My “New Math”

(Written April 1996; seven months before treatment at Futures Unlimited, Inc.)

To manage my new life with PPS, I use a “new math” with units called Events.

I classify things into Events, Big Events and Killer Events. Then, of course, there is the Major Crash Killer Event, which naturally ALL of us are smart enough to avoid......

The Units

An Event is any activity when I'm moving around for one or more hours in the morning: - having a visitor, going in town to get my hair cut, or pulling a few weeds in my flower beds - activities of that level.

A Big Event is anything at all in the evening and anything in the morning that means I'm upright, alert and semi-active for two hours or more, although more pushes things close to a Killer Event. Going to the doctor is a Big Event.

A Killer Event is an extended Big Event, a Big Event plus noise or just a Killer Event on its own -- like going to see an uncooperative doctor, or being at a meeting with a lot of noise, bustle and talking. Church, especially if it’s cold fits this category. Support group meeting night is a Killer Event (actually, a Major Killer Event), too. But both are worth it.

A Major Crash Killer Event is a situation I’m stuck in that drains my reserves dry then takes a pound of flesh. A scooter break-down (and having to walk) or getting caught in traffic and not getting home and on my BiPAP ventilator until after 1:00PM are Major Crash Killer Events.

The Math

An Event two days in a row equal one Big Event. Two Events in one day may equal a Killer Event, depending on how much umph I had to start out with. One Event plus one Big Event, whether in the same day or back-to-back days, definitely equal a Killer Event. If a Killer Event is followed the next three days by any kind of an Event, the total is a Major Crash Killer Event.

An Event requires the remainder of the day and usually the next day to rest from.
A Major Event requires at least two day's recuperation - three is better.*
A Killer Event means about five days of rest before I can handle another Event.*
A Major Crash Killer Event takes a minimum of one, usually two weeks of no Events to recover from.*

This description is, of course, subject to further refinement. But the extra thinking might be too much of an Event.
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*2007 update: Since treatment at Futures Unlimited, Inc. (1996), recuperation time is very much shorter. Even a "Major Crash Killer Event" rarely takes more than three or four days to recuperate from now. Wonderful!