{"id":305,"date":"2015-03-01T11:00:40","date_gmt":"2015-03-01T16:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/?p=305"},"modified":"2015-09-27T10:05:30","modified_gmt":"2015-09-27T14:05:30","slug":"a-balancing-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/a-balancing-act\/","title":{"rendered":"A Balancing Act"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Emily
Balancing school, social activities, and POTS is tricky!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s a reason no one says that living with a chronic illness is easy: because it isn\u2019t. Living with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome<\/a> (POTS), a form of dysautonomia<\/a>, can be especially challenging at times. However, there are ways, with practice, to manage life with dysautonomia and find your own version of normal<\/p>\n

One of the most important things for me has been to realize is that no one is perfect. There will be good days, and there will be bad days. I have had bad days that felt as if they would never end. On some bad days, I get angry and upset. I want to be able to do things my peers are doing, but the fact of the matter is that I can\u2019t always do that. I think it\u2019s important to allow yourself small increments of time every now and again to get upset in order to release pent-up emotions. I think it\u2019s just as important not to dwell on those bad days, though, because, in the long-run, just being frustrated doesn\u2019t fix anything.<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m not like most of my peers. This is a fact that I\u2019ve learned to accept. In order to keep myself from spending too much time comparing myself to others, I focus on things I like and things I can do. As a college student, I spend a good amount of time on my studies, which is something pretty normal for any student, and I enjoy that sense of normalcy. Anchoring myself in school work definitely helps me. I do my best not to isolate myself from others. \u00a0I have a single dorm room, which really helps me manage my POTS since I\u2019m able to sleep and rest when needed. While it\u2019s sometimes tempting to stay in my room by myself constantly, I push myself to talk and interact with friends, and in the end, even if doing these things leaves me tired, I find that it also leaves me feeling better emotionally.<\/p>\n

I would be wrong to say that I\u2019m able to forget about my POTS entirely. Since I can\u2019t ignore the fact that I have POTS, as that would make it far worse, I do my best to manage it. I take my medications<\/a>, drink lots of fluids,\u00a0increase my salt intake<\/a>\u00a0and exercise<\/a>\u00a0to keep my POTS under control (as under control as possible). With some reluctance, I use a shower chair, so I can sit down while showering, and also use a cane on days where I\u2019m feeling especially off-balance. The reluctance is because I feel too young to need these things. I quickly realized, though, that these are tools to help me, and if there\u2019s something that can help me, then I should take advantage of it. There is no shame in helping myself and making living with my illness easier.<\/p>\n

Humor is something else that helps me stay positive. The reality of living with a chronic illness that few doctors know of is scary sometimes. Having a doctor say he or she doesn\u2019t know what to do is terrifying because I thought from a young age that doctors were the people who would make me better if I was sick. There is no magic cure for me or the millions of other people living with POTS. Although I realize this, I still try to find humor in small things, like seeing ads for compression stockings online geared toward seniors and saying, \u201cI would totally wear those,\u201d or joking that I have a great sense of balance, when in reality sometimes I feel like I\u2019m in a funhouse when standing on two feet, forget standing on one.<\/p>\n

Sometimes it\u2019s hard to do everything at once; it\u2019s easy to get overwhelmed by school, relationships with others, and POTS. Most people my age are not so focused on their health. In the end, though, while POTS is a huge part of my life, it is not my life. I work hard to ensure that I balance everything at once so I can be as healthy and happy as possible. While I\u2019ve yet to find the perfect balance, I\u2019ve learned to laugh along the way.<\/p>\n

Guest blogger Emily Deaton is a sophmore at James Madison University majoring in English and minoring in Nonprofit Studies.\u00a0 She recently wrote an article on living with a chronic illness as a teenager for the\u00a0Richmond Times Dispatch<\/a>.\u00a0When she isn’t studying,\u00a0you can find her\u00a0spending time with friends and participating in JMU’s InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"youtube\"<\/a>\"vimeo\"<\/a>\"instagram\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"tumblr\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a reason no one says that living with a chronic illness is easy: because it isn\u2019t. Living with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS), a form of dysautonomia, can be especially challenging at times. However, there are ways, with practice, to manage life with dysautonomia and find your own version of normal One of the … Continue reading A Balancing Act<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dysautonomiainternational.org\/blog\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}