Health

   Health is precious. I have suffered from a virus the past three weeks. Every day that I feel better and stronger is a blessing. Being with my grandchildren attempting to help out and being sick for part of the time triggered my memory from 22 years ago. I kept a detailed journal for 20 years that help with the details.
      In December, 4 months after having baby number 3 I had strep throat and tonsillitis. In January of 1990 my thyroid went crazy.  Previous to becoming a mother I had fibromyalgia and anorexia. This was followed by a total breakdown of my endocrine system called graves disease. I had been treated with drugs to block hormone production for hyperthyroidism. It had gone into remission and I was able to carry and bear 3 children. I was told that was a miracle and because of my poor health I believe it. After the birth of a baby it is normal for hormones to fluctuate and for some irregularities. Mine just did not go away, but got worse.
 My standing heart rate would race around100 beats a minute. Normal for me is in the 60 to 70 range. This caused hot flashes when I would feel as if I was burning up. I would have spurts of time when I would feel like everything was racing out of control. Even my thoughts seemed to come rapid fire, words would fly out of my mouth and I recall a bad temper to go with it. My throat was swollen and the pain went up into my jaw making it hard to chew. I was super energetic, lightheaded, and dizzy as if I was on speed. I made it hard to breathe and led to headaches and earaches. The energy was always short-lived and followed my mostly fatigue. I found it hard to walk or move. My skin was breaking out and it itched.  I lost weight and my drive for sex was erratic. To top it all off I could not sleep well. I was breastfeeding and waking every few hours anyway but the illness added to my insomnia.
      Trying to clean up the messes that accumulated while I was sick and feeling exhausted was very hard for me. It was difficult to be the mother of a three year old, a one year old and a 5month old baby. I felt like I could be a good wife, mother and homemaker if I could only get well. From the beginning of our marriage, I had struggled with one health problem after another. I was weary of even letting my husband know about how I felt all though I am sure he could see it any way.
At the time I viewed spiritual, mental and physical health all separately. I believed in doctors like they were some kind of superheroes. After seeking out one after expensive one without any miracle cures or solutions I realized their limitations. One suggested vitamins and exercise. I felt angry at the suggestion because I was looking for something less obvious to improve my health. Now 20 yrs later I think that and the changes a dietitian recommended were the best help I got. I must laugh now to think about how sick I felt and how I did not understand how not eating, sleeping, exercising and protecting my body from environmental threats had such an impact. Beyond all those important things I can now see how my mind is even more a key to good health. The repressed memories I held took huge amounts of energy. All the negative emotions and beliefs effected my health. My world had to experience a major upheaval  like an earthquake for me to begin to heal.
I felt like being sick had become the story of my life. I wondered when I would ever get better. It was amazing but I actually adjusted to the misery of it all while I had to. It got to a point when I could not remember feeling well. When I got the least little hint of it I would celebrate.
     I wrote, “I am so confused as to what makes me feel good and what makes me feel sick. I am so tired of being sick. I wish I had a better body, eyes that could see ( I later had LASIK surgery), muscles free of pain ( the muscle pain went away when the mental pain was eased). I wish I was resilient to viruses. (for the most part it is rare for me to catch what is going around now)” I even wished us (my sweet young family) all away at desperate times. But ultimately what I wished was to get well.
Wishing has a magical weak quality to it like you hope something but you are not sure enough to hope for it, you just want it fixed somehow. I did have faith day by day that it would get better and it did. I had to quit breastfeeding early, so I could have a nuclear treatment on my thyroid.
     Even though I do not have complete control over my health, now I understand what makes me feel good and what makes me sick. I can choose better health. There is nothing quite like feeling exhilarated and solidly strong in physical body! May you be blessed with health.