The Campaign Builder's Guild

Back in November I was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, which is inflamation of the long tendon which runs from the heal to the big toe. Long story short, it's painful to stand for long periods of time. As some of you know, I work at Disneyland, and I was incredibly lucky that my doctor deemed the condition an "industrial injury". Disney's been paying for my treatment.

I was on medical leave for 4 months, but the shoe inserts I recieved have done nothing to alievate the pain. The painkillers did, but I can't work with them in my system since I operate heavy machinery.

This and other of life's little stresses had lead to me being completley and utterly exhausted. I can hardly sleep, I'm very short tempered (I yelled at my girlfriend today because I cooked dinner and afterward she said she wasn't hungry yet; no reason to be mad at her, but I yelled anyway).

Because of all of this, I'm going to be taking a break from DMing till I can get my stress level down. I don't want to take anything out on my players. If anyone has any suggestions on dealing with stress, I'm all ears.

I personally go for some green tea with mint and a good book.  Not too though provoking a book, though.  I had been reading Zero : The Biography of a Dangerous Idea but have had to stop because calculus pisses me off.

My way of dealing with stress has always involved giving it the finger and moving on. Don't know if that will really work for you since its sort of a personality driven style of thinking, not something that is easy to learn. Though you are certainly free to try it.

Wait, give who the finger? My feet? My doctor? My boss? My girlfriend???

He means problems, in general.  The things that cause you stress and the stress itself.  I'm apparently the same way as him but didn't say it because, like he said, it's not really something you can easily learn.

I know you said you have some trouble standing, but if you can manage to try getting into some fitness, particularly unleashing on a punching bag. I do it and it usually leaves me pretty at ease by the end.

When I'm stressed I like to find a safe, secure way of totally blowing my fuse (that way I don't take it out on loved ones).  Nothing like a little fiery catharsis.

I like to go exercise or do martial arts or... punch stuff. Avoid walls. Avoid people, unless it's martial arts and a "Controlled" environment. Yadayada.

There was a point I was angry all the time... no idea why. But these are how I vented, and finding a vent is good... at least it was for me. Best of luck to finding a solution to the stress issue. :-/.

I'd agree with Joker.

Doing some fitness training would definitively help you. Not only would your general fitness level improve (hey, I haven't even had a flu since I started training 2 years ago, and I'm basically wearing tshirts in winter :P ), but you can also vent some steam.

30 minutes on the stepper, or taking part in courses like fitness boxing (my ass, I barely could climb the stairs after my first session of boxing ;) ) could be used to release your stress.

:)

There's also the All-American approach of "when all else fails, blow things up".

It can work wonders.

Well, i don't have much in the way of advice, but i do hope you get better.

I have some 'add-on' advice,
Joker and Ra are correct in reducing stress through working with your body, but repetitive stress on the plantar while inflamed is going to aggraveate it, as weill stairs, due to the excessive flexion on the achilles.  Basically, both the stairmaster and stairs in general force the ankle into an acute angle, which pulls on the plantar.
If your gym has something called a Cybex Arc Trainer, it can be used by you, but it is about the only weight-bearing exercise piece on the market for you about now.
There is a small piece called a step/stretch or prostretch that is great for stretching the plantrar and achilles and gastrocnemius and will speed recovery.  And get your potassium!

I had to start listening to a lot of classical music on the radio while driving...

Kapn, I went through a situation a couple of years ago that stressed me to the breaking point.  Snapping at my wife was an hourly affair and I about throttled my niece and nephew (we were living in my sisters basement at the time.)  

Being that I am much like a sloth, the physical exercise solution wasn't appealing to me.  Fortunately, I live in God's country, (rural Wisconsin) and I would get up each morning, have a cup of coffee, throw my lawn chair in the truck, and go to the lake and fish for an hour.  Sitting on the relative quite of a lake, listening to the birds and watching the fish jump without biting my line was mildly irritating, but VERY cathartic.  It gave me time to completely forget my worries and enjoy the fact that I was still vertical and breathing.

Hope you get better, and if the outdoors doesn't do it for you, some RP mayhem on an orc or two never hurt anyone!

Joker has a good idea.  I would also recommend playing a musical instrument - in particular, drums, to give you something to "beat the shit out of."  Music in general has been a major release point for me my entire life, either piano or drums, and it's worked very well for me.

I hope you get things worked out man, take your breaks if you need them, just make sure you get back into things eventually! :)

Thanks everyone. I'm fairly active still, push ups and sit ups and such, but Vreeg is right; there's little I can do on my feet. I do have night braces to stretch out the tendon, but its been making the pain unbearable in the morning.

Thanks for the advice and support everyone. I'm going to the doctors this morning; maybe he'll put me on permanent restrictions for a while and let me get healed up.