Stress is key to managing RND. Unfortunately, stress is a very difficult to avoid in a teenager's life.
There is the typical high school melodramas amongst friends, personal insecurities, conflicts amongst family members, strong desire for independence, romantic heartbreak, physical pain from endometriosis and RND, monthly hormonal influctuations, etc. Being a teenager is codeword for stressful! Yet, stress aggravates RND and my darling daughter has had enough teen drama, particularly with peers, these past couple of weeks to create a roller coaster ride to mirror the biggest one out there. Add a fall off a horse and some stumbling during ice skating and Zoralei has been struggling to control the pain in her left arm.
On top of it all, today her dad is in the hospital for another procedure and Zoralei came home from school early because she was worried about him. She lasted less than an hour and after a seminary lesson on a young girl dying, she was pretty teared up. Her mom is having surgery in 10 days too and Zoralei has been talking about how much stress there is. She sees a counselor weekly to help keep stress under control. Honestly, I am not sure how much that helps. Overall, I think she is handling it well, but I notice that by the end of the day, especially one where she talked a lot about all these kinds of stress, that she is rubbing her arm more and retiring just a few minutes earlier. When I ask about it, she says it hurts and about how she isn't going to let it stop her. Honestly, I think it is okay to have off days, but again the hospital training has paid off. She attends counseling, is spiritually minded, takes time to get recentered when she needs it, and talks things out with friends when she is feeling overwhelmed. She is doing everything right, but stress is nearly impossible to avoid and as a result, her arm has not made as much progress as I was hoping for. To be honest, it hasn't really made much if any progress since she was released from the hospital.
Zoralei has decided to join Lacrosse next week, but the practices are 2 1/2 hours a day Monday through Friday, with Saturday meets. After 6 hours of physical exertion in the hospital daily, lacrosse will be a piece of cake. However, despite all the good reasons she has used to make her decision: credit for her diploma, meet new friends, get physically fit, have a concrete exercise program for her RND, good stress release, and to do it with a friend of hers, Zoralei is very worried about Lacrosse. She is worried about juggling her time. It is a HUGE time commitment. She is worried about having time with friends and being able to be around home enough to satisfy mom's requirements to see her once in a while, but mostly she is worried she will not have time with her friends that she finds most important to her sanity as a teenager (you know: BOYS). She is worried about being so tired that she will not stay on top of her homework after such long workouts. It is a good decision for her to do it. Yet that decision has also led to her stressing over the future affects of it. I do not believe it is helping her RND. Even though she is now running daily in preparation, the reality is that she is not finding the extra phyical exertion on her part to be helping her RND. Perhaps it is because the stress levels are still high. Even if you subscribe to Frozen's "Let it go" mentality, as a teenager or human being for that matter, escaping stress and worry in this life is very difficult. Therefore, I am not sure how we can subscribe to seeing any real progress when she is often stressed, and often over things involving her peers and outside our control.
We are encouraging her to do the Lacrosse, encouraging her to struggle to find a balance. But though I say it may help her RND, I do not insist that I believe it will do so. I think the physical exercise is a huge component, but perhaps it may be too limited a mindset. Watching for the subtle telling tales that her RND is bothering her has become my gauge how things are really going in Zoralei's life.
