How Silence Strangled Me

The cost of mistaking whispers for age.

I didn’t feel sick. Just… worn.

The kind of tired you can’t sleep off.
Mornings were a fog. My legs puffed up. A dull ache sat in my lower back, but I blamed the chair at work.
I told myself it was stress. Age. A bad mattress.
I’d laugh it off with friends — “Guess I’m just getting old!”

But I wasn’t getting old.
I was slipping.

It crept in quietly. No drama. No alarms.
Just small, daily absences — energy, sharpness, appetite, drive.
I’d forget conversations. My clothes stopped fitting right.
Bruises lingered. Naps became necessary.

Doctors ran tests.
“Blood pressure’s a little high.”
“Reduce sodium.”
“Your GFR’s dipping — slightly.”
Subclinical. Suboptimal. Monitor it.

A warning with no sirens.
And I walked right past it.

Because I could still walk.

I worked full-time. Travelled. Cooked for my family.
I told myself this was what middle age felt like — a slow unravelling.
It never occurred to me that it might be the start of something irreversible.

Then came the day the numbers changed meaning.
My GP called me in. Her voice was soft, careful.
Chronic Kidney Disease. Stage 3. Progressing.
“Likely years in the making,” she said.

I sat there, nodding — as if understanding could undo it.
The word chronic landed like a sentence.
There is no cure. Only management.
Dialysis isn’t required yet, but it might be.
Eventually. Probably.

Now, my weeks revolve around blood tests and sodium charts.
My dinners are calculated, not cooked.
My holidays depend on what my kidneys will tolerate.
I’m forty-seven, but some days, I feel seventy.

It’s a quiet kind of grief.
Not loud enough to stop life,
but constant enough to change it.

And yet — this didn’t happen overnight.
My body whispered for years.
Not in pain, but in patterns.
Had I known what sub-health really was —
how it hides in normal, how it festers in “just tired,”
how it builds quietly while we’re busy —
I might have heard it sooner.

Now, I listen differently.
To the mornings.
To the heaviness.
To the quiet that used to mean nothing — and now means everything.

I wish I’d learned to listen before the quiet had to break.

–––

These stories aren’t rare.
They’re just rarely told early enough.
Most decline begins in silence —
a skipped check-up, a cough you dismiss, a breath you pretend is fine.

She didn’t need saving.
Just a warning sooner.

––– Pause Here –––

If this feels familiar, you’re not alone.
Most illness doesn’t start with a bang.
It starts when silence becomes habit.

Lingzhi isn’t a miracle.
It’s a habit.
A quiet, daily way to care for the body —
before silence becomes suffering.

Lingzhi is a traditional food taken to support general well-being. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. For personalised advice, please consult a qualified healthcare practitioner.

#SubHealthStories #HealthIsAHabit #HappyHealthyLingzhi