Managing Symptoms and Maintaining a Positive Mindset

It’s hard to believe that over two months have elapsed since my last post. I’ve been focusing most of my creative energy on finishing my work-in-progress, the stand-alone sequel to the YA book that’s presently out on submission with agents, and have had neither the time nor capacity to tackle smaller projects. Now that the manuscript is about 99.8 percent complete, however, with only a few minor edits left to go, I can finally attend to all that I’ve had to place on the back burner, including this blog. I’m excited to dive back into short stories in the coming months, as well as to write some personal essays about living with chronic illness. In addition to serving as a nice break from novel-length works, these shorter mediums should be less taxing on my mind, which is still regaining its strength after being essentially out of commission all summer long.

As I’ve touched on in previous posts, the combination of the heat and months of being in a calorie deficit due to gastroparesis had culminated in weeks of impenetrable brain fog and debilitating lethargy. After trying and failing multiple times to increase my measly portion sizes, I made the switch to a mostly-liquid diet in mid-September, replacing breakfast and lunch with calorie-dense, pre-digested nutrition shakes. While this certainly hasn’t made eating any less of a chore, the shakes have made it possible for me to consume more calories throughout the day with less discomfort and have provided me with energy to write on a part-time basis, read and play games, and generally lead a more fulfilled existence. Though I still struggle with quite a lot of discomfort and fullness, that I have my brain back–most of it, anyway–makes the monotony of twice-daily shakes well worth it for the time being.

In fact, now that nutrition is no longer as big of a barrier to my ability to work, I’ve begun to address other, lesser impediments, namely POTS and chronic pain. POTS, a form of autonomic dysfunction, tends to affect me the worst in the morning; after nine hours of being horizontal, my nervous system has difficulty adjusting to the postural changes that invariably accompany waking up, resulting in dizziness, tachycardia, nausea, and fatigue. The latter, in particular, has historically made any kind of sustained concentration or creative thought next to impossible. In recent weeks, however, I’ve experimented with getting up a lot more slowly as well as avoiding motions such as bending down or prolonged standing. Like the shakes, it’s a bit tedious, though my efforts seem to be paying off; my mind has definitely felt sharper first thing, and I’m not nearly as dizzy and nauseous either.

I haven’t had quite the same success with my chronic pain, which, contrary to the POTS, worsens as the day goes on. This frustratingly coincides with improved mental energy, and it can be difficult to maintain a flow when I’m semi-regularly having to change positions or pause to stretch or put on my TENS unit or muscle rub. Furthermore, I’m less tolerant of screens in the afternoon (despite that I limit my morning screen time to under two hours), but writing by hand bothers my hand and wrist after a while. It’s a no-win situation, and I’ll usually end up working from my bed, wrapped in heating pads and breaking often to rest my eyes or wrist.

The techniques I’ve found for alleviating my pain are few and short-lasting: heating pads–of which I have three–peppermint oil, warm showers, stretching, TENS unit (though lately, the adhesive pads have been irritating my skin). Last month, I tried acupuncture and reacted so adversely to the needles that I was bedridden for two days. (You can read about that fiasco here.) Dietary changes are too complicated at this point (and largely ineffective, as inflammation isn’t my issue), and I’m still not consuming enough calories for physical therapy to make much of a difference. As far as allopathic interventions go, I’m reluctant to try any new medications since I almost always experience unpleasant side effects. Besides, I’d rather be in pain than wiped out from some drug; at least then, I can still write, notwithstanding my various discomforts and sensitivities.

As frustrating as this is, I’m amazed by how my body and mind have adapted to these new and unwelcome circumstances. Prior to becoming chronically ill, if anything was even slightly off–if I had a headache or had injured my knee on a run–I couldn’t write, distracted as I was by the discomfort. Now, something–usually multiple things–is always off, and I find ways to write regardless–even if it might not look so pretty or professional. Likewise, I’ve become a lot less rigid in the means by which I measure my productivity. Gone are the days of feeling frustrated or inadequate by substandard word counts; rather, any day when I’m able to write, irrespective of whether I churn out twenty pages or two, is a good day for me. I’ve written before on here of the importance of perspective and am increasingly recognizing the role gratitude and optimism play as well in one’s overall well-being; as I continue to adjust to my new normal, maintaining a positive mental attitude is making a tremendous difference.