At the risk of beating that poor dead horse, I'm struggling again (still?) this morning with balancing wanting people to understand, to "get it" with the consequences of that.

How many of us were raised to cowboy up, don't complain, put on a smile, work through the pain. One of the highest compliments you could pay somebody was, "Look how sick he was and we never knew it!" Really?

Recently I found myself thinking (in reference to a family member), "Doesn't she know how sick I am??" Well, no, probably not. And is that necessarily bad? Tricky balance.

I want my family, especially my kids and granddaughter, to understand. Of course. But I don't want to lay a guilt trip on them. I know how it is to peek at the caller ID and groan, knowing it's going to be twenty minutes of the same health complaints...about which I'm able to do NOTHING!

I'm working on ways of enlightening without burdening. Do you see what I'm saying? For example, I don't want to call my daughter and whine, "My legs hurt all the time, it's hard to stand, it's hard to sit, wah wah wah."

On the other hand, I don't want her to find out AFTER the fact that she asked me to do something for her that involved going up and down stairs several times, not realizing that it meant an awful night to follow. That's just a made-up example, but can you imagine how she'd feel?

And the kicker is (sorry, Kicker)--just as I think I have a good balance and have everybody that needs to know appropriately informed....VOILA! My symptoms change!!