In life with bleeding disorders, we can’t expect a tidy arc

Hurricane Ian directly hit my condo in 2022. My mother and I evacuated to Orlando, Florida, and couldn’t return for weeks. It was long enough that “recovery” became its own kind of routine — a slow, stubborn process that I eventually made my way through.

I know how to do that work. I’ve done it before, after Hurricane Charley in 2004. I know the rhythm of it: shock, assessment, cleanup, and a long trail of repairs.

What I didn’t know was what it feels like to get hit twice in the same two-week stretch, years after I thought I’d already learned the hardest lesson a storm could teach me. In 2024, Helene and Milton came. My condo flooded twice in two weeks. We’re in hurricane season again now, and every year around this time, my body remembers before my calendar does.

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion in facing trauma twice in rapid succession. The first time, you tell yourself a story about resilience; you rebuild and find the silver lining people expect you to find. The second time that story doesn’t hold up. There’s no clean arc, just more water, more muck, more starting over before you’ve finished the last round.

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Healing doesn’t start from zero

It reminded me, uncomfortably, of what it’s like to live with a bleeding disorder. When you’re diagnosed, nobody explains that healing isn’t linear. You imagine a bleed, then treatment, recovery, and done — a tidy sequence with an endpoint. What actually happens is messier: A joint still healing from one bleed gets hit again before it has the chance to recover fully. The second injury doesn’t start from zero; it starts from a body already depleted, already mid-repair, already asking for more time than it has been given.

That’s what those two weeks felt like — not one disaster with a recovery arc, but two stacked on top of each other, each arriving before I’d finished absorbing the last. The hardest part wasn’t the water, the car I lost, or the possessions I’d never see again. It was not knowing, in the moment, whether I was still recovering from Helene or already losing ground to Milton. The line between the two blurred until I stopped trying to draw it.

I don’t have a tidy lesson here, no five-step plan for facing a second storm before the first one’s cleanup is done. What I have instead is something closer to permission — to admit that resilience isn’t a switch you flip back on every time. Sometimes you’re rebuilding on a foundation that hasn’t finished settling from the last collapse, and pretending otherwise just makes the exhaustion harder to name.

What got me through it wasn’t grit alone. It was the people who understood that a second hit changes the math — friends who didn’t ask why I wasn’t “back to normal” yet. That’s the same thing I’ve learned, over and over, from this community. The people who don’t rush your healing are the ones who actually help you heal.

I’ve stopped expecting a smooth arc. Some seasons, in weather and in health, you don’t get to finish healing before the next thing arrives. You just learn to keep going anyway, trusting that, eventually, you’ll find solid ground again.

Note: Hemophilia News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or another qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Hemophilia News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to hemophilia.