Opportunity Cost

I love the theater, I love participating in the theater, and I was just in an awesome show with so many wonderful people and it was an amazing experience... but there's a price to pay. It's like that economic concept of "opportunity cost". I don't remember the proper definition, but the idea is that by choosing "A" you lose something, and is the loss worth the choice.

Hell. Yes. Every time I do a show I crash afterward, but this show had a few add ons. Last week I had bronchitis and had to sleep sitting up all week, then, instead of being able to sleep and crash from that over the weekend I had a kidney stone. We're talking trip to the ER, awake at 3 am, cat naps after the pain meds kick in kidney stone. Which turned out to be more than one kidney stone. Blergh.

And in theory, I might have been able to at least try to normalize things a little bit during the week, but y'all - THE CUBS WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!!!!! I was up late every night of the Series!

So... I won't be joining my friends for dinner and the theater today, but my friends are awesome, and they understand that I'm not ditching them, but that this is just how things go.

Honesty vs. Faking It

I wake up late - very late - almost every day. I rarely have time to put on make-up and my hair is almost always in a pony-tail or a clip. I regularly get comments on how tired I look. And while I am tired, let's face it, being told every day you look like the Anna on the left doesn't exactly feel good.

On the other hand, if I take the time to put on make-up and try to do something with my hair it's gratifying to be told I look nice, but when the compliment has the "you must be feeling better" coda attached to it, it's hard to not to say, "Nope. Not feeling better. Just sick of people commenting on my appearance."

Dense Fog Warning

Everyone Sometimes, Spoonies All the Time

Everyone has days when they feel like this of course, but when your spoons are ridiculously limited this is pretty much every day.

I don't have sources for these images, they're floating around Facebook, Tumblr, etc... if you know who made them let me know and I'll add the credits.

Better Enough has to be enough

Being out of spoons is like...

People with healthy bodies run out of fuel sometimes too of course, it's just that they can go to the gas station. Having fibromyalgia, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Lupus, MS, or other chronic illnesses means there is no gas station. Sleep doesn't refill the tank because it's generally not actually restful. Rest doesn't refill the tank because you're generally still in pain, anxious over missed work, chores, activities, etc... You wake up each day hoping against hope that some fuel will have magically appeared, and that it will be enough to get you through the day... and if there's enough to 'bank' at the end of the night it's like a real live miracle. But even when you're not on empty you never reach a full tank, and there always seems to be sludge gumming up the works on top it.

It's hard to say...

The last couple weeks have been rough, I've been in a flare, and my spoons have hovered just above nil. A coworker asked me today how I'm doing... this happens a lot, I have friendly coworkers who are compassionate and care about each other. The thing of it is, fibromyalgia and other chronic illnesses aren't like strep throat, a cold, the flu, or other standard illnesses. When you have the flu, you're "all better" once the virus is gone and you've rested up for a bit. With a chronic illness, you're never all better, better happens slowly and incrementally. I'm better than I was, but I hope I'll be better tomorrow, and more better the day after that, and the day after that.