Not Sorry To See You Go 2023

I feel like I am not alone happily saying ADIOS 2023. If last year was a person, I feel quite confident that I would be throwing them and their belongings on the lawn. Setting their belongings on fire, while watching them burn. Just like it feels 2023 did to me. Once there are no more flames or fire, there might be dancing on what is left.

Is that a little much? Well…

2023 was something special, to put it lightly. For many of us, it wasn’t the good kind of special. The people closest to me weren’t falling in love, getting married, having 2.5 kids, and a dog. While living in their first home, with a cute little white picket fence.

A bad year

We weren’t living the American dream. Instead we were sitting in doctors offices, praying our labs weren't worse than last month. Hoping that this new pain in our back is just something simply like a kidney stone.

While also praying that they don’t want to order any testing, because we have not met our deductible, or the insanely high out of pocket yet. This was me, on January 31, 2023, when it truly hit the fan.

I’ve had some bad years, and some really really bad years. But nothing that has even compared to 2023. Not even 2012, when I was diagnosed with multiple life altering conditions in a six month period. That was bad. But 2023 topped it.

Complications

For me 2023 wasn’t even, what’s the saying? Fair to midland? It definitely started with a bang. With what should have been an easy port replacement. Ending up with me in the hospital for 7 days with sepsis, a large blood clot in my neck, and multiple septic clots throughout both lungs.

The 8 weeks of 3x a day IV antibiotics and the depression that ensued was nothing to joke about. It took me months and months to get back to “normal!”

Life changing health events

But it’s not just me, I wasn’t the only one who was impacted by the negativity of 2023. My family had life changing health events with bad diagnoses that we weren’t expecting. One that led to a very quick passing. 

Then there were friends and fellow lupies that were getting bad news, and diagnosed with life changing conditions. Some with conditions that aren’t even treatable. That’s all of this ON TOP of lupus and all the other chronic conditions they deal with on a daily basis. While also being moms, wives, and working full time jobs trying not to let anyone see outwardly what’s going on the inside. None of which seems fair.

But then again, I guess life isn’t ever fair is it!?

The heartbreak of lupus loss

The hardest part of 2023, if you take out how hard it’s been for me, and my health. Has been the loss. The loss of fellow lupies. I just had this conversation with a close friend who helps me run the support group I run. We have lost at least 5 friends from the group this year. All of them had lupus, as well as other complicating factors.

It’s just so heartbreaking! That as a person with lupus we almost become more and more numb to hearing someone else with SLE passed. I don’t mean that we don’t feel it at our core, knowing that it could very well be us at any given point. But numb because if we weren’t, we wouldn’t possibly be able to survive the 5 deaths of our friends in 2023.

A new year, finally

I have never been so excited to see a giant shiny ball drop from the sky, while people are counting "THREE, TWO, ONE. HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Now all we can do is hope, and do all we can do on our end, that 2024 will be better than 2024.

Let’s agree to leave 2023 in the dust.

How do you cope when dealing with heartbreak and loss in the lupus community?