When it comes to living with chronic illness, dealing with uncertainty and having a lack of control becomes second nature. You would think that after having IBD for seven years, I would be a pro in this category. WRONG. The older I get, the more I realize that dealing with uncertainty is just a part of life. The human brain is wired for survival, so anything that threatens our safety causes stress and anxiety. Thankfully being in remission, my stress and anxiety levels have significantly decreased, but that doesn’t mean I’m immune to it.
This past weekend, I experienced that feeling again firsthand. On Friday evening, my fiancé and I took a walk around the neighborhood to catch another beautiful Reno summer sunset. I had just finished a busy week at work preparing for the semester to start up again and had to go back in the morning to work orientation. This sunset gave me a little bit of life at the end of my very busy week and I felt a sense of relief that it was almost over.
Fast forward to Saturday. I saw a huge plume of smoke coming from Peavine while I was at work and it didn’t look good. It was super windy that day and there was already a Red Flag warning in effect. When I got home from work that afternoon, I immediately called my mom to see if she was okay. My parent’s house was right on the edge of an evacuation zone, but I thought “there’s no way it’s making it that far.” The winds progressively got worse throughout the afternoon, shifting south, and the fire began to move directly towards Northwest Reno. Suddenly, my parents, friends, and I were being forced to evacuate.
By 11pm, I was frantically packing a bag with all my important items. How do you decide what’s important to you and fit it into a suitcase in such a short amount of time? I panicked. All my years of worrying and constant need to be in control did not prepare me for this! I had a sinking feeling in my stomach leaving my house and my parent’s house behind that night, not knowing if they would still be standing in the morning. It put everything into perspective. Safe to say none of us got much sleep that night.
We didn’t have any updates by Sunday morning, so my parents and I decided to head back to our homes. Visually, the fire looked much better with just a few hotspots still burning. My parents, friends, and I were lucky, but a lot of people were not. So far, 47 homes have been lost and 14 damaged. We’ve had fires before on Peavine, but nothing this serious or this close to residential areas. It’s devastating to now look at our beautiful Peavine blanketed in black.
So how does this connect to chronic illness? Everything can change in a matter of 24-48 hours. These three pictures look drastically different, yet they were taken from the exact same spot. We have one body, yet how we feel in that body changes daily. We spend so much time and energy trying to control how our bodies feel, what tomorrow will bring, or what happens next. No amount of control could have prepared me to evacuate my home on Saturday night and no amount of control will change the fact that I have an unpredictable chronic illness.
As chronic illness warriors, we must learn to expect the unexpected. We can’t always control what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. For me, that means living in the present moment, practicing gratitude for everything I have, and leaning into my community when I need it most. We are not always going to have the answers and that’s okay. The only thing I know for certain is that change is the only constant in our lives.
A huge thank you to the first responders who have been working diligently to save our homes and our community! One thing I’ve learned about growing up in Reno is that we are resilient. We have such fierce pride in our little pocket of paradise and you can really feel people come together when tragedy strikes. I am so proud to call Reno home and I am so glad to be safe.
You can find several Hawk Fire Resources below:
How do you navigate uncertainty, whether in times of crisis or while living with chronic illness? Let me know in the comments below!
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