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?