Prisoner of air conditioning, coping with side effects

I hate to be redundant, but it's freakin' HOT! I never really liked air conditioning, I like open windows and a nice breeze; but when a friend recently offered to give me a small room air conditioner I finally broke down. It does help, quite a bit in fact, but I'm beginning to feel like a prisoner in my air conditioned room. I'm trying to avoid feeling useless and unproductive, which quickly leads to depression. I've been writing a lot, reading, and researching resources to help me get moved out of this apartment. All those years of Social Work and Advocacy are paying off. Resources are out there but knowing how and who to ask is essential. One thing that troubles me is the lack of support for Hep C patients. There are foundations for people with other diseases, but nothing, in my area at least, for Hep C.
But I'm digressing, what I wanted to do was talk about the importance of managing side effects. It's kind of a snowball effect (mmmm snow); if you don't manage the side effects, you feel crappy. When you feel crappy, you don't get things done. when you don't get things done, you feel more demoralized and depressed which leads to less motivation for self-care and side effect management, and so on it goes. We can't change the weather but we can do things to be more comfortable. Air conditioning, cool showers, drinking tons of water and taking it easy. Sometimes we have to accept that we can't get everything accomplished that we would like, but it is what it is. If there's one thing I'm learning from all this its how to practice self-care, to ask for help (I'm still working on the not feeling guilty about it part)
It helps me to have reminders around telling me what I should be doing to take care of myself, and its a lot more effective than waiting until I feel horrible and then doing something about it.

A useful and comprehensive guide can be found at 

http://www.hcvadvocate.org/hepatitis/factsheets_pdf/Treatment_Side_effect_Guide.pdf

it's good advice, and can help make this process a lot less miserable. Next time: coping with emotions, or the three faces of eve revisited.
© 2010 Jennifer Hazard
image courtesy of Microsoft clipart collection