Stress
 

Stress really does exacerbate my MS.

I so agree. My job is high stress and at times it effects my walking and my hands. Thank god there is weekends to help get back to better. We as better as we can. So my weekend de-stress is to bake or make dinner from scratch. Finding ways to lower the stress. I also use listening to music, going for a walk and just go do something away from the stress. I hope your stress can move away from thinking about it and you can deal with it to move forward. That is easier said than done I know. But i do know i feel better when that stress is gone so i do my best to get it done. Sometimes i push it aside and will by the price later. I have that going on this weekend as I have push some big stress stuff to its limit of delays and must deal with it. I will today so tomorrow I can rest to get better. Need that job got to pay for meds.
Good luck dealing with your stress. Thanks for helping me with mine. Just typing this out help me.

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Deep breathing helps me and at most times, just a couple does the trick.

I do so agree. It makes my BP rise and gives me a headache.

I really try not to "sweat the small stuff" but sometimes that 's easier said than done.

Don't sweat the small stuff, Kicker! :cool:

--And it's all small stuff. That's the part I try to keep in mind.

In recent years (the last 10 years or so) I've noticed how much harder it is for me to take any stress.

I find humor is my best stress reliever for the things I can’t change and logic for the things I can. First thing I ask myself if I’m stressed about something is if it’s anything I can change... if so, develop a plan of attack and stop stressing just fix it. If it’s something I can’t change, like my father having lung cancer now and refusing to follow the doctors orders making it worse for him, or my step-daughter facing prison time for kidnapping her daughter :mad: (I mean lots of stress this year and really the past couple of years...) It’s finding whatever small shred of humor might be in the situation even if it’s a bit twisted.

Like the irony of my step-daughters favorite color being orange. Or how my father by rights in going against pretty much ever shred of advice or orders by his doctor is still doing shockingly well health wise. I mean he has several tumors in his lungs, COPD nodules as well, aspirated food and fluids in his lungs and missing half of one and yet despite still smoking his blood oxygen is still 100% mine is only 98% :confused: and this all with him only having half a brain after a stroke several years ago blocking one of his main arteries o the brain by 100% and the other one is over 60% blocked.

By rights the man should be pretty much a drooling veggie on a respirator but nope he’s out mowing his lawn. His doctors keep preparing us for the worse with each procedure they do because his heart is in such bad shape and he’s lacking body weight... but he keeps coming through baffling them and us. And we’ve just decided at this point that thanks to the stroke he’s too stupid to realize how bad off he is to die from it... ignorance is apparently not only bliss but the key to immortality :p

That's one of the hardest things--watching someone you care about needing help and feeling as if you should be doing more than you're doing--when you're probably already doing far more than you're really up to and you know you're going to pay a heavy price for the sleepless nights, the times when you've had to race around and do things urgently.

Sometimes you have to detach yourself from the situation and look on as if you're just an observer, just passing by. It's very hard to do when things are very bad for someone you care about, but I've found it helps to get some perspective--just so as to be able to carry on instead of falling apart completely.

Very true, and very hard sometimes. He has a way of making me feel like a terrible daughter for having a lack of sympathy. Which I’m somewhat forced to have because my mother will beg and plead with him to listen to at least some of what the doctor says he gets agitated and down right mean with her in his stubborn refusal (for which he suffers the consequences and has been rushed to the hospital a few times) so she calls me over to be the authority.

So when he refuses to get enough liquid in himself, refuses to eat, refuses to take his meds or takes too much of his pain meds, doesn’t do his pt exercises and so forth. I head over and put my foot down with him, and pretty much parent my parent, and occasionally I have to be parent to my mom as well, who has a heart condition and likes to put her needs to the back burner for him. :(

But then again despite being the baby of the family, any time any pets have had health problems requiring the BIG decision, my family, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles and even cousins, have asked me to basically play judge jury and more often than I’d like to admit executioner (by vet visit). So they have decided I can handle the same when it comes to medical. I’m in charge of pulling the plug on my parents if needs require, as well as two aunts and an uncle and my DH.

I guess I come off as having a certain level of emotional detachment, that when it comes to the really hard choices, I’m trusted to be the one to detach myself from sentiment and make the more medically sound choice based on prognosis and quality of life. I wish I could say they were wrong, but yeah they really aren’t, and there’s only the fleeting moments of feeling like a terrible person for having such an ability. It’s not that I won’t grieve the loss of my family members, and they do realize that. It’s more they trust I won’t allow them to needlessly suffer because of my fear of grief over them being truly gone.

Not wanting to accept help or to seek it out is probably one of the biggest problems faced by people in your situation, which must mean managing one crisis after another and constantly being in an emergency-response mode.

I hope you'll be able to find help when/if it's needed--competent people are out there. The resources are often surprisingly available--though they do often turn out to be costly.:(

At least you can see the humorous side of your father's condition. Bravo!