The art of distraction is a balancing act for me. I would much rather go out and do something I enjoy, but I do continue to hurt at some level the entire time, and if I completely ignore my body and do too much, I'm gonna hurt twice as much the next day. But I am all in favor of doing whatever you can safely handle.

I can no longer do my most favorite things like traveling, hiking, dancing and big photographic expeditions, but I do manage some lower-key stuff from time to time. My most frequent distractions are watching comedy on tv (or DVD) and listening to music (right now "Air Force Ones" by Nelly is playing on my iTunes ). Laughing out loud is very therapeutic, so I treat myself to that as much as possible.

And when I am too sick for the face to face social thang, I might try conversation via telephone, and if I can't even handle that, I might e-mail someone (works well for people with cognitive dysfunction because of the opportunity to edit before "speaking" ). Melody, you reminded me of when I was at a reunion in Florida in October: everyone was complaining about the horrid humidity, but I was happy because my eyes weren't dry and felt better than they had in YEARS! One thing I find that really helps is to make an effort to really appreciate and be grateful for what is good; that sort of thinking can crowd out the being overwhelmed by the bad.

Do the best you can with whatever you've got to work with. That's my motto.

fanfaire