That’s funny, you do not look sick. . .

Related to this, see my link to the right for “Spoon Theory- Funny, you don’t look sick. . . “

You know, one thing about NA/HNA is that because the expression of the symptoms can vary so much, it is hard to really for someone else to see that it is impacting your life. In fact, just to look at me, unless you were a trained health professional, you may not be able to tell I had anything wrong unless I took my shirt off, and you saw my scapula were not right. And even if you were a health professional, you may miss it.

In my previous entry I described how doing relatively easy “work” for an hour impacted me and my arms and hands. That shaking was real to me, and it is really one of the few outward signs that I have of this “disease” that others may be able to see. Yet, even though others may know I have this condition, and they see it manifest in this manner, they still make comments like, “Oh, you are a weekend warrior- I guess you must be a bit out of shape.” Well, yes I am no doubt a bit out of condition right now, but it this shaking is not due to being a weekend warrior in the garden. “Well, look at that, I am out of shape too- See how my hand is shaking too?” Yes. But the difference is that my hand was shaking before I started to work out here, and at this point, I am not sure I will be ever to ever get back into a condition where my hands to not shake. It may be true that your hands shake a bit after doing too much work- but my hands shake all the time. It does not matter if it is picking up a paper cup of coffee at Starbucks, or after working out in the yard for an hour. My hands will shake. In fact, I can wake up in the middle of the night when all I have been doing is sleeping, and if I reach for the covers with my left hand, it will shake.

Well, I can’t complain too much about this. The other person spoken about here does not want me to think of myself as being different than I have ever been. And, I do not want to roll over and let the condition take the rest of my life away by acknowledging that since I started to express certain symptoms, I can’t do this, I can’t do that. Sure, there are certain things that I do not feel comfortable doing now. But, I can still do a lot. It is just that doing some things takes it out of me in a different way than it used to. Doing this job of edging the perimeter of the lawn used to be a job I could do with no problem. Then I would go on and do the next thing, and the next thing, etc. Now, doing the perimeter edging is it for the day. After that, I am done. And if there was a job I got to before I tried the edging, it may be that only part of the edging will be done, or if it is completed, I will be done for a bit longer. I am learning that there are limits to what I can do anymore, and I do not like it. Sure, I am getting older and maybe there would have been age related limits at this point anyway. But, I am getting those too. It doesn’t seem fair.

But, I know there are younger people learning that they have NA/HNA every day. At least I did not develop symptoms until I was in my mid 40’s. I know of a family who has a young child who has had two attacks already, and has bilateral winged scapulas at around age 10. I think of him and realize I really should not complain about my lot. I guess I am lucky I do not have worse going on with my health.