Episode 250 | Chronic Illness Journey: Sharing Stories, Finding Ways to Thrive, and Supporting Each Other |

David Watts [00:00:00]:
Welcome to it. It is, another edition of Watts Involved, episode 250. We're talking about this, what's getting involved in his own life. So just to recap where we left off the last time. So the quick rundown, I have CIDP, chronic inflammatory polymyosinop. Chronic in oh, yes. Okay. There's so many of these little letters.

David Watts [00:00:30]:
It's chronic inflam and it's chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy. So that's where it all started off. Type 2 diabetes on insulin, and then, it subsequently moved on to, getting all these weird cramps. So 7 centimeter hiatus hernia and, lots and lots of gastric reflux, and that has caused, stomach cells to start growing in my esophagus, which has a fairly high potential of, becoming cancerous if I don't, get that healed sorted away. Otherwise, they stick something down my throat, which is, I guess, kinda like a roto rooter thing, and it just scours away all of those things. What else? Oh, yes. The hip thing where there is, idiopathic neuropathy in my left hip, which they reckon, hip, replacement definitely on the cards. Not keen on that.

David Watts [00:01:36]:
And, currently, we are undergoing the joy, excitement, and fun of yet another autoimmune, which is polymyositis, which attacks your muscles. Yeah. I think I I I kind of covered all of that. And, when the last time we spoke, I was waiting to go for a muscle biopsy. As we speak today, it is the 26th March. I am scheduled to go in for the muscle biopsy tomorrow. So there we go. Something else to look forward to.

David Watts [00:02:10]:
So some of you might be looking at this and going, so far, so what? And you're right. So far, so what? The reason that I'm doing this and that I'm I'm sharing this stuff is because, as I've mentioned before, I've noticed there are so many other people going through their own things. I made a post on on Facebook just the other day, about a friend of mine who, got got in contact with me and said, that she finds what I do inspirational, and it's helped her because she was diagnosed with breast cancer and has to go in for a double mastectomy. It caused a bit of controversy on on Facebook. Some people saying don't minimize your own pain and etcetera etcetera, and I understand that. I get exactly what you're saying there. However, I don't believe it's minimizing my pain. I believe it's becoming aware that, you're not the only one that's going through stuff because for the last 3 days, I have felt like bubblegum on the bottom of somebody's shoe, really felt terrible, and I had all sorts of symptoms, etcetera, etcetera.

David Watts [00:03:34]:
The the the the people that, supposedly know more than me have been changing up medication and just been horrible. You know, one of those, you know, just trying to eat worms kind of thing, crawl up and curl up in bed and, close the windows and play the sad music? So that's that's where I was, and hearing from my friend actually kinda stopped me and made me think, okay. You know what? Yeah. This is where you are. I'm not diminishing my pain or or any of those things. My my pain is, for me, pretty pretty spectacular, and it it's there 24 hours a day. The medication helps dial it down from, like, an 11 to a 3 or a 4, but it's still there. And it just made me realize that I need to share this stuff and encourage other people to share this stuff and to talk about it.

David Watts [00:04:32]:
Because in another in another part of my life, I also we do sales training and persuasion training and negotiation. And I've realized that in general, I'm not saying this to everybody, but in general, 2 things. Number 1, the veneer of civilization is very thin on us. Okay? You give us half a chance, and, we revert back to to type where, it's all about us, and there's there's just yeah. No. We've become very, very primitive and aggressive. But, also, so many of the problems and challenges that surround us, within our own challenges. And when I talk challenges and pain, understand I'm talking not just physical pain, but emotional pain, psychological pain.

David Watts [00:05:25]:
And we need to start talking about this stuff, and we need to start taking some time out from me, me, me, me, me, me, and what's in it for me, and and just trying to figure out how we can understand other people and respect people and, you know, move through this life and make it as good as we can for us, but also for others. You know, Zig Ziglar, I think it was, who said, you can have anything you want in this world if you will just help enough other people get what they want. So I'm trying to help other people, and what I want is I want us to be able to open a dialogue about this. So so this is where you are, and and and you've got pain or or you've got a health challenge of one kind or another. How do we talk about it? How do we find solutions? Because I don't believe we were designed to kind of have all of these horrendous autoimmune diseases. So what do we do? And if we do get them, how do we live with them? And if there's other challenges we have, how do we live with them, and how do we still thrive? And that's what I wanna do, Okay? And and to steal shamelessly, from, I believe it's Winston Churchill, you said, youth is wasted on the young. I also believe health is wasted on the healthy because for some reason, we always seem to think, I certainly did, that, you know, I'm 10 foot tall and bulletproof. Nothing will happen.

David Watts [00:07:12]:
The concept of of death was like, whatever, And for a long time, because I didn't really care about living, death didn't bother me. And then when I went deeper into it, I realized I'm scared of dying. I mean, I don't mind the actual act of dying. I just don't necessarily wanna be there when it happens, But there is so much, I believe, to talk about, and the things I still wanna talk about while we're doing this, and while I'm sharing my journey is is just talk about, what I'm doing to try and help this, what I'm doing to try and feel better and to see what other people say. What do you suggest? Are you in a similar position? What has worked for you? One of the things that, I have to be quite grateful for is in the last couple of weeks, we finally seem to have hit on an ADD medication that helps. Okay? Which means I'm not chasing squirrels all the time, only some of the time now. And, again, some people might go, come on. ADD, you manage it by doing this, that, and the next thing.

David Watts [00:08:28]:
Trust me. I have tried everything. And I think I've mentioned before, my hard drive is littered with productivity software and training courses, and, my my Kindle is full of books on ADD and how to manage adult ADD and yada yada yada, which is brilliant if you can actually focus on reading the book or watching the videos or, actually doing what is required in, all of those fancy management tools and scheduling tools and productivity tools. I couldn't. K? Not gonna lie. Couldn't. So that's basically a bit of a catch up for me and, just letting you know where I am. And I just wanna encourage you, if you are in a position like that and and you're watching this or whatever, share it.

David Watts [00:09:22]:
Let's let's talk about it. I've been as I said, I've been toying with the idea of starting a Facebook group where we can hang out, and we we can share positive stuff. Okay? I think we all we all have a lot of negative stuff, and sometimes it's it's good to share it and get it out. We gotta focus on how do we deal with our situations, whatever they may be, and how do we make the best of this time that we have? One of the things that that keeps ringing in my ears, is something my mom always used to say to me. You know, if you if you fall down or if you get knocked down, pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep on going. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna keep on keeping on and keep on doing this, and and let's just let's see let's see where our journey goes. If you are watching this, please do me a favor.

David Watts [00:10:17]:
If you can just sort of I think it's I I see the important the the famous people always pointing. So I think it's down there somewhere. Just like and subscribe. It apparently helps with the, YouTube algorithm. And I decided when I was gonna do all of this is I'm not going to try and get all the SEO right and the this and the that and get everything perfect before I release it because I don't think it's genuine there. You know? If I'm if I'm trying to talk about this kind of stuff, but I'm trying to do it in a way that Google's gonna go, oh, yay, David. You're a terrible little boy. Pointless.

David Watts [00:10:56]:
Don't you agree? Pointless. So let's let's just share real stuff. Somebody did ask me, by the way, what what are the lights in the background, and there's a lot of stuff they see in the background. Those are fish tanks and shrimp tanks. I'll share I'll share that story with you. I'll I will I will I'll tell you about another one of my little obsessions as we go through. Before I wrap up again, just like and subscribe. If there's anything that you'd like to ask me that, you think I should discuss, please let me know.

David Watts [00:11:34]:
And also, if you're one of the brave ones and you would like to be on the show with me so we can chat about this stuff together, again, please let me know. Check it out, on my website, which is www.what'sinvolved.com. So that's w a t t s involvedinvolved.com. Check it out there. And if I can be like the other clever people and I can figure out how to do it, I'll put all of the relevant information and stuff in the description below. K? Okay. Right. Wraps it up, to each and every one of you.

David Watts [00:12:14]:
Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Look after yourselves. Take care. Be kind.