Chronic Illness with a Stock Market/Economic Analysis

I have been suffering with a chronic illness at least since 2009. I say "at least" because my wife and I can look back and see the beginnings of symptoms which we both ignored years before 2009.

Anyway, in the fall of 2009, I received a clinical diagnosis of myasthenia gravis (MG). It was clinical because I tested negative on all the specific tests for illnesses and the diagnosis was based on my symptoms instead of any particular test result. For about four years I somewhat controlled the symptoms through a combination of oral medication, intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) treatments each month, and having a cane and/or scooter available for the times I was really weak.

Beginning in the fall of 2013, symptoms got worse and more symptoms appeared that seem immune to the IVIG. Because of these new symptoms, I had to leave (on disability) a job I loved. Since then, hundreds of tests have been performed. I test positive on many of the symptom-related tests but still test negative on the specific illness tests. At this point, the doctors' best guess is that I have some combination of auto-immune and mitochondrial diseases, possibly, but not necessarily, including MG. One doctor has said that she doesn't think there's been a test invented to say exactly what I have and so she is concentrating on ways to try to control my symptoms.

The problem many of us with chronic illness have is to get across what we are experiencing, especially for those of us who often "don't look sick", as the well-meaning unknowing friends comment. Not too long ago, I came across one way to explain that. It is called "The Spoon Theory" by Christine Miserandino. You can read about it here: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

I started using that explanation, which, in short, says that each day we are given a certain number of spoons and have to expend them on our activities until we are out of spoons. It exceeds any explanation I was able to come up with until that time, but I have found it still had a couple of holes in it. Such as, why do I seem to have x number of spoons on one day and y on the next? Or why can I spend more spoons than I thought I had when something takes more spoons than I expected?

Probably because part of my previous perfect job involved teaching economics to high school seniors, and partially because I've been (unsuccessfully) trying to grow my IRA by playing around in the stock market, I've come up with a new way to explain it that I hope is as clear as "The Spoon Theory" and can plug the holes I found in it. I call it my "Stock Market/Economic Analysis" theory.

(Image courtesy of bluebay at FreeDigitalPhotos.net)

Let's assume that there is a stock market in personal energy that we all have accounts in. This market is not very volatile, which means that usually it is close to the total it was the day before. Let's also assume that each day we are permitted to spend a certain percentage of our accounts in "personal energy vouchers."

Similar to "The Spoon Theory", we have those vouchers to spend in energy-costing activities each day. Some activities cost more vouchers and some cost less.

However, unlike "The Spoon Theory", we can buy extra vouchers on margin, the way one can in a non-retirement investment account. So if we are at our child's wedding and want to dance, or at a former student's last college debate and we aren't getting home until 1 a.m., we can, in essence, borrow vouchers from the future to spend today. Of course, those margin purchases have to be paid back and so for the next day or more, we need to conserve our spending of energy vouchers to pay back the market for the ones we borrowed.

There are unexpected variables, and I envision them as I do unexpected swings in the stock market. Sometimes the energy market goes down, so our account has fewer energy vouchers in it. We still have the same percentage we can spend on average in a day, so we have less energy to spend that day even though we didn't borrow any in the recent past. And, pleasantly unexpectedly, sometimes the energy market goes up so that, for no discernible reason, we have more energy vouchers in a given day. Those are my favorite days.

Of course, on any of the days, those of us with invisible chronic illnesses often look the same, which leads well-meaning people to make hurtful comments like, "you don't look sick" or "you look good". (By the way, when I explain that to some people they ask me for advice on what they should say. The best advice I can give is to say something like "great to see you.")

I'd like to hear comments from people on my "Stock Market/Economic Analysis Theory" of chronic illness.