Chronic Diva

I have never been one to procrastinate. Never. I am the kind of girl who always got her assignment done in school early. I plan for things. I plan for research and I have time-tables. I like to know how long it will take for me to research before I sit down to write so I have everything in order. I make menus for the week and sometimes for the entire month if there is a surgery that I have to plan for. The point here: I am a planner, not a procrastinator and what chronic illness sometimes creates is a huge procrastinator. Here are some reasons why.

Showers: My Nemesis

Once upon a time, when my world was lovely, I could luxuriate in the bathtub or a long shower. I loved turning up the music sometimes, singing my favourite songs and just relieving some stress. There’s none of that now. Besides the fact that the simple act of taking a shower exhausts me, it’s compounded by the water hurting my skin and making me itch violently and for unexplained reasons. It could be a combination of the fibromyalgia’s allodynia that makes my skin sensitive and susceptible to pain, and my own pressure and cholinergic urticaria that causes unexplained hives when the water beats down on my skin. Whatever the reason might be, showers have now become my least favourite activity and one which I put off because it makes me feel so badly. I hate the way the procrastination makes me feel too: dirty. Which usually sets off my particular brand of OCD, which then causes a spike in my anxiety. I hate that feeling. I lament those days when I could sit in the bathtub for an hour and turn into a prune. Even if the itchies were to go away there’d still be the exhaustion that comes after the shower. The deep exhaustion that leaves me so tired I need to go sit down for a while before attempting to dry my hair. And I dry my hair sitting down! I feel like I’m 100 years old and I’m only 45.

Blog Posts: On Hold!

I love writing. My perfect world consists of a cabin, and writing, drinking hot tea and not much else. But with chronic illness and chronic pain, there are days I procrastinate writing or weeks where it gets put on hold because I am feeling so badly or where I’ve gotten so little sleep that I know stringing two sentences together is going to be a challenge. It bothers me when I procrastinate. Even when the procrastination is not really procrastination but time off, for medical reasons. It makes me feel like I can’t even do one thing, like a “normal” person. And I have to sit down with myself and tell myself sternly but gently, that no, I’m not “normal” but who is? We all have things going on with ourselves that present us with challenges. The art of living is learning how to work with these challenges so that we can live our lives the most abundant way we can. And if that means My work schedule is one week on, one week off, or three days on two days off or however it may look and however unconventional that maybe? So be it. As long as I roll out articles that my readers are happy with, I will keep on doing it because it makes me happy and gives me purpose.

Food is Divine: Unless You’re Gut is Fuc**ed

I love to cook. I love to bake. Bread was once my best friend. Pastries my lover. The holidays had me salivating and planning for months. What to cook? What to bake? Cookies were sent to relatives and friends for gifts. Now, where I once saw food in a vibrant palette of colour, it is grey. I procrastinate with eating and cooking and making my weekly menu for meals. It is no longer with the same enthusiasm that I sit down to eat with the family or go to eat with my husband, and the holidays have grown dismal and lack the flavour I was once accustomed to. This is all because of my gut issue, partly related to Crohn’s and partly to other contributing gut issues like non-Celiac Gluten Intolerance that have made my eating experience something I don’t know what to do with. Cooking for my family was an extension of my love for them and I don’t know how to do that anymore. Eating the food cooked is no longer an enjoyment. I feel like chronic illness has stripped away from me something dear, that made me who I am.

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream: Unless You’re in Pain

Ah, to sleep. This has been something that has eluded me since I was a youngster. Being the INFJ I am, I can remember reading my mother’s Reader’s Digest, and catching this article about how keeping your room cool, having lavender on your pillow and your bed at the opposite end of the open window so you could feel the breeze would help you sleep better at night. I have been struggling with insomnia for a long time. 35 years to be exact, though these days my insomnia is the result of pain and I procrastinate for bed because I most of the time I lie there in pain counting exploding sheep. They explode because in the midst of my trying to peacefully try and breathe through the pain, I will suddenly get a lightning bolt down my leg and there will go the peace and the sheep with it. Inevitably, I avoid the whole situation by not sleeping. But, not sleeping isn’t exactly great coping skills for someone with chronic illness or someone with insomnia. You need sleep but when you are in pain and you have tried everything, or think you have and haven’t gotten adequate results, it can be more than frustrating. That’s when you just avoid everything. Goodbye sleep. It was good knowing you.

All of this is part tongue-in-cheek but truly heartfelt. Your life changes when you are faced with chronic illness and there may be many reasons you procrastinate. It’s not just an unwillingness to do something. I feel a lot of times that we simply aren’t understood. That people haven’t tried to see things from our perspective or taken the time to think about why we might be the way we are. It’s a very rough road we’re on. One that unless you’ve travelled it, it’s unlikely you will ever truly understand it. But it shouldn’t mean that you can’t try and empathise a little. Maybe something cheeky, silly but still real, will help.