Lowering expectations, part deux

Early Monday morning, I landed in the ER with gastroenteritis (a fancy word for stomach flu, I think). I’d been vomiting for about 12 hours straight, and at around 5 a.m., I crawled into my runner-friend Karen’s room and begged her to drive me to the ER.

Once I was all pumped up with fluids, electrolytes and anti-nausea medicine via IV, I stopped weeping and proclaiming loudly that I was probably going to die, I started thinking about (and stressing about) the stuff I was going to cancel or skip: A practice session in backboarding and traction splinting for the OEC students on Monday night. Lunch with my SPJ freelance friends. A group run on Tuesday night. A long run and a long swim ahead of the Philadelphia Half-Marathon in November and the Daiquiri Deck Tropical Splash Open Water Swim on Oct. 6. I started thinking about the work emails I needed to send alerting clients that I may be a day or two late filing various stories or edits. And I started, even in my Zofran-numbed mind, to kind of freak out.

Then, I remembered that just a few weeks ago, I wrote a post on this very blog including the following sentence: “I am trying to be OK with the fact that right now, in the wake of a crazy past year and a kinda emotional week, it’s OK to have slightly lower expectations for myself.”

Right. So once I got back to Karen’s house, I sent the emails asking for more time on various assignments. I told our OEC instructor I wouldn’t make the practice session. I cancelled my lunch. I reminded myself that I’ll get all the training I need for the half-marathon and the swim once I feel better, and that if not, I can always adjust expectations for them. And then, I took a nap.

Today has actually been a wonderfully productive work day (being parked on a couch with no energy does amazing things for your work productivity). I’m already planning on it being another wonderful nap day, too. If I don’t post on a regular schedule this week … well, you’ll know where I was instead.