Conflicting Realities

For the last few months my Crohn’s Disease has been a little better. That’s a reality I’m very happy about. A couple of weeks ago my Crohn’s Doctor did an internal exam. She only had time to make brief comments right afterwards, which were that the worst affected places didn’t look significantly improved from a year ago.

That was another reality and it conflicted with the first reality in a rather discouraging way. I had to work hard to hold onto the first reality, that I definitely have been feeling better, in order not to get discouraged.

My attitude, even though it’s all in my head, is also a reality. It affects my physical realities since stress is thought to affect Crohn’s and feeling discouraged or worrying about the illness is stressful. Also, I make more effort to exercise and eat healthily when I’m not discouraged, two things I believe might help to some extent.

In my follow-up visit after her vacation I’ll have more time to talk with my doctor. I think some of the places which weren’t the very worst have improved, which would make her observations less in conflict with how I’ve been feeling. I did ask her about that in the brief talk and she said it was possible, but she was more focused on what wasn’t better. I understand why but for the sake of my attitude, which affects so much else, I need to keep the reality of ‘what isn’t better’ in perspective and not let it push out all the other realities of my life.