Living with HAE
Take Charge of your Life & Connect with Others
If you have a hard time managing on your own, get some support. A friend can encourage you to take charge of your life – and vice versa. Motivating each other and sharing an enthusiasm for life when one of you is feeling low can really help you keep moving forward in your life.
Think about how you can involve others to help you take charge of your life!
Make use of available resources – to keep on top of your treatment refills, to consistently follow your treatment plan, to live a healthy life.
Support may come from friends, neighbours or family – in person or even virtually via social media.
A daily to-do list is a simple and positive way to prioritize what you want to get done today. A life to-do list can help you focus on what is most meaningful to you over the long term. It’s easy to get overly enthusiastic when writing a list and put in too many items. Don’t let a big list leave you feeling overwhelmed.
Think about what the absolute most important items on your list are. Narrow it down to just two or three. This list will seem less daunting and make it easier to actually take charge of your life.
So what is on your life list? Run a marathon? Your child ending the school year with no absences? Start a new job? Travel? Take charge!
The what if’s can really mess with your mind. You can spend days, weeks or years thinking about what may happen with your HAE if you should genuinely take charge of your life. Instead of letting your mind get lost in the what if, focus on the how. Concentrate your energy on how you can do something, how you can solve a problem or how you can achieve a goal.
Not what if I have an attack in the middle of the holiday party, but this is how I can treat my attack and get back to having fun.
Focusing on the how puts your mind to better use and creates a positive attitude rather than a negative or uncertain one. A positive approach makes it easier to take charge of your life!
Enthusiasm is great emotional state to be in to get going and take charge of your life. And if you aren’t feeling enthusiastic right at the moment, that’s OK – you can pretty much always create enthusiasm within yourself.
How?
Look for what’s positive in any situation. Then build on that to get your enthusiasm going.
Hang out with enthusiastic people. Enthusiasm is contagious, so use that to help yourself (and others, when you are already feeling enthusiastic).
Be careful with your information intake. Negative and apathetic voices from media or people around you can quickly drain your enthusiasm. Work on surrounding yourself with affirming alternatives. Don’t let your enthusiasm solo be drowned in a choir of negative voices.
Take charge of your life – enthusiastically!
On May 16th every year, HAE Day aims to raise awareness of HAE among the general public and medical community in order to ensure better care, earlier and more accurate diagnosis, and knowledge that HAE patients can lead a healthy life.