Our next focus will be Cee’s stress level. The nutritionist said that stress (anything that causes increased adrenaline) taxes the adrenal glands and messes up the hormones. With arthritis, Cee’s immune system mistakenly thinks there’s something bad going on that needs to be attacked. When she gets a shot of adrenaline, that makes the problem with her immune system attacking her joints much worse, thus causing increased pain and swelling.
We talked about what Cee would find stressful, and stress can be positive or negative. Either way, we need to minimize it.
And so we usher in The New Era of Chill in our house. We’re going to start doing things like hanging loose, chillaxing, and kicking back. Our theme song will be “Hakuna Matata,” and we’ll pick up the annoying motto of “It’s all good.” If you happen to come over sometime, you’ll think you’ve traveled to Jamaica–except without the beaches, beautiful weather, and beady cornrow things that everyone gets if they visit there.
Hmmmm.
I’m not sure how Elle fits in to The New Era of Chill. She’s sort of anti-chill. Or she inspires anti-chill by dropping washcloths into the toilet, spreading maple syrup on the kitchen floor, and/or using Moe as a pillow. Yesterday my toothbrush tasted funny, and I didn’t even want to know. Chill level decreasing… I think I need a drink with an umbrella.
Tonight we took it easy by sitting together and watching David hose out the garbage can outside. The dishes didn’t get washed, and the laundry continued to age to perfection in the dryer, but it was a pretty mellow evening. The New Era of Chill may require a maid or a miracle to maintain. We’ll see.
We go back to Mayo in July, and between now and then we need to keep Cee as balanced as possible. We need those blood work numbers to be good in order to keep away from other medications. A daily injection is decidedly not chill.