Interesting Questions

A friend was giv­en the fol­low­ing ques­tions as “home­work” by her ther­a­pist. They seemed to be far more worth­while than any of those “memes” going around, so let’s just turn this into one, okay?

If one night while you were sleep­ing, sud­den­ly the prob­lem you are fac­ing was solved, what would be dif­fer­ent in your life when you awoke the next morn­ing? How would your life have changed? What dif­fer­ences would you notice in your rela­tion­ships, your work, your leisure, your finances?

We’d already be moved? Okay, okay. That’s an event more than a real problem.

1) I’d be healthy. In fact, every­body in our house­hold would be healthy in every sense of the word.
2) All our bills would be paid, and we’d have a six-month finan­cial cushion.
3) I’d be not just caught up, but ahead on all of my cours­es. There was a time when I could take the absolute max­i­mum num­ber of per­mit­ted cred­it hours each term, stay AHEAD of the dead­lines, and eas­i­ly main­tain a 4.0. I want that again.
4) Sam would be writ­ing full-time (that would be FAR eas­i­er with #2 done).
5) I would have a job that per­mits me to work from home as a tech­ni­cal writer. I’d be hap­py with an intern­ship of that sort while I’m in school.

No real relationship/work/leisure issues to be worked out. There are wish­es, but no problems.

What would peo­ple notice to be dif­fer­ent in your behav­ior or attitudes?

They’d notice that I’m doing a lot more—especially in the meat world instead of online. I’d like to think that I’d be more pos­i­tive in general.

In real­i­ty, what would be nec­es­sary for you to accom­plish this on your own? What are the first, sec­ond, and third steps to bring about this change on your own?

Hon­est­ly, I don’t know that I can accom­plish #1, peri­od. I have a net­work of chron­ic con­di­tions, none of which can be cured. I can con­tin­ue to improve what I eat and my liv­ing environment.

What I can do is con­tin­ue to research and pur­sue the best pos­si­bil­i­ties for alle­vi­at­ing the symp­toms or con­trol­ling those con­di­tions. I can con­tin­ue tak­ing my med­ica­tions and doing what­ev­er it takes to main­tain access to them. I can con­tin­ue increas­ing my phys­i­cal activ­i­ty level. 

I can con­tin­ue with the process of seek­ing SSA approval for dis­abil­i­ty so that I’ll have bet­ter access to health care—which also helps with #2, 3, and 4. I can con­tin­ue to be my own advo­cate with regard to get­ting the accom­mo­da­tions I need at school.

Name one goal you would like to work on this week to begin your jour­ney toward this change:

Dur­ing my bout of pain-induced insom­nia last night, I wrote a let­ter that I’m going to ask my rheuma­tol­o­gist to put on her let­ter­head and sign to go to the school dis­abil­i­ty office (she actu­al­ly likes that—I’m care­ful to stay fac­tu­al in the med­ical stuff, of course). I’m essen­tial­ly ask­ing for all that and a box of crack­ers, in hopes that they’ll give me more of what I need than they have at the moment.

So I’m going to get that to her this week and ask for her sig­na­ture, then get it to the school. I’m also going to ask for break­through pain meds (med­ical lin­go for flare meds) and some­thing I can take at night that lets me sleep, unlike the Ultram.


What are your answers to those questions?

Cur­rent Mood: 🙁sore
Cur­rent Music: The Franken Fac­tor on <a href=“http://www.airamericaradio.com/”>Air America</a>
Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
Posts created 4259

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Related Posts

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel.

Back To Top