Coping Skills

I've not read much about it but it became apparent this week just how linked our physical condition is to our coping abilities. My post this past week showed I am caving a bit under the pressure of my unanswered questions. None of the questions are new ones, they have been with me at least for the past 5 years. Sometimes they are just a mildly sore places where if I probe at them them become inflamed, but if ignored, well they are under control.

 

I go about my business, doing my exercising, trying to speak Portuguese, testing my skill at being independent in a dependent situation. Sometimes the soreness gets to be unbearable and I make an extended trip to Houston, cook for my daughter's family, visit my mother, drive, talk, handle problems, start to feel like me again, and become renewed in my resolves to make it in Brazil.

 

This past 10 days (or more) I have had what I finally determined is an inner ear infection. I haven't run a fever so didn't think it could be inner ear. A trip to the Internet last night assured me that I either have an incurable disease or my inner ear is messed up. There were about 3 days where I could barely walk the vertigo and nausea were so bad. There is a cracking and popping, feeling of stuffiness in both ears and my eyesight is blurred. I finally laid down on the sofa with a book, a blanket and a hot water bottle and allowed all the bad feelings, and the unanswered questions to come the surface. I thought that this had to be psychological I felt so bad. Unfortunately it was during this time that I wrote my blog post.

 

My eyesight had to be blurred because I spent so much time on the Internet. My life is being wasted.  I needed to drop out. It is probably good at this time to explain to you that I am hardly ever sick. I get an upset stomach from time to time, and generally have two sinus headaches a year - I am a very bad sick person.  No, I think I need to deal with my unanswered questions but definitely don't need to drop out.  Cutting myself off from my limited human contact will not solve anything. Like the photo insert, I need to allow some rays of sun to shine in the dark places. Now I need to go back to the sofa and rest my eyes some more.