Ups and Downs

My first week off Prednisone, I felt good enough to go to a fancy dinner with my life-long friends and a Halestorm concert with my wife. I had so much fun. I felt happy and alive. Then on Monday of this week, I got sick. Allergies or a cold compounded by an adrenal crisis knock me out for a day. I started to feel better and then a pancreatitis flare hit and the pain, nausea, and exhaustion knocked me out for two more days.

Today I'm starting to feel better, but I'm trying to hold to as close to a clear liquid diet as possible to bring down the pancreatitis. I'm on day 2 of water, sugar free Liquid IV, and vegetable soup . Even the veggie soup causes a little pain.. I figure I can make it two days before I breakdown and at least have some rice and salmon. I am clearly addicted to sugar and carbs. Iso desperately want the triple chocolate gelato in my freezer. I'd settle for a graham cracker. I keep trying to convince myself that I can have just one. This tiny and temporary glimpse into what its like to be hungry definitely reinforces my support for food banks.

While I'm on the couch trying to distract myself from the pain and self-pity, Shawn got a call from a friend whose son was recently diagnosed with cancer. They just found out his cancer is totally out of control and they are stopping treatments. I started crying. I felt so terrible for my friend and her family and so ridiculous for whining about my situation. I almost fell into the trap of comparison. Granted this one was different than the one I had been falling into for the past few weeks. Instead of comparing my current life to past me and feeling ripped off, I'm comparing my pain to the pain of having only months to live and beating myself up for not being more grateful. They are both traps and I know this. My reflexive response is to try and avoid any of these thoughts by going back to distracting myself. But I don't. I just let myself cry for a while.

One of the things I love about the band Halestorm is that they have a range of emotions in their music as wide as their lead singer, Lizzy's vocal range. . Right now I really identify with their newest single that was released this week, Darkness Always Wins. It feels perfectly timed for my mood. But I know this will pass. It's going to stop raining and I'm going to get to enjoy the spring sunshine. I'm going to get to play some Magic this weekend. I am going to a chef's food and wine pairing next week and it will be amazing. I

am going to feel more like my favorite Halestorm song, which is one of my all-time favorite songs, : Here's To Us. They ended their performance on this song and I teared up as I sang along at the top of my lungs.