DAILY TOTALS
When last I posted I alluded to “mystery illnesses” and stated I had a chronic illness. In all fairness, I should be willing to name the conditions that make up my challenge if you’re going to be kind enough to follow along. But before we dive into that, a little background on how I got here…
I like to manage projects. I especially like really big, messy, filled-with-challenges projects. Most of my career has been spent in the deadline heavy world of software development. These likes present a unique challenge for someone with a chronic illness. The fear that you are over-stressing your system and thereby “letting” your illness interfere with your work often leads to an obsessive sense of needing to prove yourself.
Hours are sucked away by email. Late nights and early mornings are spent on conference calls talking to people working in faraway places. Addressing issues of employee infighting, hiring (and firing) staff, and eventually trying to squeeze in a few hours of actual work. Add in some people pleasing genes and a penchant for taking on impossibly screwed-up projects and you rapidly find that drawing boundaries to protect your health\sanity is tough. For me, it's nearly impossible.
Hundreds of hours, week after week after week. 100 hour work weeks were becoming my norm. I was ignoring what was happening to my health. I told myself that if I just worked harder, concentrated more carefully, I could manage it all and things would get better. Things did not get better.
The warning signs were all there – my hair was falling out, I was having issues with my short term memory, I couldn’t sleep but was exhausted, my skin had taken on an unhealthy grey tone and a constant sense of dread made the acid in my stomach go wild. I ignored and ignored and finally, I collapsed.
After as day in the ER, my physician demanded I come into her office. One look at my pathetic state and she laid down an ultimatum: keep working and die or stop working and try to recover. I love my family more than I loved my job. I stopped. I didn't get better.
Back now to the illnesses. During the last 15 months, several diagnoses have come and gone. Sometimes things are better, sometimes things are worse. Here is the list of my conditions as they stand today:
· Parking fees: $9
· Miles driven: 47
· Social interaction: none
When last I posted I alluded to “mystery illnesses” and stated I had a chronic illness. In all fairness, I should be willing to name the conditions that make up my challenge if you’re going to be kind enough to follow along. But before we dive into that, a little background on how I got here…
I like to manage projects. I especially like really big, messy, filled-with-challenges projects. Most of my career has been spent in the deadline heavy world of software development. These likes present a unique challenge for someone with a chronic illness. The fear that you are over-stressing your system and thereby “letting” your illness interfere with your work often leads to an obsessive sense of needing to prove yourself.
Hours are sucked away by email. Late nights and early mornings are spent on conference calls talking to people working in faraway places. Addressing issues of employee infighting, hiring (and firing) staff, and eventually trying to squeeze in a few hours of actual work. Add in some people pleasing genes and a penchant for taking on impossibly screwed-up projects and you rapidly find that drawing boundaries to protect your health\sanity is tough. For me, it's nearly impossible.
Hundreds of hours, week after week after week. 100 hour work weeks were becoming my norm. I was ignoring what was happening to my health. I told myself that if I just worked harder, concentrated more carefully, I could manage it all and things would get better. Things did not get better.
The warning signs were all there – my hair was falling out, I was having issues with my short term memory, I couldn’t sleep but was exhausted, my skin had taken on an unhealthy grey tone and a constant sense of dread made the acid in my stomach go wild. I ignored and ignored and finally, I collapsed.
After as day in the ER, my physician demanded I come into her office. One look at my pathetic state and she laid down an ultimatum: keep working and die or stop working and try to recover. I love my family more than I loved my job. I stopped. I didn't get better.
Back now to the illnesses. During the last 15 months, several diagnoses have come and gone. Sometimes things are better, sometimes things are worse. Here is the list of my conditions as they stand today:
1. Systemic inflammation (aka arthritis) – cause unknown
2. Systemic muscle weakness
3. Bone destabilization (bone is breaking but the cause of the break is a mystery)
4. Chronic kidney disease, stage 4 (there are 6 stages)
5. Hyperparathyroidism, secondary to the kidney disease
6. Hashimoto’s disease
7. Hypertension
8. Muscle tremors
9. Depression
Did I mention I have had Type 1 diabetes for nearly 30 years? Some of these conditions are related to having had a chronic illness for most of my life. Others are new. It’s all a mystery. 
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