Sometimes I Just Exist

Happy Friday, my Slayers & Slayer Lovers!

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I have been receiving messages asking how I’m doing as I’ve not written in awhile, so here’s a little message for you all. 

First, thank you for checking in! I greatly appreciate it. It means a lot when people check in on me from time to time.

Now - to answer the question, “how am I doing?“… There’s a lot to that and yet I’m going to keep it as simple as possible .. because… Quite frankly I’m tired. I’m exhausted. I don’t have the mental energy to write much. I’m not tired in the “I need sleep” kind of way. Though that always is a part of having an auto immune condition - in this case it’s more that I’m just tired of constantly battling “something”. 

Aside from not eating enough and the issues that go with that, my organs are all stable and that portion of scleroderma is OK. 

However, we are now at day 227 of  the year 2020 and I have had at least one ulcer,, (as many as four at once) every day this entire year. Even back into 2019. So over 230 days with some version of a painful sore on my body. First that was a toe, then a finger, then multiple fingers. Those all got better as I developed one on my heel. Now one on my thumb, and in the last couple of weeks one on each elbow.

That’s a lot. There’s some level of acute pain at some point during every day. Movement and mobility become limited. Every movement becomes a calculated equation. It has worn on me. In addition, my feet hurt on a daily basis anyway because of the scleroderma issues that can affect feet. 

So essentially I’m just existing right now. Which is why I have not written anything, because I don’t have anything going on. Mentally I’ve just not had the bandwidth to write anything worth sharing. Mix it all together and I’m just kind of “blah”.

Nothing to be alarmed about, it’s just the product of “what is” right now. 

Now, there are a couple silver linings to these clouds. The silver lining of 2020 and being on lockdown has been that not traveling has actually been a blessing. Dealing with pain and ulcers on traveling would have been a nightmare. 

Because of the pandemic Yoga for Scleroderma has been doing a lot of Zoom projects. We have been able to continue to serve the community. We have  developed “Wind-down Wednesday” - a weekly Guided Relaxation and we’ll be starting a podcast where I’ll be leading guided relaxation sessions. 

So I guess those are the silver linings of the COVID pandemic.

Within the next couple of months I will be unveiling a new mobility “tool” that I will be testing out. I don’t want to give any details about it until I’ve had the proper time to test it. However, if this tool works the way that I believe it will, it will be a game changer for me in being able to once again be more active and on my feet with less pain. I see this as a probable game changer for the rest of the Scleroderma community, as well. STAY TUNED!

The last silver lining is a little more funny… Because we know I have to laugh about things when I can… In being under weight, the upside is that when you can’t take your tank top off because you can’t raise your arms high enough due to painful ulcers on your elbows, if you’re super skinny you can slide the tank top down and step out of it. So there’s that silver lining, too. 

In the grand scheme of things I’m doing OK. I’m just tired of everything always being painful or difficult… As is always the case, things will get better and the outlook will improve. But this is where I’m at today.

Just doing what I can to persevere, so that I can rock on in the future.

💋🤘🏼