What The H*** Happened To Self-Care?

Excuse my affinity for *almost* swearing. But really, this just proves the following:

1. Graduate school and self-care don’t mix

2. Stress and chronic illness don’t mix (if you saw my face, you would think I was back on prednisone)

3. And finally, by this logic, graduate school and chronic illness don’t mix because there is too much stress and not enough self-care involved

So, what to do?

The bigger question is, why is it so darn easy to get back into bad habits?

Can anyone tell me?

I’m not talking about drinking or smoking or anything like that…

I’m talking about the fact that I’m not eating well or sleeping well and anyone who has been following my illness saga knows that not keeping up with these two (very important) things leads me (very quickly) to nowhere but down.

And when I hit bottom, it’s not a pretty picture.

I’ll admit that even before this chronic illness “stuff”, I’ve never been very good at self care in terms of knowing when school/work is too much and when to just let things go.

It’s easy for me to convince myself that I’ll rest later or simply wait until my body just totally shuts down on me. Then I’ll know it’s time to rest.

But clearly, this is not a good plan for anyone involved.

I spent most of this weekend feeling pretty lousy and sleeping. It hasn’t helped that the weather in Michigan has just plain sucked! 50/60-degree temperatures and raining doesn’t a happy arthritic (who also happens to have lupus) make.

I’ve been definitely having some episodes of brain fog and have had a “lupus” headache on and off for about a week. And surprise… the itching is back again! Could I be allergic to rain?

I’ve had more coffee, pop, and “Starbucks lunches” in the past two weeks than I think I have had in my entire life previously. I finally did laundry, though, which I had been avoiding for about three weeks, since I’ve been dreading the six trips up and down the stairs in order to do it. What does that tell you?

I guess the only way really to end this post is to say that it’s a good thing I have an appointment with my rheum coming up at the end of the month. Although while Doctor C can help with the medical stuff, the self-care stuff is all me…