Taking a real day off

December 27, 2017

There’s this interesting thing that happens when you have daily symptoms.

Back when I worked, I would have these things called “days off.” These were days that I didn’t work. Sometimes I would hang out with friends. Sometimes I would do something fun on my own. Sometimes I would use the time to clean the apartment or run errands. Generally one day each weekend would be a day to just hang out and relax: no errands, no chores. It was great!

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Now that I’m too sick to work, I don’t go to a job, so every day is supposedly a “day off.” The thing is, I still need to take care of my health, run errands, clean the apartment, and all that other stuff. That became my job. And I try to do a little work to earn some money here and there. That’s my job, too.

The big difference is, there are no set hours. And I never know which days I’ll feel up to running errands or earning some money or any of that other stuff. So that means I now have 2 kinds of days:

  • Days that I feel like crap.
  • Days that I try to be “productive” and get stuff done.

Here’s the problem: that means I never take a “day off.” Every day is either a day to feel sick and do nothing by try to take care of my health, or a day to wash dishes, cook meals, go grocery shopping, do some work that earns money, or see a doctor. Sometimes those days might include seeing friends, which is awesome. I love hanging out with friends! The problem is, in my current state, hanging out with a friend is a fun day, but not the kind of “day off” that I really need to rest up.

I don’t rest up, because any time I feel halfway decent, I feel like I have to take advantage of that by doing as much stuff as possible (without overdoing it, of course.)

I’ve been feeling burned out lately. I know I’ve been doing too much, but when I try to take a “day off,” I fail. I end up doing laundry or trying to work. Half the time, I end up wasting time by scrolling through Facebook or something else unhelpful. Then I don’t get stuff done OR get any rest. It’s just not working.

Until this week.

This is an odd week. You see, just about everyone takes off Christmas from work. A lot of folks take off the entire week from their jobs. Some stay home and others visit family. But for me, Christmas isn’t a holiday. A couple weeks ago I did a small Chanukah lunch celebration with my family, and that was it. I baked cookies for it. Very simple.

And then this week, the world around me got quiet. The Jews were going out for Chinese food and movies (I did go out for Chinese food on Christmas Eve, actually,) the Christians were celebrating Christmas, and just about everyone else seemed to be busy with something family-related.

As I was setting up my to-do list for the week, like I always do, something occurred to me: there was almost nothing on that list that had to happen this week. Sure, it would be nice to get that stuff done, but the list never ends, and those things can happen next week instead. So what if I didn’t do them? What then?

As the light bulb went off over my head cartoon-style, I felt relaxed. It could all wait!

I have been dog sitting since the week before Christmas. (That’s him in the photo.) I have watched this guy a couple times in the past, but having him for a week and a half was different. I fell in love. I am so sad that he’s going home in a few hours! It turns out, he was the perfect companion this week.

Normally Christmas is a lonely day for me. I spend a lot of time alone, but it feels different when everyone I know is busy doing fun things and I’m not. But not this year!

This year, Christmas was the day that I FINALLY took a day off. I started it off wrong. I tried to “get stuff done.” I found myself scrolling through Facebook to procrastinate. Then I realized that it was the perfect day to just rest. Not because I was too sick to get off the couch, but because I just needed the rest.

I settled on the couch. I had my knitting in my lap and an adorable pup curled up against my leg. I watched hours of tv. I ate leftovers (no cooking!) I let the dishes sit. It was the first time in ages that I felt up to washing dishes, but let them sit anyway. How decadent!

I left the apartment only to walk the dog. Thankfully, he was happy to stay in most of the day. We snuggled and played. I watched more tv. I did more knitting.

And by the end of the day, I felt relaxed in a way that I haven’t in a long time.

Finally.

My challenge now will be to do this more than once a year in 2018. In fact, my goal is to do it to a small extent once a week. That will be one day a week that I do something fun just for me. No stress. No to do list. If I feel up to going out and taking a walk, that’s ok. But at least once every other month I will have a day at home to rest and relax and not do anything more than knit, read, and watch tv. That’s my goal.

I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this. I’ve spoken to friends with chronic illness who struggle in the same way: when they feel good, they feel an obligation to do as much as they can. And that means never having a “day off” to just do their own thing. I feel like there must be a solution out there for this problem, but I have no idea what it is.

So my questions to you are, do you ever feel this way? Have you found a way to take regular days off that works for you? And if so, what is it? Please share it in the comments because I would love to learn from you!

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Posted by chronicrants

My nightmare came true

December 19, 2017

I have had the dream more times than I can count. I’m sitting at a table, talking and laughing with the people there. The people vary, but it’s always some combination of my family and friends. Sometimes my grandparents are there, which is nice, since they are no longer with us and I miss them.

As everyone laughs over the meal, food is passed around. Someone hands me a piece of bread or a cracker, and I eat it. I immediately realize what I just did – I ate gluten! I’m horrified. Then I wake up in a panic.

It takes some times for my racing heart to slow down, to remember that it was only a bad dream, that I did really eat gluten.

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These kinds of nightmares make sense. After all, I spend a lot of my life stressing out over food, worrying that I might accidentally eat something that will make me very sick, and knowing it’s easy to miss that thing. Still, it’s not like I would eat a cracker!

I went gluten free 6 years ago. At least, I thought I did. That’s when I stopped eating obvious gluten. It took years to eliminate the final traces of it from my life. Gluten hides everywhere, it seems, and I had never thought it check lemon juice, chapstick, cutting boards, or hand lotion. I certainly hadn’t thought about what my date had had to eat or drink before I kissed them, but it turns out, that is enough exposure to get me sick, too. But eventually, I figured those out.

Finally, thankfully, gluten was gone. And I felt so much better!

Then in September, I got sick. Really sick. I’ll save you the gory details, since they aren’t relevant. My naturopath had told me that, thanks to my lack of gluten exposure, it could take my body up to 48 hours to react. When I first got sick, I couldn’t figure it out – I had only eaten my own cooking all day. Then I remembered what my naturopath said, so I looked at the calendar. And I knew.

2 days earlier, I had eaten dinner in the house of someone I trusted to make a gluten free meal. We had discussed every ingredient, so I knew I would be fine. There was only 1 thing to avoid: the bread. Everyone careful, even passing the bread back and forth on the other side of the table, so crumbs wouldn’t land on my plate.

Later, I was helping to clear the table between dinner and dessert. Passing back to the dining room, I grabbed some grapes off the plate that had been put out. After I swallowed, someone mentioned that the little kid in attendance had taken a huge handful of grapes, realized it was too many, and put some back. The little kid who had been eating bread with his hands. Yikes! But when I felt fine that day I forgot all about it. I remembered only 2 days later.

I was really sick for 3 or 4 days, and it was a full 2 weeks before I could eat normally again. Just from that tiny bit of exposure, probably no more than a crumb.

And that’s what makes this week’s living nightmare so horrible.

There I was, enjoying a meal at the same home, knowing everything was fine. I had checked each ingredient. The soup was great. So was the kugel. I was enjoying the salad. She had made a salad bar, putting out each vegetable in its own bowl, along with chopped up eggs, sliced turkey, and more, so we could take whatever we wanted. I ate one rolled up piece of sliced turkey, and the second I swallowed, it hit me.

“Is this gluten free?”
“Of course it is, it’s turkey.”

And I knew. I spent some time crying, before finally calming down enough to come back. But I was no longer laughing and talking with the group. I was thinking about how I would handle this week.

She had bought the turkey at the supermarket’s deli counter. Maybe it was gluten free, maybe not. There’s no way to know. I know from my own research that most deli counter turkey is not gluten free, but maybe she bought one of the few that are? Still, she didn’t know to have the deli worker clean the machine first, to avoid contamination.

This was the one home where I always felt safe eating, and even there, she wasn’t careful enough. Can I never eat outside of my own home again? It’s so frustrating!

But that’s a long term problem for another day. In the meantime, there’s the question of whether or not I got glutened. There’s nothing to do but wait. Since it took 2 days for symptoms to appear last time, I’m in limbo. I haven’t gotten sick yet, but that doesn’t mean I won’t.

So I did the only thing I could think to do: I stopped eating. For the past 2 days, I have consumed only a few pieces of gluten free bread with some coconut oil, a little plain white rice, apple juice, and water. That’s it. Because not eating much for 2 days won’t kill me, but if I was glutened, and I get sick, I will be VERY glad I didn’t eat much. At least, that’s what I’m guessing.

The truth is, I don’t know. Because, despite the nightmares, this has never happened before. In 6 years, this is the first time I have had any idea I might have been glutened before I experienced any symptoms.

The psychological impact is rough. Especially because all I can do now is wait. By tomorrow I will know. My nightmare has already come true. Now I am waiting to see how bad it will be.

6 Comments | Expectations, Frustration, Gastrointestinal, Pain, Rants | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants

Struggling to endure

December 6, 2017

Last week was a really good week. And that made Sunday so much harder to deal with.

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First I took a long walk around beautiful Walden Pond (and took this photo), stopping a bunch of times to admire the view. It was unseasonably warm, and sitting down to watch the water was lovely. I was able to clear my head and figure some things out.

I made plans. I worked through ideas that had been weighing on me. I made some tough decisions about my finances and my health. By the end, I was super excited to get started! I walked about 2 miles total and felt ok afterwards. I rested that evening, but that was it.

A few days later my mom came to visit. After a lovely lunch, we took a walk in a wooded area. The sign said it was a 1 mile loop, and that seemed ok to us. Well, I don’t know what went wrong, but the path never looped. We eventually made it back to the car, but we walked about 4 miles. I was surprised I felt so good afterwards. Tired, but good. Hmm. Maybe this was a new trend?

The next day I hung out with friends and had a wonderful time. I got home later than I expected and was too tired to go out to a friend’s house that night like I had planned. Too bad. I really wanted to go, but I knew that resting was the right move.

It had been such a fabulous week. I exercised, got fresh air, got clear on a new mindset, spent time with friends.

And then it all changed. I spent all day Sunday feeling run down. I never left my apartment. I cancelled all of my plans for the day. This sucks, but it isn’t unheard of. And I did a lot this week, so I couldn’t complain, right? I trudged through the day, mostly reading a novel and wishing I could do more.

That would have been ok. It would have been disappointing but totally fine. If only that was it.

Sunday night I got really nauseated. Sometimes I know what causes the nausea, but usually I don’t. I tried Pepto Bismol, which usually helps, but this time it didn’t. I tried medical marijuana, which usually helps, but this time it didn’t. The nausea was really bad. My pulse was racing (114 while I was still sitting) and I felt bad all over.

Over the years, nausea has because an emotional trigger for me. I don’t know why it has, when the pain hasn’t, but it just has. So as usual, I started thinking about how horrible this is, and when will it end, and why won’t it ever go away. Yes, I have these episodes a lot less often now that I’m off gluten, corn, and a couple others triggers.

But why does it still happen? Was it something I ate? Something I did? A delayed reaction to the 4 mile walk 2 days before? How will I handle another 50+ years of this? Why did I bother to make plans? Obviously it was stupid to think I could ever get off of benefits and support myself. I should just stop trying. Then I started thinking about how it might be easier to just kill myself and end this. Except that would be very upsetting to my family and friends. I couldn’t do that to them.

I started having those thoughts a few years ago. I know it’s temporary. I’m not too worried, because I only have them when I’m curled in a ball on the floor, too nauseated to do more than stagger to the toilet occasionally. I have never gotten to the point of really wanting to kill myself but even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to until the worst of it had passed, and I never think about wanting to die except when I’m in the worst of it.

So all these thoughts were floating around in my head, and then something strange happened: I started to cry. And cry. And cry. Before I knew it, I was sobbing. Big, ugly sobs. I couldn’t stop crying. I thought I should call someone. (If you’re new to this blog, I live alone.) I ran through a mental list of awesome people in my life, and finally decided to call a friend who lives in my apartment complex. I asked him to come right over and he did. I didn’t explain, but he must have heard it in my voice, because he showed up with his dog, saying the dog was for therapy.

The dog, of course, immediately started to nuzzle me and lick me. He’s that kind of dog. Very sweet. But what I really needed was a hug and some understanding, and I got that.

We sat on the floor while I cried and talked. I always sit on the floor during these spells – for some reason, it just works for me. I cried myself out and we just sat there for a while. Then for some reason, I started crying again. Still, having someone there was extremely comforting.

Eventually I wore myself out. My friend and his dog left (he mentioned leaving the dog, but I was too weak to care for him.) I fell asleep on the couch to an old movie that I often watch when I don’t feel well. I woke up less than an hour later and found the nausea had subsided enough that I could drink a little water. Lots of diarrhea and lots of crying can really dehydrate a person. Then I stumbled to bed. I slept fitfully, but got through the night.

Monday was a bust. I cancelled plans and ate almost nothing. But it didn’t get that bad again. Tuesday was better, and I even left the apartment. And today is better still (though it’s after noon and I’m still in my pajamas, so it’s not fantastic – I try to get dressed by noon every day when I can.)

So why am I sharing this? I’m sharing it for a few reasons. For one, amongst my friends with chronic illness, I’m often seen as the strong one. Strangers online (both through this anonymous blog and under my real name) say that I’m a role model. I have my shit together. I’ve got a good handle on all of this. I work my butt off to take care of my health, research new treatments, find the best doctors and practitioners. That’s all true. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have really bad times, too. I think we all need to remember that the people who seem to be great probably have bad times behind closed doors where we can’t see them. It’s important not to idealize people, but to see them as they are.

It’s a reminder that we all have our struggles. We struggle, and then hopefully we have better days, too. We don’t need to assume someone is perfect in order to have them as a role model.

I’m not perfect. I’m still continuing to fight every day for the best health possible. I want to believe that one day those episodes will end. Until then, I will just keep on trying. Because what else can I do?

4 Comments | Expectations, Fatigue, Frustration, Gastrointestinal, Healthcare, Isolation, Limitations, Pain, Rants, Relationships: Family & Friends & Dating & Sex, Support, Symptoms, Unpredictable | Permalink
Posted by chronicrants