Good advice from a true friend

I have a friend that was diagnosed with MS a few years ago. I remember how she had a rough time after the diagnosis and wrote her to tell her about my Lyme diagnosis. Here's part of her reply. I thought it was so helpful that others might enjoy reading it. She's a good friend, very wise.

What do you find really nurturing? bubble baths, massage, going to an art gallery, tea with a friend... whatever the list is, program it into your schedule. Do a little something nurturing each day, and something more substantial each week, and acknowledge it as such to yourself - self-care that you doing to soothe /caretake your body. In the book they give to track my injection sites so I keep rotating them, at the end of each month, there is a place to write down symptoms, what is better, worse, or different than the month before and a place to write down something good that happened in the last month - and next to that last one it says "be sure to write down at least one!" because it's easy to skip that one. It doesn't have to have to do with Lyme - just keeps a positive mentality going in general and reminds us "we are NOT our disease" - we are just dancing with it right now and we're still us and our lives are interesting, valuable, fun, whatever.... The symptom tracker helps a lot too just for me to remember along the way how things are going - symptoms I need to mention to the doc from past months, or if I have symptoms now, to remind me that I've had a few good months at other times and that it is all transient.

Great advice. I am a secretary so I would type my daily symptoms into my computer at work as the day went on. Oh how nice to finally be posting "Still feel great - can't believe it."

I too learned how to nurture myself and find inner peace. But that comes with feeling better as well. It really is true that we become wiser with age but sickness too can make us more grateful with mindfulness.

Love this, thanks for sharing!!