Holidays half over; treatment plans intact?

Many people are aware that current treatment plans involve a lifetime committment. This means whether once-per-day or twice, whatever combination of medicines is prescribed needs to be taken in the same way at the same time, daily, as instructed.

This can be very challenging during holiday periods: There may be travel involved (which may include time-zone changes); there could be guests visiting or being visited (which might mean a change in how, where and to what degree the prescription-taking is visible to others, and to whom); there may be changes in eating and also drinking patterns (possibly involving parties, dinners, get-togethers and other things) and this combination needs to be accounted for in our holiday planning.

While a great majority of the "rush" of the season is now behind us all, there are still a few more days (almost a week, in fact) when many people are still away, or otherwise not yet returning to normal routines, be they work, school or whatever.

How are you coping? Has it been a challenge? Was there some adjustment? Did it all go well? Were there some rough patches?

Nobody is perfect, for if we were, how "human" would we be? Still, where possible, we must try to give the research and team of healthcare professionals who are literally working on our behalf the best possible outcome they've worked for - and this is not to mention our own selves... for we deserve it - by trying to account for these holiday-period changes and recognizing the challenges, where possible, ahead of time. Planning for that, and doing what we need to do to accommodate these differences in our daily routines, will go a tremendously long way toward the success of our treatment plan and toward better health outcomes for us!

Here is hoping that 2010 is the year when it all comes together, if it hasn't; and here's also hoping that the gains of 2009 improve while the pains lessen in this coming year. To whatever extent we have control over these issues, here's hoping we'll take that control and use it wisely, and that to whatever extent it's out of our hands, we are favoured with nothing but the best!