Week of Labor Day: It's been a trying week, the first time in a while that I've been this drained. The biggest challenge has been that both my hubby and the baby have had health battles all week long. We had two big events planned for our holiday weekend. We had to cancel one and I took the kids to the other. It was our first "family event" for just our little family that my husband had to miss out on due to complications with his arthritis. I think this was the first time that I have sincerely been frustrated and angry about this illness that continues to interfere with our lives.
For him, I know it is a daily struggle to balance caring for his physical struggles and still participating how he can at home. For me, it is a complicated balancing act with all the hats I wear. There isn't a true solution that solves our struggles. Our struggles are caused by health issues. Issues that will never go away and will only get worse. Solutions for this kind of struggle are finding ways to work with the problems and through them.
In the hard times, like this past week, my husband is unable to do much more than put a smile on his face for the children and spend the day coping with pain and attempting to recover enough to participate in a "normal" appearing life. I care for everything else in the day-to-day living in our home. At times I feel alone. He feels alone. At times I feel overwhelmed. It can be exhausting, and it is hard to take care of myself, to pay attention to our marriage relationship, to be there emotionally for our children, care for the daily household needs, etc. I am a strong woman, I can handle a lot. I am capable of doing many things on my own and carrying this load for a while...but sometimes it gets to me.
Solutions / Ways to Cope: The biggest help is to be aware of the root cause(s) of the little frustrations that mount up and pray about them. Knowing is half the battle...there's a GI JOE jingle in there somewhere. :0)
Time is another biggie. Allow time to explore where your emotions are and why they are. I know that when I feel the most depressed in hard times is at night when I am tired. Simply sending myself to bed early makes a huge difference. 100% of the time I wake up feeling so much more positive than I felt the night before.
The next biggest help is to keep communication lines open. This can be tricky because emotions and patience can be stretched thin already. We both work at speaking to each other in loving ways and avoid any outbursts of negative emotion...those must be spoken in a sensitive way with understanding of how they may come across to the other person. My husband's arthritis isn't his fault. He has little to no control over when it flares up or how bad it gets. So when I express frustration with it, I am conscientious of not using words that may cast blame on him as a person.
Then it comes down to being flexible to change plans and simplify life as needed to accommodate the changes necessary for dealing with it.
Lastly, there are always preventative actions to take. Knowing our plans may change at any time, we are careful how we present them to our children and my hubby is careful on how he cares for his body in the days leading up to our plans. He'll often schedule his masseuse appointments for the following day or two after a big trip. We plan out medication timelines and bring heating pads on our road trips. And so on...
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