The Elephant in the Room

  This month on the Lupus Foundation of America site, they hosted 15 Questions with Ms. Cindy Coney: Dealing with Stress - Balancing Family, Friends, Activities and Lupus.  I have to say that I found it encouraging to find that I wasn't the only one dealing with issues of stress, work/life balance and communication when it came to Lupus.


  I'm having problems communicating to certain family members about my struggles with this disease.  Because I'm still functioning, not collapsing in a puddle of writhing agony, bleeding from orifices, or projectile vomiting I must be exaggerating.  The most difficult part of this is that, this isn't the first time my family has dealt with a serious illness. My father passed of a serious fatal illness.  Even then, he didn't want to talk about the details.        
It was more the elephant in the room that no one talked about.  


  Here is my truth.  I can't live that way. In my case, Lupus isn't going to be fatal, it will be very inconvenient. It will impact me when I'm not careful.  Or when my body has a flare that I can't control.  I have to say no to family members and they just get a look on their face that says 'she's just being a drama queen.'


  No, there is no drama.  It's just me taking care of the elephant in the room. Because if it's not cared for, things will get ugly really fast.