Random feet-related psychological bits

[cjsmith]

(from comments elsewhere)

1. I find I am already inventing hope for myself. I could have what he says I have and I could go into totally spontaneous miraculous remission. I could have what he says I have and medical science could learn what to do with it. I could have something different from what he says I have. On some level I realize this is illogical; what's the name of that river in Egypt? On another level I realize it is essential. Reality-based? Me? Not when I can't afford to be.

2. I deeply value being an independent, self-sufficient person. Nobody tells you, when you get a diagnosis like this, that the hardest part isn't learning how to make all the endless frustrating/painful/expensive/inefficient accommodations in your daily life; the hardest part may not even be giving up about seventy percent of the activities you once loved; the hardest part is convincing yourself that your core values are no longer sustainable and must be jettisoned.

I'm realizing now how unutterably spoiled I have been, to be able to have "being an independent, self-sufficient person" as a deeply-held value. (Perhaps the same could be said of having "not being in denial" as a strong value.) Really, mind-bogglingly spoiled.*

Obviously I'm still working through this in a psychological sense. Perhaps my record of this process can eventually help someone else who is in a similar situation some day. Plus it helps vent my spleen, which is worth a lot.

3. I called my sister the other day, for her birthday. It was a couple hours after my diagnosis. She asked how my feet were and I just said same-same and dropped it. I mean, it was HER birthday, not CJ's whinefestday! But now I feel like I'm hiding something. Maybe I'll send a family e-mail this weekend.

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* Can you imagine? I used to whine about curable things.

Comments

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

1. That's what I've been doing about my gluten allergy. I'm inclined to agree that it's essential to have unreasonable hope when the alternative is depression--just as long as that hope doesn't lead one to take unreasonable actions.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's probably a really good way of looking at it. If I have unreasonable hope but make sensible decisions, I am at least ACTING sane, and thus don't necessarily need a clue-by-four.