I was watching Utopia the other night and one of the participants mentioned that she only showers maybe 3 times a week whereas she used to bathe everyday in the outside world. And I thought to myself … Hey I only shower about 3 times a week! … but I’m not living in a social experiment. I have a chronic illness and for me that means that my to do list everyday can have only one or maybe two items on it. I can do a load of laundry or I can shower. I can cook a nice dinner or I can clean the bathroom. I can do my hair up nice and put on some mascara to look pretty for my boyfriend, or I can grind some coffee beans to make him a fresh pot of coffee. Most days I only get to choose one activity … so I have to prioritze and choose wisely.
When I use to live and play in the outside world I never saw showering as a luxury. My to do list may not have been as ambitious as the president of the PTA soccer mom… but I got things done. Multiple things. In one day. ..if not one afternoon. A shower was how I started my day … not how I defined my accomplishment for the morning.
There are many illnesses that impact our energy level, to the point of dysfunction (e.g. chronic pain, POTS, Lupus, Fibromyalgia and many others.) For me there is often a 40+ delta between my
resting pulse and when I am upright. My little
android app takes a quick finger pulse using the built in camera and is as accurate as any of my “expensive” heart rate devices. The example below is from my heart rate this morning as I was walking to the kitchen to heat up some rice packs in the microwave to ease the pain a bit in my shoulders and neck. As you can see from the time stamp in the upper right, my pulse goes from 78 to 124 in less than 60 seconds on my feet. It is not always that dramatic … or that fast … or that classic textbook for POTS. But it is the reason why on some days my todo list is very small, and even small things are very ambitious. In these moments I have to choose wisely because like it or not .. THIS IS my utopia.
And for the record … today I showered AND tossed some word salad for a blog, so you can bet my hair is a mess, I have no make up on and when my boyfriend wakes up he won’t smell coffee brewing in the kitchen. And still, he’ll find a reason to smile as he clears the sleep from his eyes and together we’ll make our way through another day in paradise.
And for the record … today I showered AND tossed some word salad for a blog, so you can bet my hair is a mess, I have no make up on and when my boyfriend wakes up he won’t smell coffee brewing in the kitchen. And still, he’ll find a reason to smile as he clears the sleep from his eyes and together we’ll make our way through another day in paradise.
