Self esteem is something we learn about during those "special" changes when we were younger. Moms and dads all over the world build up their children to believe they are amazing and can do no wrong. As they should! It builds a great sense of self as you grow older and morph into this adult out in the real world. This self esteem allows you to flourish in new scenarios, have confidence in yourself and truly is tool that you collect along the way in life.
As someone with an auto immune disease this self esteem becomes very important to you as a person. You feel like your insides are wilting but you look perfect form the outside. It really can mess with your noggin and the noggin of your loved ones. Yes, she says it is hard to walk but those rosy cheeks make her look raring to go! So many of us wish those rosy cheeks were from excess energy trying to escape from our pores BUT noooooooooooooooo, it has more to do with the disease and what you are ingesting to help those insides catch up with your outsides.
With Lupus and the methotrexate combination I have brought an over active immune system down below the normal range. Basically it is the same as if you had no immune system at all. You start with this overactive immune system that thinks your good bits are bad and stages an all out war to clear your body of what it thinks are "bad" bits. So, you then ingest medication that drops that immune system and weakens it so that it is tooooooo tired to fight. The double edge sword to this is that your body stops attaching itself but is to weak to even fight off normal bad goop that tends to fester in all of us. What you are left with is a shell that is perfect for bacteria and viruses to make a home in. All of us who deal with this understands there is this very fine line and normally it is leaning more towards one way or the other and the basic science of balancing your immune system is almost impossible.
I feel as if this fine line has been so blurry over the last year and I find my immune system tends to go one way or the other and never can balance itself just right. I developed strep throat this past October and it seems that this set off a snowball of issues that we have been treating with antibiotics, steroids and basically anything the doctor can throw at it. It is frustrating, heart breaking and just plain hard most of the time. The belief that medicine is good for and is there to help you changes and eventually your body just has enough and gives up. My body has been at the giving up stage for some time. I myself have not given up......my spirit and outlook continues to be positive but that faith in medicine and doctors have been shaken. This is where that self esteem comes into the picture, especially for me. The doctors really are doing their best and you have to surrender complete faith in their decisions to get you form point A to point B. You take the medicine, it may not be pretty and you ask questions but you have to be very sure about who you are to deal with some of the changes you encounter along the way.
The issue I am currently having is prednisone. If you have ever been on steroids for a long period of time and are reading this you are automatically shaking your head and you don't even know it!!!!! It is such a potent drug and that is the GOOD thing about it. It seems to shock your system and shape it right up. There is less pain, the breathing is not as labored and whatever goop is living in your nose, well, prednisone is the perfect eviction notice! The bad part:s no sleeping, loss or gain in appetite, taking on water, moodiness, moon face and an overall feeling that your wobbly bits are getting even more wobbly! I know, vanity is horrible but you and I both know it is always there. You can literally see the change over night. My face is very round right now and believe me, those bits wobble even more at this point in time! I look in the mirror and think to myself who is that and what did they do with my body???? It is the invasion of the prednisone body snatchers!!!!
Yes, I am laughing right now and making light about something very serious but my self esteem allows for that. I know this is a phase in treating my disease and it may be one the lasts longer than I would hope but I surround myself with people who love me for me. It truly is the cliche.......you have to love the person on the inside not just the beauty on the outside. Tim always smiles at me and I will cry at times because this disease has robbed me of so much already and I want to spare myself just a little dignity and grace. Tim just hugs me and asks me if I am the same person on the inside that I was when he opened the door many years ago and saw me for the first time. I tell him of course and he smiles and says that is what matters in life.
We are all going to change as we age and some will age better than others and some will be healthier than others. It is normally not a choice we can make ourselves but one that fate touches us with. I think of it as a rabbit hole.......you may not choose the one you fall into but you can choose how you will exit. I may not be brand new and I may be scratched a bit when I crawl out but I will not be damaged and that is a choice I make for myself everyday.
https://www.wepay.com/donations/danica-s-doctor-delima
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