Being chronically ill is like being a phone that canāt charge past, like, 30%. You can do a good chunk of stuff when at 30%, but not as much as youād like to before it has the go on the charger. You know when youāre charging your phone but you need to do something really quick but the charger cord wonāt reach so you just take it off for a second, but itās only at 10% so itās constantly giving you the notification to put it back on the charger? Thatās what itās like to get up to do anything be it get a drink, go pee, check on sleeping family, whatever, at night. You are constantly being reminded by your body you need to get back to sleep and soon, but you know that you can do this small task at 10%, because youāve done it at 3% before when you were absolutely desperate, but it doesnāt make it any less nerve-wracking because if your phoneās over heating or you left the brightness all the way up, or you misread the percentage, that 10% can go right to a power down before you get it back on the charger. People understand āI donāt wanna leave the house yet, my phoneās only at 27%ā but donāt quite get āI canāt leave the house yet, my body is only at 10%, if I left now I wouldnāt make it back home safeā

















