The last several days have been clear and warmer. I've been out for several short walks. Even though we've been living here for almost four months, I'm still agog at the beauty of our surroundings. The sky, the rocks, the mountains, the cactuses, it's just stunningly beautiful. Before we moved here, I'd never spent time in the desert (beyond short vacations) and I had no idea how beautiful it is. It's even more beautiful to me because it's such an unfamiliar setting, and there's much to see, appreciate, and learn about it.
I'm still filling out forms for disability benefits, both federal and for long term disability insurance benefits from my employer. This process of form-filling and submitting is exhausting. Some days I spend hours working on the forms and gathering the information requested. While I understand that they want an applicant to prove disability, the capacities required to prove this are extensive: I need to be clear-headed, organized, persistent, able to communicate orally and in writing, and competent at several different forms of technology. I need to be able to sit in a chair for hours and hours, to write and type, to find information about my employment record for the last fifteen years, to describe the specific activities I engaged in within each of my jobs and my monthly salary, and to provide the dates of all of my visits to doctors and specialists over the years, the medications and dosages prescribed, telephone numbers, etc. This is an enormous task.
And it's depressing. The forms I'm working on right now ask me to describe in specific detail all of the ways that my daily activities have changed since I became ill. Over the last eight years of being ill, I've adapted my daily life to what has become a new normal for me. That adaptation was difficult, stressful, and traumatic. But I have generally adapted, though somedays I admit I'm still frustrated and want to do much more than I can. I've come to accept that the things that I do now are the things that I do now. I don't sit around thinking about what I used to be able to do and wishing I could still do it all. I'm focused on what I do now, doing those things as well as I can and with as much appreciation as I can muster, and learning new things related to what I'm interested and able to do.
This form, though, is requiring me to think back about what I used to take for granted, and to the things that I've lost the capacity to do. While it's not right to say that I miss those things in my life now, recalling them brings to mind the loss and re-opens the wounds I'd learned how to heal.
I read some online advice on how to fill out these Daily Activities forms. One helpful hint was to take a few days before you complete the form because practices you originally adopted because of your disability may have become so familiar that it's difficult to realize that the disability was what led you to adopt them. For example, it took me awhile to remember that the reason almost none of my shoes have laces (they're all step ins) and few of my shirts have buttons (they're all pullovers) has to do with the stiffness in my joints and muscles. When my psoriatic arthritis is very active (as it was before I started this latest medication), I couldn't use my fingers very well or bend my wrists without a lot of pain so I couldn't tie laces or do buttons without a lot of pain and fumbling. The same was true with bending at the waist or knees to pull on and tie shoes. And even with these adaptations, I still get dizzy and have to hold on to a wall when I bend down to reach my feet from a standing position to pull on socks, and I have stiffness in my muscles that makes pulling on shirts and bending over quite painful. Also, because the psoriatic arthritis causes joint swelling and tenderness, and inflammation of the connective tissue on the bottoms of the feet, I only buy shoes that have lots of space around the toes and a lot of support built into the sole.
As an aside: certain parts of disabilities are damn expensive! Shoes that don't make my feet hurt cost me about three to four times as much as I used to pay. I also stopped buying ordinary body products and now I only use products that contain natural preservatives like citrus oils. No perfumes, artificial colors, soaps/detergents, or chemicals that make the skin more permeable. The standard personal care products including laundry detergent, shampoo, conditioners, body soap, makeup, body lotions, lip balms, and sunscreens cause my skin to swell and itch. They aggravate my psoriasis and my eczema, and cause my mucus membranes to become enflamed. If my reaction is strong enough, my whole body will ache. And strong artificial scents make me cough and retch. These changes were very expensive and inconvenient. Not all stores carry the appropriate products and in some cases, I have to mail order things I want, such as lotions. Most products I run across that market themselves as "natural" or "organic" or for "sensitive skin," and that you find on the shelves in places that present themselves as 'health food stores" are still filled with all kinds of crap that I can't put on my skin. An excellent resource for learning about the chemicals, natural and otherwise, that are in your skincare products is the Skin Deep Database, published by the Environmental Working Group. The database ranks products based on research about the potential health risks of the chemicals that these products contain. Check it out--you'll be surprised to find out what's in some of the products that you put on your skin.
Enough about that.
I made two loaves of oatmeal bread yesterday. They were enthusiastically received by my housemates. I wanted to make a double batch and freeze some, but we didn't have enough milk on hand. Something I want to investigate is whether I can use soy milk in place of the cow's milk in my oatmeal bread recipe.
This morning, I made my first-ever batch of scones. It was incredibly easy and quick, and they turned out delicious. I pulled them out of the oven while I was doing yoga, and I couldn't resist munching on one of them while I finished up my poses. Hot from the oven scones are heavenly. The dog didn't share our enthusiasm. I usually give him a taste of whatever I'm cooking because he's curious and I think it stimulates his brain to learn about all different kinds of flavors and scents. He spat his piece of scone out on the floor. Evidently, he doesn't like dried cranberries. Just as well. More for us!
I'm still filling out forms for disability benefits, both federal and for long term disability insurance benefits from my employer. This process of form-filling and submitting is exhausting. Some days I spend hours working on the forms and gathering the information requested. While I understand that they want an applicant to prove disability, the capacities required to prove this are extensive: I need to be clear-headed, organized, persistent, able to communicate orally and in writing, and competent at several different forms of technology. I need to be able to sit in a chair for hours and hours, to write and type, to find information about my employment record for the last fifteen years, to describe the specific activities I engaged in within each of my jobs and my monthly salary, and to provide the dates of all of my visits to doctors and specialists over the years, the medications and dosages prescribed, telephone numbers, etc. This is an enormous task.
And it's depressing. The forms I'm working on right now ask me to describe in specific detail all of the ways that my daily activities have changed since I became ill. Over the last eight years of being ill, I've adapted my daily life to what has become a new normal for me. That adaptation was difficult, stressful, and traumatic. But I have generally adapted, though somedays I admit I'm still frustrated and want to do much more than I can. I've come to accept that the things that I do now are the things that I do now. I don't sit around thinking about what I used to be able to do and wishing I could still do it all. I'm focused on what I do now, doing those things as well as I can and with as much appreciation as I can muster, and learning new things related to what I'm interested and able to do.
This form, though, is requiring me to think back about what I used to take for granted, and to the things that I've lost the capacity to do. While it's not right to say that I miss those things in my life now, recalling them brings to mind the loss and re-opens the wounds I'd learned how to heal.
I read some online advice on how to fill out these Daily Activities forms. One helpful hint was to take a few days before you complete the form because practices you originally adopted because of your disability may have become so familiar that it's difficult to realize that the disability was what led you to adopt them. For example, it took me awhile to remember that the reason almost none of my shoes have laces (they're all step ins) and few of my shirts have buttons (they're all pullovers) has to do with the stiffness in my joints and muscles. When my psoriatic arthritis is very active (as it was before I started this latest medication), I couldn't use my fingers very well or bend my wrists without a lot of pain so I couldn't tie laces or do buttons without a lot of pain and fumbling. The same was true with bending at the waist or knees to pull on and tie shoes. And even with these adaptations, I still get dizzy and have to hold on to a wall when I bend down to reach my feet from a standing position to pull on socks, and I have stiffness in my muscles that makes pulling on shirts and bending over quite painful. Also, because the psoriatic arthritis causes joint swelling and tenderness, and inflammation of the connective tissue on the bottoms of the feet, I only buy shoes that have lots of space around the toes and a lot of support built into the sole.
As an aside: certain parts of disabilities are damn expensive! Shoes that don't make my feet hurt cost me about three to four times as much as I used to pay. I also stopped buying ordinary body products and now I only use products that contain natural preservatives like citrus oils. No perfumes, artificial colors, soaps/detergents, or chemicals that make the skin more permeable. The standard personal care products including laundry detergent, shampoo, conditioners, body soap, makeup, body lotions, lip balms, and sunscreens cause my skin to swell and itch. They aggravate my psoriasis and my eczema, and cause my mucus membranes to become enflamed. If my reaction is strong enough, my whole body will ache. And strong artificial scents make me cough and retch. These changes were very expensive and inconvenient. Not all stores carry the appropriate products and in some cases, I have to mail order things I want, such as lotions. Most products I run across that market themselves as "natural" or "organic" or for "sensitive skin," and that you find on the shelves in places that present themselves as 'health food stores" are still filled with all kinds of crap that I can't put on my skin. An excellent resource for learning about the chemicals, natural and otherwise, that are in your skincare products is the Skin Deep Database, published by the Environmental Working Group. The database ranks products based on research about the potential health risks of the chemicals that these products contain. Check it out--you'll be surprised to find out what's in some of the products that you put on your skin.
Enough about that.
I made two loaves of oatmeal bread yesterday. They were enthusiastically received by my housemates. I wanted to make a double batch and freeze some, but we didn't have enough milk on hand. Something I want to investigate is whether I can use soy milk in place of the cow's milk in my oatmeal bread recipe.
This morning, I made my first-ever batch of scones. It was incredibly easy and quick, and they turned out delicious. I pulled them out of the oven while I was doing yoga, and I couldn't resist munching on one of them while I finished up my poses. Hot from the oven scones are heavenly. The dog didn't share our enthusiasm. I usually give him a taste of whatever I'm cooking because he's curious and I think it stimulates his brain to learn about all different kinds of flavors and scents. He spat his piece of scone out on the floor. Evidently, he doesn't like dried cranberries. Just as well. More for us!
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