Everybodys Talking At Me

Seems like I'm getting lots of unsolicted comments and advice, real life and online.

I freaking hate it. Particularly people that have no clue how my asthma works with very high IgE levels. Particularly by people who have never had to deal with chronic illness.

List of stupid shit I've been told I must do to heal my asthma in the past week (an illness with no cure)

• Use essential oils (usually right before telling me that they sell doTerra or Young Living)
• Yoga (numbnuts, I already do water yoga and I have for years No balance, I fall down on land when doing for reals yoga.)
• Taekwondo (hard to do when you have nerve damage that makes your balance crappy)
• More yoga (See above!)
• More essential oils (Did I mention I am horribly allergic to them? No, that's not 'detoxing', it's a true allergy to something about them. Lemme show you photos of the time I broke out in hives the time I got a massage with scentless Young Living oils)
• Take the suppliment they are selling (Look at my kitchen countertop at all the unuseful suppliments I've tried fruitlessly)
• Eat kale/urine/whatever crazy diet they are promoting. (Again, look in the kitchen. I have tried it, all except the urine, oooh no too gross for me! But I'm not sure piss doesn't taste better than kale.)
• Lose weight (Yeah another been there and done that. With the high dose steroids through the years I used to go up and down more than a yoyo. I'm down 80 pounds from my fattest and I know I'm not exactly skinny. But I refuse to yoyo any longer. Slow and steadily losing very gradually.)

•  And a million other random things...... 

Here's what I do to stay healthy:

• Get a solid 8 hours of sleep a night.
• Drink lots of water
• Eat three balanced meals per day with lots of fruit, veggies and high quality protein
• Swim/water aerobics/water yoga every single day I am well enough to get in the pool
• Walk several miles at the beach four times a week.
• Try not to freak out over things I cannot control
• Talk myself down when I start finding myself in repetative negative thoughts.
• Maintenance medicate by taking those things I need,  both suppliments and prescriptions, that help me head off the asthma and allergies
• Remove myself immediately from allergen triggers.
• Remember to bring my portable neb, medicines, Wynd filter, filtration mask, epipen with me wherever I go.
• Stay alert to how I'm feeling and changes in my body.
• Do rescue breathing exercises daily and when needed to breath.
• Take care of my needs.
• Rest when ill without feeling guilty
• Refuse to allow others to try and make me feel guilty.
• Avoid people smoking like my life depends upon it because it does.
• Avoid open fires, smoke and chemical scents.

Friday was a perfect example of a buttinski with unrequested advice. Jim and I were down at the pool supply place picking up the final signed contract on our hot tub when we met an elderly surfer guy. We all got to talking and he started lecturing both Jim and I that we needed to take up surfing if we were going to stay here. I pointed out that I used to surf many years ago, but I cannot now because ot that pesky balance issue relayed to nerve damage.

Jim started talking to the lady running the place while the older surfer and I wandered off still talking. As soon as Jim stepped away surfer dude started lecturing me about my weight with the 'You have such a pretty face' rant. He, like other super skinny people, have no idea about my health struggles, my unending battle to keep losing because a smaller body takes less oxygen. It's like a teetotaler lecturing someone hooked on oxycontin because of intractable pain to just stop taking the pills. I smiled, and didn't tell him off, but I ended the conversation quickly. Ain't nobody got time for fat shaming.

It used to trigger me horribly when someone gave me the 'Such a pretty face' lecture, sending me into wanting to eat something super bad for me immediately. It no longer has that power, it's now a mere annoyance, like a buzzing fly that will not leave you alone. Many asthmatics, likely myself included, end up bigger than they should be because of the medicines.

And it's not just health related things people are busy talking to me about. I got it a little at church today. I'm about to take over a ministry position and one of the other newer ladies at church wants to join me. We talked today after church, and she told me that the pastor will not approve her for it. I knew that because I'd told the pastor I'd encouraged her to join and he told me he didn't think her faith was strong enough so he'd rejected her. I gently told the pastor that allowing her to operate in the ministry would likely be a faith builder for her.

As we were talking another friend came up and told her to suck it up, go to the pastor and say the sinners prayer even if she didn't mean it so she'd be allowed on team. I laughed and said, 'Well there goes my chance to join that team because of what I do for a living surely disqualifies me.' Our mutual friend told me that there'd been a church leadership meeting where I was discussed for this position, and they'd looked at NLQ before deciding that my snarky take on fundamentalist Christianity did not mean I didn't believe, or was doing anything wrong or sinful.

I walked away shaking my head because I am so not the rabid believer I once was. But apparently the fact that I'd said the sinners prayer years and years ago is good enough.