The Choices We Make

Since this whole transplant thing has started, the thing that has weighed most heavily on my mind are the changes I will have to make to my day to day life after transplant and feeling scared that I won't be able to adhere to the regimen necessary to stay alive. Well I was watching "The Biggest Loser" last night, I love the politics between the contestants, and one of the trainers said something that suddenly made it all click for me. Shannan was giving his two contestants a pep talk and he said that success is a series of small, good choices. It was like a light bulb went off for me. I find that I very easily feel overwhelmed when faced with a large project or responsibility so over the years I have developed a strategy to deal with this: breaking the project down into small, manageable pieces then tackling them one at a time. For instance when I first started my counselling course I received my first lot of workbooks and was hugely overwhelmed at the amount of work in store for me, so I broke it down into small, sometimes ridiculously tiny steps such as cleaning my desk, reading the introduction page to the workbook, starting the first section in the Book of Readings. It might seem silly but without this strategy I would feel so overwhelmed and anxious that I would probably just worry about it and not have started the course at all, 3000 odd dollars down the drain.

So when I heard the trainer Shannan saying that success is a series of small good choices, I totally got it. Instead of looking at the huge lifestyle choices I will have to make after transplant, I will look at them as small, individual ones just this time. For example I feel completely overwhelmed to think that I have to exercise basically every single day for the rest of my life after transplant, so I will forget the "every single day for the rest of my life" bit and I will replace that with "I will go for a run now." Another example is coffee; I love it and drink too much of it, as is evident by the discolouration of my teeth. Next time I find myself reaching for a cup I will have a glass of water instead, just this time. I realise that this can't work every time, sometimes I may really want a cup of coffee instead of water and I will go ahead and have a cup of coffee, but if I look at it as "just this time" then it is far less scary than "I will never drink a cup of coffee again in my life."

I know to some people this might seem like a simplistic way of looking at things, but what is wrong with simple? I don't have to carry the weight of exercising every day, eating right every day, taking all my medication every day, FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Instead looking at it as just this time I will go for a run, just this meal I will eat healthy, just this time I will have all of my nebuliser even though it is taking forever! I feel like I have had a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. Wow, who would have every thought that reality television could help change someones life? lol.

love

K