Choices

Today was a special day. First of all, it was sunny outside! It has seriously rained for over a week here in America's Hometown and between the pain from rain and storms and just the gloominess of it all, I was so incredibly thankful to see sunshine! In fact I even wrote about it as my facebook post of the day, I've been trying to post something inspiring or happy each day. Today I posted this :

I wrote that the sunshine was out and it made me happy! Yellow is my favorite color. It is a bright, happy color that reminds me of sunshine. :)

Another reason why today was special , is because my sister and my precious niece were here visiting from sunny California! Lucky ducks, it is sunny all the time there! ;) Today we had planned to go downtown here in my cute tourist town, and take pictures of the grandkids together for my mom and dad ( and for us of course. ) Well, I knew that I would have to plan this out carefully. It would require a lot of walking, and it was about 500 degrees out. This is something that people who don't deal with chronic illness don't think about . We have to plan. We have to make choices. Today I had to plan out when to take my medicine, when to rest, etc so that I would have the strength to walk downtown with my children and my niece. I rested for about an hour beforehand and then about half an hour before we left I took my pain medicine. I knew that by the time we got downtown it should start kicking in and that I had a small, about 3 hour, time limit , where I would be able to walk. I also knew that I had to start heading back home at a specific time or I would be sick and stranded with my kids, unable to drive.

These are some of the choices that I want to talk about today in this post. I've been thinking about it lately. We have to choose over and over, do we have fun and live life, or do we be careful and try our best to avoid pain ? It's a horrid choice. Do I take a shower today and then be exhausted and in pain for the rest of the day, or do I just stink ? Maybe if I washed up a bit in the sink and then dry shampooed my hair, I could get away with waiting one more day ? Do I go and play with my niece this afternoon and then pay for it for the next 48 hours ( by not being able to move and being stuck in bed and in terrible pain?) or do I just stay home and rest and do " safe" things ? Do I take my pain medicine now before the pain gets unbearable and risk getting addicted or worse, called a druggy, or do I try to tough it out and then pay for it terribly ? Do I go to this doctor or this doctor ? Do I believe in this doctor or should I try to get a second opinion ?  Life is  full of choices for any person. But when you are " sick" it just seems overwhelming. So I guess my question is this.... do you choose to live life and have fun and then deal with the pain..... or do you choose to be safe ?

Love, JL~

UPDATE : Here's what happens when I choose to be "normal" for a day..... and who the heck am I kidding... it happens whenever it wants to even if I'm just laying around all day.