A Harder Week

Perspective always changes how I feel about my abilities (or in-abilities).  When I have been feeling okay for a while, I start noticing all the things I want to do that I can’t do.  However, a week like this week where I have a really flared joint and can’t do much of anything reminds me of how capable I really am generally.  These harder weeks are few and far between and usually revolve around a flare of a newly involved joint in my arthritis.  This year has seen the onset of the right ankle/heel and my left big toe.  The reality is, most of the time I am feeling okay enough to do most anything I need to do around the house or socially (even if in a modified way).  Ironically, a harder week is just the reminder I needed about my overall abilities!

However, there are also down sides during this period.  I have to make some hard decisions about what I can and shouldn’t do while I am super flared.  Overdoing it while I am flared can quadruple (or more) the recovery time from the flare.  This weekend, we were supposed to go to a wedding of one of my college friends, but I had to decide that the potential harm to my body was too great to risk (it involved a very long drive and some walking).  When we have kids, the decisions will be hard as well.  I’ll have to cut back on my activity (knowing it is temporary) so that I can heal quicker.  This is when we will really have to pull in favors to ask for help.  Luckily, we are surrounded by amazing people.  Yesterday when I needed to go to PT, my friend Mo dropped her plans and drove me to seattle and hung around during my appt.  I am lucky to have people like that surrounding me. 

This is also a reminder of why I like to do what I can when I am healthy.  I might seem a little overzealous to Charles when I want to organize now for a baby a year away, but I think it goes with the necessary philosophy of using the strength/ability when I have it.  As much as I love relaxing, I sometimes get too much of it forced on me when I have flares.  The ability to clean is something that is harder for me to do when I want and it makes sense to seize the moment when it happens.  Again, this is something I’ll just apply to parenting and make the most out of the good moments so I feel confident taking my time to get healthy during the bad ones.  The more I think about it, although kids are going to up the ante, each of the temptations and problems are things we have already dealt with, just in a different way.  We already have a lot of physical and emotional tools to help us through it.