Maintaining yourself through times of illness

Hello all, 

It seems these days that we are all suffering from one sickness or another.  Myself included.  I've been fighting a chronic issue all week and have finally found something that will hopefully either fix it completely or at least give me the strength and pain relief to get through it until I can gather my forces and continue to move forward.    We all have these issues, problems, chronic or not, sickness is something that can truly break a person's spirit.  When a human breaks because of the pain, it's one of the most difficult and heartbreaking things to bear, and I know that in times of severe sickness there isn't much we wouldn't give up for the opportunity to live a normal and pain free life, and interestingly, we always seem to be hit with a sickness that manifests itself in a way that we would easily trade for any other type of sickness or pain.  Funny how it works. 

I just want to take a moment to encourage those of you who are suffering.  You will get through this, you will make it, and you will be victorious.  Even if it takes time, the only time we fail or we lose is when we give up our hope that it gets better.  Even if you start seeing the evidence of your sickness through things that you used to pride yourself in, your figure, your hair, your eyes, your skin, what have you, know that in the end it's your spirit that will remain and your spirit is what makes you beautiful from the inside out. 

This week has been one of the more trying weeks; my husband and I both spent all day at one doctor's office or another, picking up prescriptions, lying on the couch exhausted from the physical toll of our respective hurts, but we knew we had each other.  Even as we were struggling, we could be there side by side and know that we would get through it together.  This is key.  You need someone to help get you through.  I know that God put my husband in my life for a very specific reason and that He has plans for us, but I also know that He gave me my husband because He knew that I would need someone to hold me and to hold when the going gets rough.  I want to encourage you in being able to have a friend, spouse, relative that you can go to physically be held and comforted by and in turn be able to do the same thing for them in their time of need. 

Something that's I've been really struggling with is moderation.  I find something that helps and after two years of hurting I just want to saturate myself in it, be it a food, medicine, what have you.  I have to remember that I can't do that because it could easily not be helping at all and it's just my brain going psycho or it could be that it might be helping, but not necessarily fixing the problem.  For instance, pain killers.  I try to limit my intake because I know that even if I take the pain killers, that's not fixing the problem, it's simply making myself blind to it.  Another thing is that I've been put on dose after dose of antibiotic regardless of whether or not it was confirmed that I was in need of them, and in the long run they have really hurt me because I think they were not helping, but in fact were actually deep-setting the issue that could have been fixed with a different type of medication. 

Make your doctor listen to you.  I'm so frustrated because I think I've finally been put on something that is helping and not hindering my problem, but when I went in again after two years she didn't even recognize me, nor recognize the multitude of things she prescribed me two years ago.  She didn't have my record up.  I felt like she was just brushing me off, but I persisted.  I wrote down everything that doctors and specialists had suggested and I told her I felt we were looking at it the wrong way.  She did a test and sure enough I was right, but why didn't she test for this simple, simple thing in the first place?  Because she wasn't listening.  I will be finding a new doctor.  You have to go to a doctor that listens to you.  You need to be able to talk with them, have them be open to listen to you and not just shove you out the door with the first thing that comes to mind or send you to a specialist because they don't know.  If she had asked more questions, and been more aware of what I was feeling or instead of when my test came back negative the very first time I went to her two years ago, just brushing it off as coincidence saying I would feel better and had instead said "hmmmm, since it's negative let's test for the next things that your symptoms indicate" I would be healthy two years earlier.  Even now I don't know if this is it, but she could have at least listened. 

Take time for yourself.  So often we are thrown in a world where work and school or spouse or kids or what have you is so first and foremost in our minds we forget that we just need to take time and take care of ourselves, even if all that means is lying down on the couch for a night and reading instead of going out.  You must give your body extra pampering, you must give it time to cope.  When you're going 100% all the time and in pain you will not survive, you have to give your body the rest and relief it needs.  Even if lying down can't fix the issue it can at least give your body a chance to stop moving and assess things.  Sleep is a powerful healer. 

I am a Christian, and recently I did go in front of my church to explain to them my plight and that I needed help.  At the end of the service, my pastor had everyone who wanted to join us up front and they prayed over me.  The sense of love and desire to make better was simply overwhelming.  I am so thankful to God for the church He has placed me in, and I know that with my asking His people to pray over me, where two or three come together in His name He hears them, and I know that I have an entire church backing me up and praying for my healing.  It is a blessing and brings peace. 

I hope that whatever it is that you might be struggling with will come to a close, and I pray that you will find rest and peace and the strength that you need to carry on until you are healed.  I hope that my random thoughts help.