Causes - Stress

When talking to other individuals with UC, the issue of stress often enters the conversation. It is well known that stress can induce a flare in the disease. Stress has been indicated to worsen or even cause many maladies involving the immune system. It follows from this that some hypothesize that stress is a cause of UC. This has not been proven (and in my opinion, not likely), but it certainly effects the progression of the disease.

Without boring readers with all the details, I will say that there are plenty of stresses in my life. Although I am very happy with all aspects of my life, work, family and training all present a high level of stress in my life. After all, who doesn't have stress? For those of us with UC we need to take measures to reduce stress. I have mentioned in other blog entries many things that help me reduce the stress in my life including many understanding individuals, exercise and speaking openly about UC.

Reduce the stress and suffer less!

Workout Maps - mile 313

I found a great new website to use as a training aid. It is mapmyrun.com or mapmyride.com. This website is interactive with Google maps, is loaded with features and is free! You can plot workout routes and it will give you back the distance, elevation profile (although I have not had success with this feature), and even save your routes. I learned of it yesterday and have had way too much fun wasting time plotting my usual routes. This will be of particular use as my GPS unit has began to malfunction.

It's a part of life - mile 277

Embarrassment: it is a part of life! Today I was reminded of this fact that nobody really likes. Having UC is a reason to stress over the possible situations that may result in embarrassment; particularly if you are having a flare. Today I remain in remission, but still had an embarrassing moment relating to the big "#2".

The daily morning routine is my wife, daughter and I all pile into the car at ~7am. First we drive downtown to my wife's work and let her start her grind while I try tactic number 455 to distract my daughter (Jaixai) so that she is not too upset that "Mommy" is leaving. Next stop is Jaixai's daycare and then to campus for me. When we get an early enough start, Jaixai and I will go to a cafe and share a muffin before daycare. Today was one of those fortunate days.

So we were sitting at a pastry cafe and enjoying our cranberry walnut muffin when I felt the need to go, well, #2. I did not feel the common urgency that comes with UC, but I have learned from my experiences to play it safe...so off to the restroom I went. Of course, since it was just the two of us, my daughter needed to come with me (although against her will). This morning she was actually pretty good and agreed to come with me. Now for the embarrassment:

We were in the bathroom and Jaixai was saying in her exceptionally loud 2-year-old-voice little one-liners like "Daddy poopy, huh?" or "Stinky fart (fortunately in Lao and not English)", or when I was flushing, "Bye-bye poopies!" Either way, I think she made great entertainment for the rest of the cafe customers all at my expense.

I walked out and pretended not to notice the people looking at us and smiling...we left after only a few minutes. I was a little emabarrassed and realized that it is apart of life for us all; not just those with UC.

I cannot wait to get back at Jaixai when she is a teenager!!!

Stress Release - mile 221

Wow! What a busy week I have had. I will not bore readers with the details, but in short, the week ended with an hour-long scientific presentation to my department at Brown University (this included nearly all members of my thesis committee) and began with my computer crashing on Monday losing all software and files. That explains the lack of posts this week. Reflecting back on it, I am shocked that the added stress did not cause a flare of my UC. I suppose this was the case for two main reasons: 1) I kept confidence and knew that I would survive it and 2) I temporarily neglected my family and they supported me despite this. This weekend was made all that much sweeter as I relaxed, released pent-up energy on my bike and spent time with my family.