Perseverance was a word I was thinking about the other day. I thought about the ways I have perserved thru the many aspects of my illness. I have gone from being afraid of pain, to being able to accept it being a part of my life. If I don’t wake up in pain I wonder where it is. For those of you living with chronic pain, or another chronic illness you understand exactly what I mean. I have my days where I don’t know how I will make it through the day. The longer the flare last the more I wonder if my “normal” strength will return. Someday, it’s extremely hard to preserve and other days it’s easier to do. I’ve had to learn to say the serenity prayer to myself and accept things a day at a time.

Christopher Reeve is someone that I admire- God Bless Him. He did so much for the disabled and he was a quadriplegic. He did not let his disability hold him back. He kept plugging away, His wife a great woman who kept plugging away. Both of these people have preserved away while dealing with to different things- One as a person living with chronic illness and another whom was the spouse of a person with chronic illness.

In life, we have to find our own way to persevere. For the baby it may be just to roll over, for the college student it may be to finish college passing all there classes and for an elderly person it is to walk across the floor without breaking a bone.

How do you persevere in your life?

Each week I’m going to pick a word to describe how I deal with living with chronic illness- Make suggestions of a word.

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My dog mason enjoys going out when I water. He is too funny because I can leave him inside and he gives me the old puppy dog eyes, please Mom can I go outside. Being a poodle he’s a barker so I sprayed him in the butt with the hose so he would shut up. Needless to say he was quiet the rest of the time we were outside.

My daughter is enjoying her summer playing her play station and hanging out with her friends. She turned in an application to help a local daycare center. She has no idea what she’s in for, being an only child. I think its important kids volunteer to help the community, good morals makes for a good child. So, often kids think that everything should be given to them, which doesn’t happen in our household. She earns her allowance fair and square and has learned the importance of money a long time ago.

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Dialog

Hello
Hello, Is the person who watches the cable there?
No, she’s busy itching for fleas?
When would be a better time to call?
When she’s finished itching for fleas

<silence>

Thank you good bye

Well, it was very hard for me to keep a straight face during this call. My dog Darcy watches TV really, so it wasn’t totally untrue. Lots of laughs. I’m sure the woman thought I was nuts, but that’s okay. Don’t they say humor is good for the soul? Next time I’m going to ask what there commission is for selling the phone service? He He

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This is a picture of where the flood waters were rising close to my home. The flood waters were so close that they almost had to turn off the power because the generators are underground.

This picture is where there is at least a 10 foot drop off.

Picture of a park that is flooded on a regular basis. The building is a restroom. Sometimes people are seen walking in the water. There are light posts in this park that the water rises almost to the top of the posts.

Flood waters rising towards someones home, usually there is no water here.

I’ve had my fair share of tornado warnings, flooding, thunderstorms, close call fires and hail. Nothing like fire, ice, and water all in the span of 2 weeks. Thankfully the water receded the next day or we would have been without power.

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Yesterday, the home next to us burnt almost down and almost caught our home on fire as well. The tree in-between was on fire. We received a phone call to hurry up and get home because of our dogs: Darcy and Mason. I am very thankful to have my home and my pets today. It makes you appreciate the small things. The home is a total loss, but no one was hurt or killed so that’s the important thing. Time will tell what the cause of the fire was.

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 Some people can accept that we are born to die and there are others who can not accept this. I’ve seen friendships broken because one friend can’t accept the view of the other person. I’ve seen the consequences of one action have an acceptance of one person and a non-acceptance of another person.

When dealing with a chronic illness, there are many things we must chose to accept, or not accept. There are those who totally accept things, and those who don’t accept things at all. Then there are the people who act like they accept things, but really don’t accept things. I’ve had to learn to respect other peoples views, may not be the same as mine.

My Aunt chooses not to talk about having lupus. I have to accept that my Aunt chooses not to talk about the lupus. I am the opposite because I talk freely about having lupus. It does not make either of our choices wrong or right. It just means each of us must accept each others views. One of the ways I deal with the lupus is by doing this blog.

Everything in life holds a whole lot of acceptance. Today’s acceptance may not be the same tomorrow. Things that are accepted today, may not be accepted tomorrow. There are many examples of things that were not accepted today, but will be accepted tomorrow or even ten years from today.

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Planting a garden can be a way to save on your grocery bill. In my area some stores are charging three dollars a pepper. It’s ridiculous when one package costs less then $2.00 for a whole pack of seeds. I will be glad to see the green/purple peppers, as they are one of my favorite fruits. Yes, I was shocked to find out that green peppers where called fruit on the seed pack. I plan on freezing the green peppers and tomatoes, if they last that long. Last year, I planted my seeds in plastic pots and they turned out okay, but I saw someone receive great results from these pots. I was given these great big wooden barrels and they even came with the soil in them. I look forward to updating my blog as my new fruit grows.

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The weather has been crazy between the earthquake tremors and the temperatures falling back out. I will be glad when it stays at one temperature. We’ve been walking/wheeling mason my Maltese Poodle, to reduce his weight. The vet says he needs to loose some weight. It’s a struggle to take some of his weight off. He loves to eat. My daughter’s been walking him a couple times a day. We have to start out slow with him because of arthritis in his hips from a birthing injury or the mother attacking him. He was near dead when we bought him from a pet shop. We saved his life. Mason loves to bark, so were trying to curve the barking. He is a high strung half poodle. Darcy my other dog is doing well, she’s a high strung Shih Tzu, but she doesn’t bark as much.

I think this week has been pretty productive. It may be just me, but I think removing those energy saving bulbs has helped. I do still have the pain from living with the lupus and fibromylagia, but I am feeling a bit better.

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While writing this it got me to thinking, where do I rank on the complainer score sheet? Yeah, it’s hard not to complain when life seems to suck when you’re in a lupus flare, and the pain never seems to end. You wake up and if its not one thing hurting it’s another new symptom.

I’m challenging myself not to complain as much about living with lupus and pain, even if it does suck. After all everyone one around me knows I have lupus. It’s not like you can’t figure out when I’m in pain. I’m not very good at hiding it, although I have tried to hide it. I won’t say that I will not complain about living with lupus by no means.

Here’s my thinking, if I don’t complain as much, maybe I won’t be constantly reminded of how much I hate lupus. Yeah, it’s given me some positives, but the negative ones outweigh the positive ones. (that’s another post-tba)

So I’m going to ask you to try this test:

Find yourself a pen and paper and write down all your complaints for the day.
Look at each one and think how you could possibly reduce the amount of complaining you do in a day. Is the complaint something you could fix? Is the complaint something you have been avoiding doing? (get it done, so you can check it off your list).

So, the next time you complain about something find something that you can compliment. You see the compliment is good for the receiver and for the giver. You both should come out feeling O’ so good.

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