Weaving Around the Obstacles

As you know, I've been in recovery for a while now. I've read a lot of places that when one is recovering from any type of major surgery or if one is living with an illness, it is very good to establish a set routine. I agree with this. And my roommate, I believe, would also agree with this. However, we both only agree to this up to a point. Sometimes, sticking too religiously to a routine can do more harm than good.

With illness, or any kind of physical recovery, you also need to be very flexible about your schedule. Sometimes, your body just isn't going to allow you to do things. And I do mean 'allow.' One of the things you begin to realize about illness is that there are times when you have little to no control over what your body is doing. All you can do is try to work with the situation.

Eating is a good example of this. There have been times when the idea of eating was appalling to me. This usually involved me being both hot and nauseous. Even if I knew I needed to eat, the very thought of it was abhorrent. I knew that if I ate anything, I was going to get sick. So even though my routine wanted me to eat at a certain time, often that just wasn't possible.

Sometimes, I could wait this out and perhaps eat an hour or two later if I was less ill by then. Other times, the meal was just skipped. I knew I couldn't do that too often, but once in a while, I really had no choice.

I learned to work around it as best I could. I would try to eat a larger meal earlier in the day, that way even if I didn't feel like eating dinner, I would still have a decent amount of nourishment. Other times, I would just eat whatever protein I thought I could handle. Some tuna or maybe just yogurt.  It wasn't a full meal, but enough protein to keep me going. Other times, I found that if I ate something with a lot of sourness to it, it would help.

It seems like we often have this stubborn misconception that if we decide to do something, we had best do it or we'll look weak. I don't know why this is. Maybe it's about control. I don't even think that is such an awful thing. When you're ill, there is so much about your life that seems out of your hands. To lose things like the ability to decide when you can eat is pretty scary. It's such a fundamental thing to have taken away from you. So I get why people would want to cling to their routines.

The thing is, even if it doesn't seem like finding a way around the problem is taking control of it, it really is. You're not surrendering to the situation. You're working with what you have. It may not be what you planned. It may not fit into your schedule, but sometimes illness is going to take those carefully laid plans away from you. Bounce back as best you can and remember that it won't always be this way.