Delicate Balance

Right now I feel like everything is so delicately balanced. I'm tolerating my meds okay and showing slow but noticibile improvements. But I feel like any change could be a gust of wind knocking down this house of cards. And even without changing anything there's no way of knowing when the wind might blow stronger. My foundation is not solid. Meds are strategically placed, added, subtractedx to attempt to avoid side effects and prevent crashes. But they do not give me a solid foundation to build on.

Any thoughts I have about changing meds or trying to do without them altoegether always end with the fear that any change will (or at least could) be too much of a jolt to the delicate balance of things. One med causes nausea and low white cells (at least for me) so other meds are added to prevent that. Headaches require a migraine med at onset as well as a preventative med. And sleeping meds. And meds to keep my gut moving (as much as possible) and prevent bacterial overgrowth. Everything must be balanced and strategically planned to avoid interactions and minimize side effects.

And a lot of the time it feels like we're running a race, me and my doctors, eternally trying to catch up with the other runners and get a step or two ahead of the symptoms and diseases, but it always seems we play catch-up. We can anticipate things to a degree but more often than not it's a matter of trying to catch things early and keep up with new developments and symptoms. Reflux unexpectedly worsens significantly over time so meds are upped, one switched out for a stronger on, but even when one thing gets under control, something else is waiting right there to take its place.

A house of cards. Running a (seemingly) never-ending race. Maybe not the most positive or optimistic metaphors. But they are truthful. They are my life, my body, my thoughts, my day-to-day struggles. The house of cards will not necessarily come tumbling down around me - maybe I'll be lucky and a more solid foundation will form under me, allowing a sturdier house to be built. And the race will not necessarily always leave me one step behind the next thing, issue, problem, symptom, disease. Maybe those issues will diminish and those left will be less surprising and just a little slower so my doctors and I could keep pace with them. But everything is built upon "maybe"s and "what if"s - both the good and the bad. I'm tired of uncertainties, of not being able ot make plans, of never knowing what will happen next. Maybe I should look at it all differently. Maybe it's an opportunity for...something. But there I go with more "maybe"s.

Life is uncertain. You can plan all you want but in the end the plans could all be wiped away. Life is short - seize the day! But what do you do if you can't seize the day? What happens when one seized day results in a week spent in bed or a crash in health that pulls the rug out from under you and throws you into a tailspin? Should you seize the day anyway and suffer the consequences? My wonderful and wise beyond her years friend, Lexie, says, "If you can play, then play. If you need to rest, then rest." How did kids get to be so smart?

Yours,
Penguini