The great thing about having a chronic illness is that one gets to meet so many health professionals. This week I get to meet a hematologist, doesn't that sound fun? He happens to be at a Cancer Center, my friendly new specialist, so I pointedly told the receptionist that I do not have cancer and she laughed. She also told me they were so looking forward to meeting me. I found that strange. I have been sick for over 20 years and not once has a medical receptionist has said she was looking forward to meeting me. I am comfortable in my role of being only one in the masses of sick people. Somehow standing out in the crowd of sickies makes me uncomfortable, like that would mean I was special in my sickness, which I would prefer not to be. If you did not know a Hematologist is a doctor who specializes in blood. I have been consistently anemic for years so it has never been a surprise to hear that my "levels were low". Apparently I have reached new heights of lowness and now this is "concerning". Most of what I dislike about seeing a new doc is the part where I have to go through my whole goddamned medical history, again. Often the doc has all my info in my ridiculously large file. Apparently the file is meaningless because my job is to reiterate what is there in fine print if said doc would only read it! That almost never happens. I hate telling my sickie story, it is boring, long meandering and reminds me how long I have put up with this bull shit. Acquiring a new specialist is not like acquiring a new Dooney and Bourke handbag, no status is achieved by gaining a new doc.

I am a lifelong quitter. I can give examples going back to childhood ie: ballet, gymnastics, soft ball( it is hard to play a sport that requires you to keep your eyes open as the ball is racing toward you). I can give examples of more recent join/then quit activities: volunteer at animal shelter, selling Mary Kay( it is hard to be a successful cosmetic salesperson when you just give away the make up to friends),took the training to volunter at a domestic violence shelter( too emotional for me), etc... I could go on BUT.... I have broken the Quitter Mold! I have been (gasp!) running a (very) small business selling my homemade jam! I think the whole thing is most shocking to myself. Change is hard, a subject I have broached in blog form before, yet here I am ;the non-quitter!
I have never gone to business school so one could say I am making this up as I go along. The crazy thing is that even on my worst days I still think I can do this! To say I am self deprecative is putting it mildly. Saying ANYTHING about myself is good has not been my norm. It is so bizarre to be hawking something of my own and saying, "this is really awesome!" Yet, I know it is. This change is definitely a good thing.
Lupus does not go away when one decides to take a trip, have a baby, move to another state or start your own business. Logically, I knew that going into this. I am still downing my breakfast of champions: Coffee and 15 prescription medications every morning. There is a reality check, indeed. No, Lupus has not picked up and moved on but it is so great to say to it, the actual diesease, "fuck you, I'll do what I want to!" Somehow that just makes me feel so much better!
It has always been hard to have an enemy that has no entity. The evil of Lupus (and probably others' who have chronic illness feel the same way) is that there is no "being", for lack of a better word, to be angry with. It leaves me frustrated and ending up angry with the only one who is there: ME. Doing my little jam thing and having my little successes gets me past the anger. I don't want to paint the wrong picture here, before starting the jam thing I had a full and busy life. I don't think I was in a constant state of self pity and anger. I fed my kids, talked to my husband, took dogs to vet appointments. The difference is now I have this one thing. This one thing is mine, and whether I never make a buck, or if this whole thing goes down in flames I can still say" I tried! " I will never be kicking myself wondering if I could have made a go at this. Nope, I definitely have this! For right now, I AM the jam maker extraordinaire.! At least that is what I am saying to myself. Yep, that feels great.