So, now what?

This is a question I ask myself a lot. 

I finally got a diagnosis...now what?

I graduated college...now what?

I got my certification...now what?

I got my port out...now what?

And, to be completely honest with you...I have no answer. And that is the scariest feeling in the entire world. I'm a planner (Not like an agenda book, but a person who plans. Though, let's be real, if I could be any inanimate object, I would totally be an agenda book. I'd definitely be one with both monthly and weekly calendars for optimum planning. With color coded tabs!) I love to have my schedule written out in front of me, and I love the feeling of accomplishment when I'm able to check things off because I completed them. 

But, what do you do when you have absolutely no idea what comes next?

People tell me all the time that no one knows what tomorrow brings, and no one can really plan for the future because no one's future is guaranteed. And, while that's true, that's not what I'm talking about. 

When you're sick, the future looks a little different. Not in the sense that it's not guaranteed (because really, who likes to think like that?) but in the sense that when I think future, I think tomorrow. And it scares the hell out of me that I can't even plan for tomorrow. 

Tomorrow I may wake up and not be able to get out of bed. Or, tomorrow I may wake up and be okay for a few hours and get a lot of things done. Tomorrow I may have a reaction to God only knows what and end up with hives, and then sleep my day away from the Benadryl I have to take to get rid of them. Or tomorrow I might feel like I can go outside and take a walk. 

Uncertainty is the scariest part of being sick, in my opinion. 

You can stick me with a million needles. You can give me new medicine after new medicine. You can take what feels like all of my blood on a monthly basis. And I'll stay strong. But ask me about my plans for the future and that strength crumbles a little. 

What do you do when you can't plan your life like everyone else your age seems to be doing? My friends are lining up grad school, or are in grad school. They're getting married and having kids. They're buying houses and building houses. They have great jobs. And here I am. 

All I can plan for is my next doctors appointment. The next time I have to stick myself with a needle. The next surgery. The next test. 

I'm not being pessimistic. I'm being real. Life itself is unpredictable. Lyme is unpredictable. But when you add them together you get a whole mess of fear and a giant rock that has been dropped right in the middle of your path, with seemingly no quick way around it. 

I'm standing at that rock right now. SO ready to climb over it. But my legs don't seem to work. My memory doesn't hold up enough to remember a path around it. And I fall asleep before I can make it over the top. 

So...now what?