Laura A. Katz MD, a board-certified obgyn talks about life, women's health, motherhood and the "sensitive subjects."
It’s a delicate balance
Being stressed and serotonin free.
It’s a delicate balance
Showing bravery for others and saving some for me.
It’s a delicate balance
Between calm and shutting down
It’s a delicate balance
Remembering to care for yourself when no one’s around.
It’s a delicate balance
Between fight and rest
It’s a delicate balance
Putting me through my greatest test.
Dr. Laura, age 51
Oh man am I having trouble with that distinction lately! First of all, limitations have never really been my jam to say the least. I have been a patient more than I care to admit in my lifetime. You know, multiple surgeries, medical emergencies, accidents, time off work, the whole nine yards. I am usually the one who is walking the halls just hours after emergency surgery. I am not a stay tied down kind of person. Now that the universe decided that cancer with chemo plus a pandemic was a good idea, I am looking at a whole lot more than just some temporary limitations. There is no way around it. I feel like I am looking at house arrest for months. Let’s face it, I will be immunosuppressed, on top of having cancer, in the midst of an ongoing pandemic. I can’t afford to take chances so I need to suck it up.
Yes, I exaggerated. I won’t exactly be on house arrest. I am going to work when I can. I will need to leave the house for doctor appointments. I just won’t be going out of my way to go out to dinner or take unnecessary risks. I probably won’t be doing any hospital procedures either. It’s just being smart. To be honest, it won’t be that different from what is going on now, except for the fact that the chemo I will be on shoves me from the mild risk category to the top of the highest risk category when it comes to death from infection and Covid. Yippee! This is not the kind of line that I wanted to cut to the front of.
In my rational moments, it all makes sense. There is no point in fighting hard to dodge the cancer bullet if I am just going to open myself up to the Covid one. That would be ridiculous. The restrictions are in place to help keep me safe and see this thing through to the end. I choose to follow them. I know that. And, it’s not as if there isn’t enough Netflix to go around to entertain me.
There are other things that I worry about though. Yes, believe it or not I worry about being bored, even though I am working on a book, a podcast, a blog and I try to post daily updates. I worry about having too much time to think which runs the risk of being counterproductive and focused on worrying with nothing to distract me. I worry about resenting my family and friends as the pandemic restrictions lift and life resumes again while I watch vicariously through a proverbial window. I worry about being consumed with guilt from letting people down. I realize that everyone is being tremendously understanding now, but everybody has their limits. See! I wouldn’t have so much time to overthink all of this unless I was on restrictions!…lol
Oh who am I kidding? No one really has to enforce my restrictions. My body takes care of that nicely. I never know which version of me is going to lift her head off the pillow in the morning: the one that is raring to go for several hours or the one that gets short of breath after about three steps and has to sit back down. It is a real Wheel of Fortune going on around here and I am definitely not the big winner the majority of the time. I am kidding myself to think that I could really change that even if I wanted to right now. It is what it is. The only real choice that I get to have control over is my attitude and my willingness to accept the advice of my doctors. I have to realize that this is not their first rodeo and that they do actually know what’s best based on experience, knowledge, and training. Like I am always saying, I need to be a team player in my healthcare. If coach says I need to sit on the bench for a bit, well then I better just sit.
Dr. Katz
My sense of time seems really off lately. And by lately, I mean the whole last 7 months or so. I have found myself having difficulty reconciling the fact that I have the appearance of more time, without actually being able to accomplish more. I keep thinking that I know that I have more time on my hands because I can’t run off and do half the things that I used to. My weekends are no longer taken up by sporting events, concerts, dinner outings, or much of anything really. That means I should be able to get all kinds of leftover crap done, doesn’t it. Yet, I find days going by lately when I feel like I didn’t really accomplish anything. How is that possible? Granted, I probably set myself up for failure with my overachieving list of goals to accomplish that significantly outpaces the number of available hours. I have to own that part. But, usually I can get at least some of it done. I spent a long time pondering this little puzzle with no helpful insights until now. I finally figured out where my thought process was going astray.
I was thinking negatively in terms of my lack of physical accomplishments and looking for concrete physical barricades to my goals. I hadn’t stopped to consider the mental barriers to productivity that we all have been suffering from lately. It really hasn’t been about the lack of time. In truth, with the lack of activities available, I have had more physical time to accomplish more things: I just haven’t wanted to and it is ok to admit it out loud. With all of the stress around me lately, I just plain old have run out of mental energy to stay productive all the time. I have run out of things that I want to clean. I have run out of ways that I want to use to fill my time. I have subconsciously made myself a pact to take a step back, relax and sometimes just be. To my surprise, I realized that this was not necessarily a bad thing! This is just me practicing self-care without realizing it. I am trying to conserve what’s left of my mental energy for when I really need it, not when I am just trying to keep constantly busy. I am trying to rejuvenate and refresh. This is ok! I have to give myself permission for this and I would suggest that you do the same. Stop finding new things to beat yourself up for. A million things do not need to be accomplished every single day. Sometimes there needs to be a day to just breathe. Pummelling ourselves with endless, impossible to finish tasks will not reset or fix the out of control tension going on in the world today. Overscheduling ourselves just to say that we are doing something is actually doing more harm than good. I think we need to relearn how to just sit every now and then. It’s only when we stop moving for a second that we can actually appreciate what we have.
Have a great day everybody!
Dr. Katz