I'm "controlling" my HS with my diet right now. I pay attention to every morsel of food I put in my mouth... yes, sometimes I eat things that will not help my skin, but I make the choice to do so. I weigh the consequences. Sometimes even if I eat something that I think will affect me, it doesn't... and I chock that up to the fact that 99.9% of the time I am eating on the path to recovery... but then...
I've been home, pretty much locked in my house, since Monday. I worked on Sunday and the snow/ice that was on the roads (even the highway) had me in fear/stress mode. I have a dog at home... I'm sure I could have asked my neighbors to let her out and stayed in a hotel... wasn't going to happen. I wanted to be home with my cats and my dog and be safe and warm together. So I did everything that I could to push the stress from my mind (you can only tell yourself not to stress over something so often without the mantra itself becoming a stressor) as much as possible. I knew I would get home and all I had to do was drive at a safe distance from other cars on the road and at a safe speed. I had my Nissan Sentra not my Jeep, so 4-wheel drive was not an option. I had 25 miles of road ahead of me and because it was Sunday the road crews were not out in force as they would have been had it been a weekday. And... this was my first time driving the Nissan in a situation of ice and snow. I'd driven it in winter before but the roads had been cleared already.
I tested the stopping power of the brakes as I was leaving the parking lot and the back end swerved but I got it under control. Turning out of the parking lot was not an issue and I traveled along between 15-25 mph. Making the turn from the road I was on to the on-ramp to one of the highways I had to take was a bit scary... there was a car off to the side with the 4-ways blinking away... this car had not quite made the turn... and my turn was a right turn... I had to yield to oncoming traffic turning onto the ramp ... so I just waited until there was no more traffic and I slowly accelerated to get onto the ramp. The car fishtailed a little, but I was in control.
The story was like that the entire way home. The main road I drive (I-83 in PA) was not cleared yet and there were ruts where the cars had been driving so it was necessary to keep a focus on the road ahead. A couple of hills (going down) were quite scary because of the guardrail being so damn close to the road... and going over a couple of bridges too... yeah, I was not having a good time.
By the time I got off the highway I felt like every muscle in my body was sore (clench much?)... but I relaxed at that time because I knew I was now less than 5 miles away from home and I would drive the car off to the side of the road and walk the balance to home if I had to. That's a freeing feeling, knowing that you are in walking distance, even if it is freezing outside and sleeting/snowing! I made it most of the way home and my last monster road is the road that leads to my driveway. It winds up a hill and it is a back road for sure... the lanes are narrow, sometimes I barely think there is enough room for a car within the one lane... and since it was not plowed I was sure I was going to have to park the car and walk... but she made it! Fortunately there were no oncoming cars and no cars already stuck, mid-rise on the hill, I coached the car... "come on baby girl, you can make it, I know you can"... and I kept chanting that to her all the way up to the base of my driveway!
Harrowing? Yes. Life-threatening? Yes. Stress-inducing... apparently.
The moral of this story is: no matter how much diet you put into it, stress can undo your hard work. Because I worked on Sunday I had Monday off... I cleared off the Jeep on Monday and drove that down to the gas station because I didn't want to get caught without gas in the Jeep if I needed to drive it... but I was already broken out with inconvenient HS lumps... (yeah, they are never convenient... but these were in places that I couldn't get dressed without pain)... I was wearing just sweat pants and a sweatshirt, no undergarments and that was all I could do...
I emailed my boss on Monday afternoon to let her know that I might not be in on Tuesday due to this... woke up Tuesday, still too painful. Woke up today, still too painful. How long does it take to dry these things up when you eat healthy 99.9% of the time? I'm still counting. It's not looking good for me to go to work tomorrow either... but we shall see what the morning brings.
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