Treadmill of Appointments

Living with chronic illness often means living inside the repetition of medical appointments, the rhythm of scheduling, waiting rooms, intake forms, vitals, lab slips, follow ups, and the hope that this time something will be different. The calendar fills not with vacations or celebrations but with consultations and procedures, and life begins to organize itself around blood pressure readings and MyChart. There is a fatigue that comes from telling your story again and again, summarizing years of symptoms into a few efficient sentences while trying not to lose the existential weight of what it has cost you. Over time the appointments can start to feel like a second job, one you never applied for, yet you keep showing up because showing up is an act of survival and stubborn faith. And somewhere in the repetition there is also a resilience forming, a capacity to endure uncertainty, to advocate for your own body, and to keep building a life in the spaces between one appointment and the next.

Dr. Jeffrey Bone