Thursday, December 29, 2011

Travel

I really try my best not to bitch and moan about my health.  Having said that, what really pisses me off is how much I love to travel and how much travel negatively affects my Crohn's.

Just got back from 5 great days in Miami with my wife Emily and it just annoys me that basically 2 of the days (first and last), I felt like shit.  I ALWAYS feel lousy the first day of any trip.  I don't know if traveling by air is what physically kicks my butt or if the typical stress of travel day is what does it, but I basically can't do much of anything that first day.  We arrived at the resort around 3 p.m., had a late lunch and that was it, in the bathroom a bunch of times and no energy at all.  On the last day, I'm pretty sure the pain was self-inflicted.  We had an early breakfast and then I went for a run.  The run was one of the most enjoyable I've ever experienced.  I ran on the cart path of the 18 holes of the Blue Monster course at the resort we stayed at (Doral).  The problem was that I ran way too soon after breakfast.  Adding to that was that it was also travel day home and yesterday was not a good day at all.

About 6 months ago, Emily and I also went to Florida.  Emily has family there and we try and go as much as possible.  We get to visit with her mom and dad, her brother and sister in-law and especially her twin 6 year old nephews and 2 year old niece.  While we were there, right smack in the middle of vacation, I got pretty sick.  We all had eaten out the second night we were there and the next day I was playing golf with my father in-law, when I got a severe pain on the right side of my abdomen.  I have only walked off of a golf course twice in my entire life.  The first time was in 2002 while I was in Dallas visiting my friend Ruben.  I walked off after 9 holes because the abdominal pain was so bad I couldn't even stand up.  Turned out my intestine had perforated and I had surgery a couple of days after I got home.  This was the second time.  Fortunately, the reason why was not as serious, however, I did spend most of the rest of that day vomiting.

Emily is hoping to take her boys (my step-sons) to Italy next year.  I am most likely not going with them.  I would really love to go but I just can't take the chance of a severe flare up.  I have precious few feet of intestine left and the more I can avoid flare ups, the better off I am.

I love visiting family, going to places I have never been to before and just getting away in general and it is really frustrating not to be able to do it as much as I would like to.

Like I said, I really try not to bitch and moan about my health but I just needed to vent.  I appreciate everyone listening to my rant.

Emily always tells me how much she loves how I always try and put a positive spin on everything, so, I thought I would end this with something positive.  One of the few times I have not gotten sick while traveling was the week I spent in Aruba, when I married Emily there in 2009. 

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The Holidays

I could never understand why this time of the year was always so stressful.  I'm thinking that it should be the opposite.  From Thanksgiving till New Years should be one of the most joyous times of the year.  Unfortunately, sometimes the high expectations most of us carry for the season, as well as the debt that often lasts for months afterwords leads to some serious stress.  As a Crohns sufferer its even more important for me to do everything I can to avoid holiday stress.

For years and years I was as guilty as anyone, maxing out my schedule, my energy and my credit cards.  Because of this, for years I suffered.  I can remember throughout my first marriage being so sick by the time Christmas arrived, that I would barely be able to eat any of the food (basically enough food was made to feed 3 small countries) made on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  Not anymore.

For me, my first step towards avoiding as much stress as possible this time of year was to sit down and think out everything I had done over the past 20 years that had caused the stress.  Let's see.  Which family members will I spend the holidays with?  Spending too much. Waiting till the last minute to complete my shopping.  Spending too much.  Going to every party. Spending too much.

We all have certain expectations about what makes the season special. The good thing is that most of the activities we associate with this time of year are fun. However, it's easy to become so overwhelmed by all this activity that we become too busy to actually enjoy what we're doing and in my case, also made me sick.  It took me a long time, but finally I said I'm not going to do EVERYTHING, however, I'm really going to enjoy the things I DO end up doing.  I cannot even tell you how much more enjoyable and memorable the holiday season is because of this.  I know that in order for it to be stress free, I need, first and foremost to take care of myself.  That means saying NO to some parties, getting my shopping done early, trying my best to stay within a budget and watching what I eat and drink.

This year, a nice Thanksgiving at our home, all shopping done by December 10th (most of it done online), a couple of low key family get togethers between Thanksgiving and Christmas and 5 days in Miami for Emily and I over the Christmas week has me feeling great, relaxed and healthy.

Happy Holidays everyone !