Chronic diseases do not like stress. They react to stress like a roaring dragon reacts to a fattened sheep that obliviously wanders too close to the dragons outstretched claws.
As the dragon devours the sheep, so does chronic disease with stress. It gobbles the stress up and then turns its voracious appetite onto the body.
Said more simply, stress causes the symptoms of chronic diseases to be much worse, and this of course, includes ulcerative colitis.
But while this affects most chronic disease patients, it does not affect all. Apparently, stress doesn't bother my stomach.
For the most part, I'm at a point where I don't have a lot of hard stress. But two months ago, we put our house up for sale. (No stress there, right???) We had a valid offer pretty fast, but the buyers' situation was not ideal, which caused repeated delays, uncertainty, and rampant stress.
Then there was the packing, day after day after day. By three o'clock each day, I was exhausted. (But I guess that is to be expected, being in my sixties.)
And then there was the other side, buying a house in the area where we were moving. So we were dealing with buyers and sellers, and both had some odd ideas. Even our realtors on both ends were at times stymied by the behaviors of the buyer and the seller.
Knowing that stress can trigger a flare, I was concerned how my stomach would be during this time. The last thing we needed was me running to the bathroom all day and in too much pain to pack or do anything else.
But I never had a problem. I often felt like crying and pulling out my hair, but my stomach was fine.
We signed the closing papers on the house we were selling a few days ago. We're days away from signing the closing papers for the house we're buying. We will then start the unpacking phase, which will be busy but should be less stressful.
I am grateful and feel extremely blessed to have been able to work through this period of stress and have my stomach remain calm . . . even if the rest of me was an emotional wreck.
Past Christmas Posts
This is the Christmas season, so I'm providing links to my previous December posts, which were actually about Christmas, unlike the one you just read:
December 2024 This Christmas? So Far So Good
December 2023 Warm Fuzzies For Christmas!
December 2022 Christmas Too Commercial? That's Not Such a Bad Thing
© Colitis Senioritis 2025
Posts
