"There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there." ~ Paulo Coelho
I had a meltdown for the past two weeks. Yes, you read that right, my meltdown lasted two weeks (it could've been longer but at some point I stopped keeping track). Surprisingly enough, it had nothing to do with not hearing anything from C. (a wisp in my memory!) and everything to do with my illness and how that effects my life.
I've written over the course of the past two years (at least!) how I've been sick with nausea - at one point losing 45 pounds due to my inability to eat. A year ago, I found a drug that helps take my nausea away for some periods of time, but it's a hit or miss kind of therapy, i.e., sometimes the pill, Zofran, will relieve me of my symptoms for up to five or six hours (very rarely), but at other times the benefits may be for only 45 minutes to an hour (more common).
Because I can only take one pill every four hours, on the days when I get the lower amount of relief, I just have to try to function, as best I can (while feeling like I'm going to throw up at any minute!), for several hours, until I can take that next pill. And then there are the days when I feel so sick the Zofran doesn't even work! And even while living this way for the past two-and-a-half years I can not see any rhyme or reason as to what triggers the "cant-get-out-of-bed-I'm too sick" days from my "normal" every day just bad-feeling nauseous days (I literally can not remember what it feels like to go through a day feeling good!).
I don't know though if I've told you that when I feel my worst I feel like I'm dying - or what I think someone who is dying might be feeling like - and because of that I just want to - die.
When I have too many of my very bad days in a row, I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I don't feel any hope that things will change; that I will be healed; that I will ever be well. That's the point where I not only physically can't take feeling so ill anymore, but I can't mentally take it either.
And I feel like I've done everything I can to try to get helped! My General Practice doctor, an internist, is excellent and has put me through every conceivable test, has done blood work covering every possible thing that can be thought of, has tried this prescription, or that supplement, yet so far, to no avail (and some things that actually make me worse!). I've gone to a Naturopath, an Acupuncturist, a dear family friend (the most upbeat, positive-minded person I know!) for chiropractic/nutrition-minded treatment and still nothing has helped.
All I do know is that from my throat, down my esophagus and into my stomach there is chronic redness and inflammation (a camera probe swallowed and monitored showed that). What is causing that redness and inflammation is a variable that I have not figured out yet.
My GP doctor asked me to ask my acupuncturist, a Chinese medical doctor, how she thought my liver was functioning. So, I asked my acupuncturist and she said my liver was fine, but my liver chi was stagnate and that was causing a lot of my stomach problems. I then asked her, "What can I do; me personally, to try to help my liver chi flow as it should?" She replied,"Be happy!" What an ugh moment.
At times, for me, it feels like it's almost all I can do to concentrate on living - getting through my day - feeling as sickly as I do, and then I find out that being happy is supposed to be something to aide in making me well. I don't even know how to fathom how to do that! To me it's like asking a blind person to see in order not to be blind! A vicious cycle - I feel so ill I'm not able to feel happy, but because I'm not feeling happy, I feel so ill? There must be some Zen illumination in there somewhere, but as of yet, I'm just not up to getting "it."
To top it off, my illness puts such a strain on my relationship with mom. I don't have the patience that I need to deal with her 82-year-old, idiosyncratic behavior. I yelled at my mother during the time of my meltdown and then I felt terrible guilt over that behavior. Days went by where I just tried to avoid her, knowing that when I feel so deathly ill I can't be who she needs me to be and it's just best for me to stay away.
Finally, a night came when I sat with my mom while she had her supper and I told her that I felt like I was on a sinking ship and that I was bringing her down with me. I told I her I knew that I used to be good for her, but that I felt like I no longer was. That just because I was going down didn't mean that she had to.
I told her that I couldn't even cry anymore, For the first time in my life I felt like I had a lake-full of tears to be shed and not a drop would come out (My counselor, whom I had started seeing again during this period, said that not being able to cry was a symptom of depression. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was a medicine I was on, who knows?). My younger sister had told me once before that she can't cry and I never understood that. Crying for me had always felt like such a wonderful release from whatever it was that needed to be let go of. And during this time I wanted to cry so badly...
But at the dinner table my mom took my hand and said to me, "L, every night, when I go to bed, I thank God that you are here with me." Then she added, "If your ship is going down, then I want to be on it going down with you." I don't deserve such a dear, good-hearted mother, but I'm glad God didn't feel that way...
Oh, and then there's God! My faith has been sooooooo tested these past few months - physically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally - I have even questioned God's love for me and why he would put me on this earth? And then I have a moment of feeling "good" - of feeling somewhat "normal" and I can feel the possibilities that exist; the potential for miracles to be manifest and I remember my frozen eggs - what I went through to bring them into the world; that they are still "out there" waiting for the power of God's love to bring them fully into the world through me! It's because of them that I believe in me; that I believe that I have a purpose and a hope.
And what of C.? I feel like the only blessing that comes from me feeling so sick is that during those periods, C. doesn't matter. When I'm that bad it's not possible for me to dwell on anything more than the minute in front of me, then the hour, and then the day and the peace of sleep.
I always felt like C. not coming back home to me when he was scheduled to in July was a "blessing-in-disguise" and I feel that way more than ever now. I barely have enough to fill my own cup up much less, try to be "there" for someone else - especially someone new.
My whole life I've heard, "God works in mysterious ways." I don't doubt it. I certainly know that for me, He works in hard ones...
