On the other side of chronic illness. Here's what nobody told me.
Vashti and her mountain bike on a trail in Curaçao.
Vashti Kanahele, MS shares her experience with Lyme disease, Epstein-Barr virus, and Hashimoto's, and what life after chronic illness looks like.
It wasn't a big moment. I was out on the tennis court, chasing down a ball I would have let go a few years ago, when it hit me: I wasn't thinking about my body at all. Not my energy, not my joints, not whether I'd pay tomorrow for what I was doing today. I was just playing.
For years, that would have been impossible.
Where I started
In the summer of 2015, I finally got the answers I'd been chasing. Lyme disease. Reactivated Epstein-Barr Virus. Parasites. And a cascade of co-infections, most likely set in motion by an insect bite in Cambodia while I was pregnant with my youngest daughter.
I hadn't felt right since giving birth. People told me that was just motherhood, a toddler and a newborn, of course I was tired. But I knew the difference between tired and unwell.
Two years later, while home in Washington state for Christmas, I got another diagnosis: Hashimoto's thyroiditis. Two days after that, I was on a plane back to my life in Lagos, Nigeria with a list of lifestyle changes and no idea how I was going to make them from a megacity in West Africa.
When there’s no way out
When you're deep in chronic illness, it doesn't feel like a chapter. It feels like your whole life. You can't remember what normal felt like, and you can't picture it coming back. Every appointment that ends in "your labs look fine" closes another door. Every protocol that doesn't work makes you trust yourself a little less.
I remember lying awake wondering if this was simply who I was now. If the woman who said yes to a year working in Baghdad, Iraq and fell in love with Beirut, Lebanon was gone, and this exhausted, foggy version of me was what was left.
There were days I couldn't see a way out. Not because I'd given up, but because I genuinely couldn't imagine what the other side would look like.
If that's where you are, I'm not going to tell you it's easy. I'm going to tell you it's possible. Because I'm writing this from the other side.
What the other side actually looks like for me
Here's what I wish someone had told me back then: the other side of chronic illness isn't a finish line. It's a new relationship with your body. My symptoms have subsided. The bone-deep fatigue, the brain fog, the feeling of being unwell in a way nobody could see was gone.
I really started to feel better when we lived in Curaçao. When COVID hit, my husband Kraig and I started mountain biking together. Somewhere on those trails, I realized my body wasn't just surviving anymore. It was getting stronger.
Today, the biggest change is that I can move the way I want to. I play tennis. I do long endurance rides on the Peloton and finish feeling strong, not depleted. There was a time when a trip to the grocery store could wipe me out for the rest of the day. I can push harder now. But I still listen to my body. That's not a limitation. It's the skill that got me here, and it's the one I'll never stop practicing.
I still have Hashimoto's. I still have occasional flares. Not long after we moved to Cairo, Egypt, I had one that knocked me flat. I'd spent months making sure everyone else was settled, and my body finally said enough.
Both things are true: I feel well, genuinely and deeply well and every so often my body reminds me that well doesn't mean finished.
The difference now is that a flare doesn't send me spiraling. I know my early signals. I know what to do. And I know, from experience, that it will pass.
The part nobody talks about: waiting for the other shoe to drop
Even now, every time I do labs, there's a knot in my stomach. I can feel better than I have in a decade and still hold my breath when the lab portal loads.
And it's not just labs. Every so often I find a tick on our dog, Owen, and I'm instantly back in 2015. My heart races. My mind jumps ten steps ahead. I know it's not rational, I know how far I've come, but some part of me is always quietly wondering when the other shoe will drop.
I've stopped pretending that part doesn't exist. Years of illness leave an imprint, even after the symptoms are gone. That's not weakness, it's memory, and over the years, I've learned to meet it with some grace. A number on a page is information, not a verdict. A tick on the dog is a reason to be careful, not a prophecy.
What got me here
There was no single breakthrough. What got me here was unglamorous, steady, and deeply personal.
Someone finally asked why. Not "here's a pill for that symptom," but what is actually driving this?
Foundations before quick fixes. Food, stress, sleep, and environment. The basics aren't exciting, but they're where healing lives.
Consistency over intensity. Small, sustainable changes I could keep up from Lagos, Curaçao, and now Cairo.
Care built for my body. Not a protocol handed to everyone, but a plan built for me and my actual life.
Patience. Healing isn't linear. Some of my best progress came after my most discouraging months.
If you're still in the middle of it
If you're reading this from the hard part, I see you. I was there for a long time. You are not imagining it. There is no deadline on getting better. The small wins count, even when they feel too small to mention. And you deserve people in your corner who believe you.
The way out may not be visible from where you're standing. That doesn't mean it isn't there.
If you're ready to find your way here too
This is the work Dr. Fox and I do together through Constellation Care, our bespoke Doctor-Coach model. We walk alongside people navigating complex chronic illness, from finding the root of what's been driving it to building a life that feels like yours again.