# Day 4: The Walking Dead

By [KJ](https://paragraph.com/@kj-4) · 2022-12-31

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Another day in zombieland. My personal hell. I’ve slept a ton the last few days, another sign the gods are not smiling upon me.

My vision is blurry, artifacts float to and fro in my line of sight. My chest feels tight, my body weak. The physical pain manifest as psychological pain and the cycle repeats. A downward spiral—except I’m familiar with this staircase and I don’t have to slide to the bottom floor. I prop myself up with some coffee, a chat with an old friend…A pouring my last remaining energy onto this clean white page.

For a number of weeks I was hopeful, optimistic even. The winter weather didn’t bother me. The few rays of sun that escape the overcast December skies of New York felt like enough.

Enough felt better than ever. A new thing for me.

But not enough for a workout or a productive day of work.

Non desistas non exieris.

I studied latin for four years at prep school. I remember very little but learning about the Romans left it’s lasting impression. The old trope about latin helping you learn romance languages might be true…but not if you have no memory or cognitive energy. Not if you’re so riddled with anxiety you can barely read a page in a textbook or complete a Duolingo lesson. Or write a handful of flashcards.

Non desistas non exieris. I won’t give up.

Ablata causa tollitur effectus—but what is the cause? The root cause. When my doctor told me my blood tests indicated I have Lupus I didn’t believe him. Hours spent scouring the web lead me to the not-so-radical idea that food can cause sickness and that it can also heal. A couple months later and another round of blood tests and my rheumatologist said I definitely didn’t have lupus. I “looked” healthy he said.

The curse of being young, and handsome and fit.

My dedication to fitness (in the hope that it would yield an improvement in my health) seems to have made things worse. Grinding out workouts, applying my will with reckless abandon to achieve my “goals” left me more and more broken. Daily naps, twelve hour sleeps, crippling physical pains that never seemed proportional to my workout intensity or duration.

Now that I’ve cut back on my training by 80% the fevers have stopped. A modicum of energy has returned. But these last few days are evidence that the war has not been won.

Non desistas non exieris.

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*Originally published on [KJ](https://paragraph.com/@kj-4/day-4-the-walking-dead)*