Comfort

I arrived in my office one morning earlier this week, took off my stocking hat, and felt the hair I had so desperately tried to tame standing straight up again. I once again, went and tried to tame it down to no avail. I made a comment about it to my office mate, who said it looked okay. Of course, then he said "We are alike in the fact that we are comfortable enough to be ourselves." Or something along those lines. To an extent he was correct, I don't dress up in slacks and blouses for work. There isn't really a dress code, so I wear nice looking jeans and a shirt. Sometimes my shirt is a t-shirt, and I wear a nice looking jacket on top of it to look more presentable instead of a hoodie like I would like too. Other times I wear a Columbia button down shirt or a polo. Depends on how spiffy I want to be that day. But lets face it, how spiffy can one be wearing a backpack around all day? 

However, to a great extent, I'm not comfortable with myself. Like many other patients with chronic illness, I try to hide its effect on me. More so now then I have before, despite having Jake with me all the time as a visual indication something is "wrong" with me. I don't like being hooked up to tube feeds while trying to be professional. I don't like the edge of my central line dressing peaking out from my collar, and I really don't like having neurological symptoms out in public. It would be easy to be a hermit and not go anywhere, but I want to be productive. Even if it means on bad days just meeting a friend at a coffee shop. Especially now that Jake is writing a book about them (I'm his ghost writer). 

I'm also not comfortable about the fear I have regarding my medical issues. You can't be comfortable with yourself, if you aren't comfortable with your emotions. I can talk about logistics of getting ready to travel to Switzerland for Christmas, what meds we are changing and other ideas. But I've never opened up to anyone about my fears. The future is so uncertain, that I live mostly day by day. Predicting what I will be able to do next week, next month, next year is hard. It makes me fear for my job, whether the plan I have for practicing veterinary medicine is wise, and exactly how hard to push myself in both.

So while I am comfortable enough to hold a review session wearing jeans, a hoodie and a baseball cap I'm not comfortable in my own skin.