Im at Lake Cumberland for 8 days and I always find myself getting caught up in some good books when I'm down here. For some reason I can sit on the porch swing and read for hours, sit on the boat and read for hours, lay on the cabin floor... and read for hours. For whatever reason, Lake Cumberland makes me want to read.
So I came down with Justin, Jacob and Megan and they left Thursday morning to go back to Ohio. My mom didn't get here until later that night so after I acclimated myself with all the news about the Supreme Court's healthcare ruling (foreshadowing for another blog entry... dun dun dun...) I got the iBook store and this was a recommended title for me.
At first I chuckled because I thought to myself: "how dare iPad call me a hype!" but after reading the synopsis I had to download it, and at $10.00 it was just the right price, and the right length.
The book itself was funny and witty yet really discussed how the hypochondriac mind works. It was an interesting read for me, being a person with what some would call "major health problems". As someone who has faced death many times I can tell you I was annoyed when thinking someone would just "want" to be sick. The worst part about it is that at some point in the hypes life, they really will be sick with something and no one will believe them because its essentially a "boy who cried wolf" scenario.
Ultimately these people are mentally ill and I am respectful of that, but it doesn't change the fact that for those of us who have suffered immense pain in our lives because of illness and tried, with every fiber of our being, to regain a semblance of health - that it is a hard pill to swallow.
I think its fair to say that should any of these people ever come down with something even a fraction as bad as what I've had to deal with, they would change their tune immediately. But I could be wrong, who knows?
The strangest things get me off on a tangent, and I loved this book and I highly recommend it but I still would trade health situations with any one of those "alleged ill" any day of the week.
I'll leave you with this quote from the book that had me in stitches.... (I'm going to do my best at remembering how it went)
"... Mr. or Miss. Hypochondriac, when you become 'sick' with one of your same four or five undiagnosable maladies for the seventy-fifth time this year and feel the need to tell everyone you come in contact about it to garner sympathy, please know this: I will catch your fictitious disease, mimic your fictitious symptoms, create a fictitious receipt for medicine to cure said fictitious disease and then subsequently demand, most non-fictitiously, to be reimbursed for my expenses. Because, ultimately, if I am going to have to listen about it, I might as well profit off of it."
LOLOLOLOL!!!!!
As always... stay healthy, and stay happy :-)
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Your book is four months past due...
I can't help but think how long its been since I've blogged last, and how I've been well overdue for an update. I have intended on sitting down and writing several updates, but as we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions...
I thought for a long time I wouldn't have anything to write about since the discontinuation of treatment all those months ago, yet here I am on June the sixth and can clearly say I was mistaken. I would go so far as to say not only do I have plenty of material to write about, I would have a surplus. The past few days I've been trying to figure out the best way to group the experiences together so it ultimately makes the most sense. A good share of my blog has been filled with speculation and forward looking statements about what my future holds, so now having this large window of open space to fill retrospectively it only makes sense to go in a chronological order.
When I last blogged and hit the last period in the last sentence of the last paragraph, I thought I wouldn't write another entry until I was forced back into treatment. My how things change...
Ending treatment was not an earth shattering moment for me, physically.
The emotional part, that is another story...
If you've been a reader of my entries, this one being the seventieth I might add, you know that my 'job' has been to "save my life". I micromanaged every facet of my treatment plan, doctors visits, chemotherapy schedules, insurance policy renewals etc. It would be fair to say that a large portion of my time was enveloped by illness related activities, so when the time came and treatment was discontinued... I didn't know what to do.
I, quite literally, had nothing to do but sit. It was in the middle of the winter and I had nothing to do but wake up, and go to sleep. I never had felt like a spectator at life more, than this past winter. So as the days went by, I slept longer and longer, became more and more of a night owl and fell into this pseudo-anti-social behavior that was definitely "not the look".
It only was at a visit to Dr. Nanda that she suggested that I might be depressed. Before I continue, I don't mean "oh god I'm going to jump off a bridge" depressed, more like "i don't know what to do with myself so the coping mechanism is to sleep" kind of depressed. I must clarify, in no way was I upset or sad etc. It was like a light went off above my head, because up until that point I never put it all together, but yet upon listening to her, it made perfect sense.
I finally realized that I had to be proactive in making myself feel better, because I had come way to far to fall into a reclusive hermit. Since I can't have a full time job for a variety of reasons which I'm sure I've talked about before, I decided the best thing for me to do, was to go back to Wright State University. In addition to school, I joined a gym as well and the combination of these two activities provided me with a new "job". The regularity of the schedule and the activities themselves transformed me almost overnight.
I started feeling better, my sleep schedule got back on track and I really felt from that point on - that things were going to be great for me.... And as of this writing, they are!
You know... I don't know what the future holds for me, I don't profess to either. But I do know this, I am going to do everything in my power to live the most normal and happy life I can, until i can't.
I can't tell you how awful it felt to just lay around the house and do nothing. It reminded me of the times when I was a prisoner in my own home because of my illness. I refused to succumb to it then, and I refused to let it take me down this most recent time. Who would want to be sick and spend days just laying in bed always coming down with an ailment that prevented them from living their life, or worse, sleep their life away? I refused to be lumped into some category like that.
In any event...
Lots more entries will be on the way... The first 6 months of 2012 have been great so far, and I need to catch up with documenting them!
Stay tuned!
I thought for a long time I wouldn't have anything to write about since the discontinuation of treatment all those months ago, yet here I am on June the sixth and can clearly say I was mistaken. I would go so far as to say not only do I have plenty of material to write about, I would have a surplus. The past few days I've been trying to figure out the best way to group the experiences together so it ultimately makes the most sense. A good share of my blog has been filled with speculation and forward looking statements about what my future holds, so now having this large window of open space to fill retrospectively it only makes sense to go in a chronological order.
When I last blogged and hit the last period in the last sentence of the last paragraph, I thought I wouldn't write another entry until I was forced back into treatment. My how things change...
Ending treatment was not an earth shattering moment for me, physically.
The emotional part, that is another story...
If you've been a reader of my entries, this one being the seventieth I might add, you know that my 'job' has been to "save my life". I micromanaged every facet of my treatment plan, doctors visits, chemotherapy schedules, insurance policy renewals etc. It would be fair to say that a large portion of my time was enveloped by illness related activities, so when the time came and treatment was discontinued... I didn't know what to do.
I, quite literally, had nothing to do but sit. It was in the middle of the winter and I had nothing to do but wake up, and go to sleep. I never had felt like a spectator at life more, than this past winter. So as the days went by, I slept longer and longer, became more and more of a night owl and fell into this pseudo-anti-social behavior that was definitely "not the look".
It only was at a visit to Dr. Nanda that she suggested that I might be depressed. Before I continue, I don't mean "oh god I'm going to jump off a bridge" depressed, more like "i don't know what to do with myself so the coping mechanism is to sleep" kind of depressed. I must clarify, in no way was I upset or sad etc. It was like a light went off above my head, because up until that point I never put it all together, but yet upon listening to her, it made perfect sense.
I finally realized that I had to be proactive in making myself feel better, because I had come way to far to fall into a reclusive hermit. Since I can't have a full time job for a variety of reasons which I'm sure I've talked about before, I decided the best thing for me to do, was to go back to Wright State University. In addition to school, I joined a gym as well and the combination of these two activities provided me with a new "job". The regularity of the schedule and the activities themselves transformed me almost overnight.
I started feeling better, my sleep schedule got back on track and I really felt from that point on - that things were going to be great for me.... And as of this writing, they are!
You know... I don't know what the future holds for me, I don't profess to either. But I do know this, I am going to do everything in my power to live the most normal and happy life I can, until i can't.
I can't tell you how awful it felt to just lay around the house and do nothing. It reminded me of the times when I was a prisoner in my own home because of my illness. I refused to succumb to it then, and I refused to let it take me down this most recent time. Who would want to be sick and spend days just laying in bed always coming down with an ailment that prevented them from living their life, or worse, sleep their life away? I refused to be lumped into some category like that.
In any event...
Lots more entries will be on the way... The first 6 months of 2012 have been great so far, and I need to catch up with documenting them!
Stay tuned!
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