wear the face mask before it became the “cool” thing to do. Of course when I was wearing it people were staring me down and judging me. I even had a lady call me a germaphobe once for wearing a facemask while shopping in H-E-B… That was a fun day.. It is just funny seeing people having to learn to live the way I live my life everyday.

I was already basically living in a box sorta way before COVID hit. I can’t just go out all the time especially if I find out someone has or had a fever in the last 24 hours or if they tell me “oh I just have a sore throat I’ll be fine”. Those things are a BIG NO NO for me, so I usually have to back out because I can't risk getting sick because it just takes my body so long to recover. Then once I am finally over the illness itself my body has to get back into the not so normal lifestyle I now have. A lot of people don’t and possibly never will understand why it's crucial for them to tell me if they’ve been sick recently or are sick at that time. I try my hardest to have them understand but in all you really just have to experience it in order to get it which sucks big time. Let me try to put it in perspective for you.. My Best Friend has to find out if her little one is receiving a live vaccine when they go to vaccinate him because I can't be around anyone for 24-48 hours of receiving a live vaccine and if it is more than 1 it adds on more time. I am so grateful though that my best friend understands and is willing to help me out on those kinds of things. It’s honestly the littlest things that count for me and I love her to death for wanting to protect me from getting any type of illness.

All in all it honestly does suck that I have to make sure friends aren't sick before I hang out or that my Best friend's little one hasn't had live vaccines in 24 hours so I can spend time with them. Learning a whole different way of life has been really hard on me and this was all pre-COVID for me. So everyone who has been complaining about the entirety of this COVID thing is getting a taste of how my life is on a daily basis. I have people who have come to me and tell me that they are sorry for how I have to live that they didn’t realize how much of a struggle it can be at times.. Honestly though I don’t need nor want an apology for it, I just want people to understand the whole severity of the situation and just try to let me know these little things for the sake of my own health. Remember what may seem like a simple little cold to you is a very big thing for me. It just won't go away in a few days, it’s a few weeks for me.

     There are a lot of other people out there who are immunocompromised just like me who would really benefit from these little things too. So I am begging you if you know of anyone whether it be family or a friend that is immunocompromised just let them know if you’ve been feeling under the weather lately because honestly that small thing to you is a HUGE thing for us and could possibly even prevent a long hospital stay. It’s sad that there are even people who just don’t care and wont help out with these things. For those people I just pray they never have to experience what I’ve been through and continue to go through as I fight my Autoimmune disease that's left me Immunocompromised.

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Love, Kayla