Taking Care of Business by Taking Care of YOU!

This won’t be a particularly fun afternoon. Today is my yearly mammogram. And having your boobs flattened to flap-jack proportions by means of a vice-like machine is hardly my idea of a good time--even if the technician does turn out to look like Fabio--which I hope to God is not the case. After four kids the ‘girls’ aren’t what they used to be.

I said ‘yearly’ mammogram. But I misspoke. Somehow the time between my examinations grew to eighteen months. I ponder how the lapse could have occurred as if this circumstance was the result of some targeted conspiracy or a baffling puzzle rather than the result of business as usual--a pattern of conduct I suspect I share with many other women. Come on. Fess up. How many of you have gone too long between physicals, not visited a physician when you should have, gone without medication or skipped doses to make it last longer, or passed on the aerobic class because the kids had karate or dance or tennis…? How many of you have shrugged off aches and pains or got up off your sick bed when you had the flu to take care of children and family? Or went to work? Or both?

I started to think of those all too frequent occasions--whether from lack of time or lack of money--I put my needs on the back burner (okay, so I took them off the stove altogether) for what I perceived as the ‘greater good’. Mothers are notoriously guilty of this--‘guilt’ being the operative word here. However, women in general seem to struggle with giving themselves permission to take proper care of themselves--whether from some super mom notion, resource issues, or time considerations. We put everyone else’s needs first. It’s how we’re wired. How we’re expected to behave. We don’t know any different.

How does this relate to writing? More than you may think. Writing is a business. As in any business venture, its success--or failure--is based on the dynamic, energetic, creative force that fuels that business. In the business of writing that means you and me. We’re the CEO of the company. We’re the researcher, the marketing director, the accountant, and the final product inspector. We need to bring the best, brightest, most creative ‘employee’ to the company we can. Just as we need to bring the best and brightest mom to our family. Or teacher to our school. Or doctor to our patients.

Well, today--six months late for an appointment that could mean life or death--I’ve finally realized that the greatest gift I can give my loved ones, my readers, my employer is a healthy, happy me! Okay, so it’s taken a while for me to come to this point. I’m a living, breathing example of the adage, ‘you’re never too old to learn.’

And this all begins with giving ourselves permission to take as good a care of ourselves as we do others in our lives. Writers spend a heck of a lot of time with their behinds in chairs. Many of us have regular jobs and families to care for. How do you make time for you? Do you make time for you? What kind of exercise/yoga/meditation regime works for you? How do you keep all the balls in the air and still manage to find time to take care of your needs and nurture the writer inside?

In closing I’m posting a list of symptoms of a heart attack in women. The symptoms differ from those of men and often women have very few early warning signs before the onset of a heart attack or cardiac episode. Knowledge is power!

· Chest pain-may also include back pain and/or deep aching and throbbing in one or both arms.
· Breathlessness and/or inability to catch your breath when waking up.
· Clammy sweating.
· Dizziness--unexplained lightheadedness, possible blackouts.
· Anxiety--unusual nervousness, feelings of impending doom.
· Edema--fluid retention and swelling usually of the ankles or lower legs.
· Fluttering--rapid heartbeats, palpitations.
· Nausea--gastric upset.
· Feeling of heaviness, such as pressure-like chest pain between the breasts that may radiate to the left arm or shoulder.
‘Til next time,

~Bullet Hole Bacus who plans to visit the state fair and write a completely nonsensical blog entry about the biggest boar next week~