Type B Discipline - Is Not Really Discipline

Since I first became ill all of those many years ago I have worked with a platoon of doctors. Each has their own recommendations about diet, exercise, medication, and lifestyle. Sometimes they agreed or disagreed or gave conflicting advice. As I became more ill and ended up with a small cohort of doctors, my list of medications and recommendations grew to gigantic proportions. I think it is underappreciated by doctors and by people generally how much change, adaptability, and sheer discipline is required when you are ill.

First, medication is required on a specific schedule. It must be taken a certain number of hours apart and sometimes with food or without food or in liquid. (This means that food and liquid need to be immediately available and the food and liquid have to be part of the carefully crafted diet.) Reduced calorie and special nutrition diets need careful counting and have to be consumed across hours in such a way that blood sugar doesn't surge or drop. You also can't just thoughtlessly grab whatever in the fridge or pantry looks good. It needs to be the food that best meets your caloric and nutrition requirements when taken in consideration of the dietary whole. This often requires being near a refrigerator and/or stove/microwave. Some diets do not lend themselves well to packaging or room temperatures.

When you have bad reactions to food or medication, your body may need a time out to get back to normal. The inflammation needs time to go down. You may need to do an elimination diet with food and/or medication to try to determine which is the trigger. (Sometimes the trigger can't be identified.) Then you end up off of your medication/dietary schedule and need to go back on again. You may also have a specific sleep schedule to try to adhere to. If so, this may also come with advice about how much time before bed devices and lights need to be turned off and have medication requirements tied to hour of sleep.

All of this requires planning. It requires careful execution. It requires staying tuned in to how much medication is left in a bottle and ensure that new meds are ordered in a timely fashion. It may require filling out medication holders. It is not easy. It seems like it should be easy. Really, it is a lot of steps that need to happen whether you feel like it or not. It requires discipline. If you are a Type B person, forcing yourself to be disciplined can be extraordinarily hard. You may feel like you are having to be someone else in order to make the magic happen. It can be an uphill battle. It is for me. I find I have to take breaks from discipline so it doesn't break me. I can do one thing repeatedly without problem. Two is harder. Ten feels impossible. But I try. Every day is a new day to try and get it right.