Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A frustrating day

Well maybe not a frustrating day but a stressful day. I went to the gym in the morning in an effort to destress (and deflab) - I get extra points because I WALKED there in a SNOW STORM (but it was just a dusting of another 1-3"). Then my husband and I walked to vote and back - a big adventure for him since he hasn't done much since getting out of the hospital.

My schedule was to bring Thai food at 1130 to have lunch with my friends. Well I am so smart - the restaurant doesn't open until 1130... I should have looked at the menu before I picked the time. So I had to call my friends and push it until later. So we finally had lunch and were just finishing up and the doorbell rings - it was an unplanned but somewhat expected visit from her physical therapist - so we had to cut things short. My friend we visited looks pretty good but is on oxygen and gets out of breath pretty quickly. I hope to get back for another visit before long.

I then headed to work where I'll just say attitude is everything. Personal communication skills are important in a small office. It was very busy, bordering on chaotic - one line can't ring by its self, but both phone lines can. And then there is the issue of the failing level of legibility in handwriting by the general public. Is that a 2 or a 7? Is that an A or an O? Grr, grr, grr.

So what does this have to do with dealing with cancer? One of my resolutions through dealing with all my wonderful medical issues is I am no longer required to:

- drive to work in snowstorms
- rearrange medical appointments around work, I arrange work around medical appointments
- deal with idiots on a regular basis
- worry about other people's personal problems

As a professional patient these days, I have enough aggravations in my life without these. I don't care if people I deal with are stupid, insensitive, irrational, narrow minded, or otherwise too ridiculous to deal with. In the past I might have been more likely to adapt and deal with them but at this point, I feel no reason to. In fact, I used to work for a horrible man who believed he was motivating his employees by reducing them to tears after he ranted and raged, temper out of control. I left that job, even though I didn't have a new one at the time, and swore I would never allow other people's personal problems to interfere with my working again. The sad part is these people probably don't understand how difficult they are. My virtuous little solution is to be an adult and just avoid them as much as possible. Does this sound mature? No but sometimes avoiding a bad situation is the best policy. The 'flee' mechanism of survival kicking in. And also trying to avoid being sucked into a bad situation.

I guess we can call today's blog a general whine but you know, I am entitled. I ended my day by driving home while it was snowing and slippery. I was feeling very frustrated and stressed by last evening (and had a raging case of heart burn - perhaps I shouldn't try to skip prilosec regularly). So much for sucking it up and dealing. I am entitled to be whiney sometimes. If I was healthy, perhaps I would whine less. I promise to write about something more important than whining tomorrow.

1 comment:

maryjane said...

There is this new television series called The Generations Project. This coming Monday they are showing an episode about a Hawaiian woman who is a breast cancer survivor. Its a really amazing story.

You can watch in online http://www.byu.tv/ or on BYU Television
It airs on Monday night at 8pm MST

Here's the show's website. http://www.byub.org/thegenerationsproject/
(Now showing on the website is a story about a young lady who traces back cancer in her family tree)

I just thought you might be interested.

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