Conflicting Realities

 Communitas Collective, Crohn's Disease, General updates, Writing  No Responses »
Jul 292010
 

butterflyThis is a copy of my latest post on the Communitas Collective blog.

For the last few months my Crohn’s Disease has been a little better. That’s a reality I’m very happy about. A couple of weeks ago my Crohn’s Doctor did an internal exam. She only had time to make brief comments right afterwards, which were that the worst affected places didn’t look significantly improved from a year ago.

That was another reality and it conflicted with the first reality in a rather discouraging way. I had to work hard to hold onto the first reality, that I definitely have been feeling better, in order not to get discouraged.

My attitude, even though it’s all in my head, is also a reality. It affects my physical realities since stress is thought to affect Crohn’s and feeling discouraged or worrying about the illness is stressful. Also, I make more effort to exercise and eat healthily when I’m not discouraged, two things I believe might help to some extent.

In my follow-up visit after her vacation I’ll have more time to talk with my doctor. I think some of the places which weren’t the very worst have improved, which would make her observations less in conflict with how I’ve been feeling. I did ask her about that in the brief talk and she said it was possible, but she was more focused on what wasn’t better. I understand why but for the sake of my attitude, which affects so much else, I need to keep the reality of ‘what isn’t better’ in perspective and not let it push out all the other realities of my life.

 Posted by Helen at 2:44 pm  Tagged with:

Summer mornings

 Communitas Collective, Writing  No Responses »
Jul 072010
 

This is a copy of my latest post on the Communitas Collective blog.

On summer mornings I like to go out early. It’s warm but not hot and it’s quiet. I like to see the morning sun shining through the trees and across the grass of the parks near my house. And enjoy the peacefulness before the busyness of the day gets underway.

I was always a morning person. But in the last few years since developing Crohn’s I’ve often not felt well enough to do much of anything first thing in the morning. In recent months I’ve been a little better and this happily has given me my mornings back.

I started exercising in the mornings again, at least a little, most days. Exercise isn’t exactly at the top of my ‘fun things to do’ list but I believe it’s so good for me I try to be disciplined about doing some regularly. I’m very happy when it gets warm enough that it’s pleasant to exercise outside, early in my day.

We’re going to Ireland next month with my extended family and I hope that will be a wonderful trip. But overall I think it’s the smaller things which make the most difference to how I feel about my life. The things I can do every day (at least at this time of year), like going outside on summer mornings.

 Posted by Helen at 9:18 am  Tagged with:
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