Monday, July 27, 2009

Forty-two Ways in Forty Two Days- Productivity

It has been a good morning. By 6, I had taken Miss Dog for her walk, prepped and started a beef stew for dinner and cut my fruit for lunch and was dressed and ready for work. I feel like I have accomplished a lot today and the day hasn't even started yet. The amazing thing is- both of my ankles look like balloons, my hands are swollen and yet the only pain I am feeling is in my back. I braced up my right ankle last night because it was the more swollen of the two and it is not so sore this morning.

There are two things that you learn very quickly about living with RA. The first is that every day- even every hour- is a crapshoot. I could feel great today and then be in mass amounts of pain tomorrow. I could be having a great day and my hip pops and instantly my back goes into spasm. You just never know. That leads to the second thing that you learn- taking advantage of the good times.

When I am feeling good- I become as productive as I possibly can. I precook meals, I get some housework done, I get as much as possible done at work to get ahead. Those times allow me to reaffirm that I am LIVING with this *stupid* disease not suffering from it. I need these times to balance out the bad days. Thankfully- I still have more good days than bad and so the scales lean heavily toward the good days. Being productive makes me feel vital and useful and "normal". I am so grateful to have so many of those days and even when the ratio starts to tip in the other direction- I can still hang on to those days and keep that in the forefront of my mind.

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