Roole
For 17 years, GV man has made miniature marvels
No result found, try new keyword! Also showing Heuser’s sense of detail and perfection are miniature chairs, tables and desks, plus dressers, a bunk bed, a dining table and chair ... His collection includes a roll-top desk with drawers that pull out. The roll-top is made from tiny ...Table Hospital, Bedside Rolling, Rolling Work, Laptop Desk
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I'm Chronically Ill and Afraid of Being Lazy
I began the long, hard slog of high-dose antibiotic therapy. Despite the pills, I remained sick. On some days, I was too weak to move my arms or legs; on the worst days, I was too weak to swallow or breathe without difficulty. In late November 2015, I stopped taking antibiotics and began an experimental treatment, known as Low-Dose Antigen Immunotherapy that is designed to calm a dysfunctional immune system by stimulating the production of T Regulator cells and which enabled me to partially function on most days. This is where I am now: too sick to go back to full-time work, freelancing and building a small online business with what energy I do have, and still alive enough to know how much I'm not doing.
This is where I am now: alive enough to know how much I'm not doing.
Here are things that I can and can't do. I can, on most days, work for approximately two or three hours a day, using bits of time here and there with breaks for rest. I can't, on most days, function well after approximately 2 p.m., which is when I begin to develop fevers, moderate to severe nausea, weakness, fatigue, and a cornucopia of other symptoms that I never get used to, no matter how often they come to call. I can do some fun and exciting things, given certain accommodations. I recently traveled to Los Angeles for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference (AWP), spoke on a panel, and gave a reading to promote my debut novel, which I'd written in the five years before I became ill. However, I can't serve as the managing editor of a major media site—a job that I was recently offered—because my body and mind can't handle that kind of workload, no matter how much I long to take it on.
It's said that the disabled are the largest stigmatized population of which any person can become a member at any time. This frequently comes to mind when I see people on social media speak with a certain amount of pride about hustling so hard that they haven't slept more than a few hours in a week. When I see women that I admire scoff at the idea of self-care, I shrink because I'm often reading their words on my phone while lying in bed, engaging in the most intense self-care that I can manage.
Should things be just a little bit different, I'd be right there alongside them. After all, my work ethic and ambition haven't gone anywhere, despite my dedication to doing nothing for hours per day. It's my work ethic and ambition that call my "doing nothing" laziness; and laziness, or sloth, is cause in our go-go-go society for shame of the highest order. In "On Productivity Anxiety," writer Rachel Vorona Cote recounts her need for "ritualistic assurances" of productivity from her husband. "Did I work enough today? Did I seem productive?" are the questions she asks of him before ultimately falling asleep. In a society that holds productivity as unequivocally good, to do less feels like a moral failing.
When I see women that I admire scoff at the idea of self-care, I shrink because I'm often reading their words on my phone while lying in bed, engaging in the most intense self-care that I can manage.
While working with my counselor, I've frequently brought up the topic of whether or not I am, in fact, lazy. It's a question that I compulsively ask. As someone who used to define herself vis-a-vis her work ethic, to become unable to act upon that work ethic is nearly intolerable. My deep fear is that I'm secretly slothful and am using chronic illness to disguise the sick rot of laziness within myself. Surely I can rouse myself from this bed and bring myself to my desk? Surely I can pull myself up by the bootstraps and force myself to work? Instead of bragging online and in person about how much work I've accomplished, I post selfies from my bed, as if to prove that I am, indeed, ill. Compounding my shame is the private investigator sent after me last fall by my insurance company—a common practice in disability benefits cases—who reported that I was seen "smiling and laughing" after a doctor's appointment, clearly a sign that all was well and good. Surely, then, I could be making myself useful. My disability benefits were pulled last September. I was horrified by the outcome, but, laughably, too ill to fight the ruling.
These days, I continue to surround myself with reminders of my former self. I dream of a future self, in remission and free of illness, who uses her pink Goal Digger pencil case without self-consciousness. Though it might be better to realize my worth outside of productivity, I continue to live in a society that praises the art of getting things done over all else—including wellness and rest—and these are values I can't seem to shake.
Perhaps the solution is to view what I am doing through a different lens. My work, although it may not look like work to most, is to take care of myself. I must care for my health with as much attention as I once paid to the documents I was hired to edit, or to the long hours spent at the office on Saturdays. Aggressive pursuit of one's ambition is a skillset that, I hope, has not left me. In the meantime, I am aggressively pursuing a dream of recovery.
Esmé Weijun Wang is an essayist and the author of The Border of Paradise: A Novel, published by Unnamed Press in April 2016. Her work has appeared in Salon, Catapult, The Believer, The New Inquiry, and Jezebel. She writes at esmewang.com and tweets at @esmewang.