Eric Tapley

This autumn I’m fortunate to be involved with three great events working for the greater good. I’d like your support if any of these are aligned with causes you believe in either by donating time, money, becoming a corporate sponsor, or just spreading the word.

• · Colitis Walk for a Cure (Oct 14)
• · Art beCAUSE Art + Wine Gala (Oct 24)
• · American Red Cross: Salute to Our Community Heroes (Mar 20)

Please don’t feel obligated by this request - I realize we each work to make a difference in our own ways - but if you want to help I’d appreciate your support of these causes and know it would make a tremendous difference.

GUTS + GLORY | Walk For a Cure for Colitis

I’ve suffered from Colitis since 2002. Thanks to the support of my wife Kate, family, friends, amazing doctors, and three surgeries I’m mostly well and my future remains bright. This isn’t the case for millions of others.

On October 14th Kate will be walking with hundreds of others (and our baby!) to help find a cure for Colitis. As a thank you she’s going to mail out signed photos of Baby Sam to all who make a donation, so this is both an opportunity to support a great cause and obtain some baby cuteness.

Kate has raised $300 toward her goal of $750. You can help by pledging online at: https://www.kintera.org/

ART BECAUSE | Art + Wine Gala

Art beCAUSE is committed to funding research dedicated to eradicating the environmental causes of breast cancer (another c-word I’m really not fond of). I’m a new Board member and am proud that 3000k was able to donate our design talent to the save the date cards, invitations, and other event materials.

On October 24th we’re hosting our 5th annual gala to honor pioneering scientists and announce this year’s Seed the Scientist grants. We’ll provide the art show, dinner, and wine - but we need you to bring the good time!

More info and gala registration: http://www.artbecause.org/artbecause/abweb/wineabout.asp

AMERICAN RED CROSS | Saluting Our Community Heroes

Our local Red Cross chapter has recognized and honored local heroes who’ve risen to uncommon challenges for years (among the many other incredible things our chapter does). Once again this March we’re celebrating people who make Central Massachusetts such a great place to live.

We’re looking for hero nominations, corporate sponsors, donations, and starting in January will be selling tickets to the event.

Nominate a hero: http://www.redcrossworcester.org/hero-application.php

Become a corporate or event sponsor: http://www.redcrossworcester.org/corp_partners/

Donate online: https://www.redcrossworcester.org/donate/online.html

Become a volunteer (lend your flair to make this a great event!): http://www.redcrossworcester.org/volunteer/apply.html

Thanks for your consideration of the Colitis Walk, Art + Wine Gala, and Heroes Salute. Please lend your support, join us at one of the events, learn more about these organizations, and pass the word along (this is a good chance to blog about a local event, hint, hint).

Or continue doing good in your own fashion, and have a better day knowing more about the great things ordinary people are doing for one another and our community!

I haven’t posted anything this year about my annual bout with poison ivy, but I have it yet again (and yes, once again it’s a bad case). This is such old news I just don’t have the heart to go into gruesome detail once again about all of it.

But it’s still affecting me, most immediately by affecting my sleeping patterns. Right now it is after 2:00a and I’m up, alert, when I should be asleep. I’m exhausted, mind you, but I just can’t sleep. And it’s thanks to the steroids and other meds I’m on to help manage the poison ivy. Every time I make a change to my dose - increase or decrease - my system goes all wonky for a few days.

I’m getting over the poison ivy so right now I’m on a downward taper of the steroids. It’s making me moody and sleep deprived. Ah, well, in a few days it’ll be over, and at least the itching has stopped. And in the meantime you know why I’m cranky and have droopy eyes!

Simple systems - those that can be broken down into a few easy to follow rules - seem to work best for people and nature. They’re certainly easier to follow than complicated, nested, conditional and dependent sets of rules. So in the spirit of my earlier post of producing more here are nine daily rules I’m going to follow in the hope of discovering more pleasant and productive time each day. I expect an immediate and visible impact in terms of my work, health, and happiness.

1. Produce + create every day.
2. Exercise every day.
3. Read before bedtime.
4. To bed by 11:00p; to rise by 7:00a.
5. Don’t eat after 7:00p.
6. Watch less television.
7. Play more games.
8. Set reasonable personal expectations.
9. Try to save 10% at home and work.

We’ll see how these go. I might add “Drink more water” to the list sometime.

I didn’t add broad things like “More family time,” or “Engage in leisure activities,” because I think both will come from watching less television and playing more games.

Do you have a list of simple daily rules?

I used to be really athletic. I would run, cycle, and hike for hours each week. I was the healthiest person I knew.

I used to be great at managing my time and completing tasks. I could take on a ton of different things in a day and I had the energy and stamina to see them all through, and do a good (or great) job at each of them.

Neither of these are true, anymore.

After getting sick with Colitis and spending all of the time I did in the hospital (and the impact of the surgeries I underwent) my life kind of fell apart. Not in the traditional sense of losing a job, a spouse, or experiencing financial problem, but instead I stopped being the same person and doing things the same way.

It’s time to get back to who I used to be. I believe health is the key. So, starting this week, I’m going to do more than just walk and track my steps with a pedometer. I’m joining Bally’s and starting a vigorous exercise routine, complete with assistance from a personal trainer, and I’m going to redouble my efforts on nutrition.

I hope to do some great things with my life, and I have a lot of life left to live. This isn’t a post for sympathy, it’s a public declaration of intent.

Ah, the joys of having a suckass intestinal tract.

I’ve been back in and out of the hospital twice during the last four weeks. I have a stubborn intestinal infection that didn’t clear up with the first round of antibiotics and consequently sent me back to the hospital after I thought all was well.

This isn’t a big problem, in the grand scheme of things, as two three-day stays are a far cry from staying for weeks at a time back when I was battling Colitis. But it still reminds me of how hard it is to be sick, how much illness consumes your life and detracts from everything else, and how we never know what the next day really holds.

So this sucks. I’ll look at the bright side. I had a chance to visit with some of the wonderful nurses I’ve come to know at Boston Medical Center (Hi Chen, Aryn, Debbie, Jane, Sibohan, and the rest of 8 West!). It was a vacation, of sorts, at least away from the stresses of work (and legally drug induced, to boot). And, uh, free hospital TV?

I’m happy to be out and back on the trail to health. Now for that Nike+iPod system so I can kick this medication weight.

I’m back from a long vacation - ok, long for me. It was only for one week, but I haven’t been away for that long since Kate and I went on our honeymoon in 2001. I know, that’s five years, and I was well overdue for some time off.

I didn’t check email or browse the web while I was gone. I didn’t even try to find anyplace with a ‘net connection to do so. When my cell phone rang I let it go to voice mail and only checked if the number was one I recognized as important. That’s when I had the cell on - about half of the time it was off.

We returned home today and I feel fantastic.

There’s an important connection here, and it’s a lesson I’m working hard to learn. Vacation is a great thing.

Most of the time our actions move us forward forward by inches, if that. Each week is an incremental advance over the previous week, and that’s good, because it’s steady progress that grows most individuals and organizations. But there are diminishing returns when you push beyond a certain point, and I had gone too long without recharging my batteries. I was getting over my rash a little bit, day by day, but it was slow progress. I was getting work done at the office, but only by putting in longer and longer hours to get the same number of tasks complete (or to complete *just one more task*).

This vacation was eye-opening for me. It was a game changer. I didn’t move forward by inches but by yards, both in terms of health and attitude. I feel so much better now: I’m more relaxed, more focused, more energetic, and best of all my rash is gone.

It’s not often we have a chance to move forward by leaps instead of lurches.

We all need to take more vacations.

My mystery rash – let’s not call it poison ivy any more – first appeared on July 22nd. It’s been nearly a month of dealing with this unknown, recurring, mystery thing. It’s painful, itchy, irritating, hot, prickly, and makes my skin feel tight. At times I feel short of breath, almost as if I can’t take a deep breath, and that’s scary. Behind my elbows and knees, and between my fingers, my skin has become inflamed and sensitive and bleeds now and then from the chaffing. When I wake in the morning there is often a little blood on the sheets from my legs.

But I can’t stop moving or using my hands or walking or living. I have to move forward the best I can.

All of this is starting to get to me. I’m trying to be optimistic but I feel a little lost. I’m losing track of tasks that I need to finish, I don’t have the same focus or drive at work (which is in large part due to the medication I’m on). The days seem to bleed together, and on top of it all I’m not sleeping well. Each of these feeds the other.

I constantly worry that this is in fact contagious and that Sam will get sick from it. I’ve had nightmares about that. I obsessively wash my hands an am incredibly careful every time I play with him. I use a separate towel to dry my hands and even have a ’sick sheet’ I put on the couch when I sit there so, just in case this is infectious, even just a little, I’m not leaving residue around.

Even still, he has some kind of rash. The doctor said it’s unrelated, something called “prickly heat rash,” and that he’s fine. But I worry and don’t feel any better that she’s given it a benign name - what if it is from me?

During my long years of battling Colitis I experienced this kind of depression frequently. It’s the unknown that gets to me – I don’t deal well with situations in which I feel helpless or out of control – and with a good long walk and a little reflection I’m able to pull through and get back to a positive, optimistic place. It’s just hard sometimes.

It’s hard right now.