News from the Nest (continued)

I hit "publish post" on that last entry before I was ready and decided to just leave it and continue it here. Soooo... yep... watching Mystic Pizza and chilling for just a few. This is not going to be a lazy Saturday for me. I have about four loads of laundry to fold. I usually only wash when I have time to also fold and put away but Austin wanted to help (i.e. suck up to try to earn TV priviledges back) and so he washed and dried a bunch of laundry. Which is all now in a big wrinkled pile on my loveseat. So I will be folding, ironing and putting away laundry for about an hour.

I'm toying with the idea of a Costco run today because I think this will be the last Saturday I take off for a few weeks. People are past the holiday "don't talk to me about insurance" mentality and are in "get my life in order" resolution mode. It's a great time to help people with their insurance and financial planning. (i.e. sell some stuff so I've got commissions to help booster my meager but much appreciated salary).

I'm starting to draw a conclusion about the variety of illnesses and issues that I've been dealing with over the past year or so. It seems sometimes to be a neverending cycle of symptoms... dental issues treated with antibiodics followed by ear infections and kidney infections and surgery that required antibiodics and more dental work that required antibiodics and then overwhelming fatigue and then weight gain leading to depression leading to unhealthy eating and then surgery to remove the "thing" from my forehead with more antibiodics and more depression and drugs to treat depression and kidney infection with hardcore antibiodics and ear infections treated by antibiodics and more weight gain and fatigue and depression.

One of the biggest factors in the demise of my relationship with Michael was that I was always sick and tired. (Now... I thought I married for "sickness or health" but he says that wasn't in our vows. *eyeroll*) I've been thinking about this whole holistic nutrition vs pharmaceuticals perspective and looking at the symptoms and issues I've had and I believe that I have an issue with candidas (yeast) overgrowth.... WHICH would make sense as I have dealt with that in the past. In 2005 I had a nasty case of athletes foot that left big gaps in my skin which led to cellulitis that seemed like it would never heal. None of the antibiodics I took ever helped. It was only when I got hardcore about diet and probiotics and natural remedies that it cleared up.

I started thinking about it this morning because I have developed another earache. This time the outer ear looks pretty red and inflamed - almost like a diaper rash. (this is probably from spending hours on the phone every day!) When I saw the ENT he saw absolutely NOTHING wrong with my eardrums, no fluid behind them or anything. He said he thinks my earaches are more of an outer ear/eustacion tube issue. The regular doctor keeps seeing lots of inflammation in my ears that doesn't respond to antibiodics. Same deal with the kidney infections I've had this year - they don't respond to antibiodics. Last time they gave me a strong anti-fungal med and it went away. The other thing... with every kidney infection they find lots of blood in my urine but no symptoms that would normally cause blood - like kidney stones or even cancer. One of the symptoms of yeast overgrowth is blood in the urine.

I haven't thought about this much because I don't have any of the issues that women normally associate with yeast infections (sorry, TMI - risk of reading my blog, y'all!) but I do have just about every stinking symptom that I've seen on the websites about candida or yeast overgrowth AND a lot of the risk factors. I won't bore you with all the details here - I know reading medical stuff can make you glaze over- but I'm definitely going to research this and work on a yeast free diet. It's time to go grocery shopping anyways, might as well concentrate on buying only healthy stuff. I have spent the last year and a half not only NOT feeling good, but also feeling guilty for not feeling good, being accused of faking it, being told that if I would just exercise I would not have these illnesses (like kidney infections and ear infections). All along I just didn't have the energy to do anything. Part of that was depression (also a symptom of the whole yeast thing but also because of my circumstances) and part of that just may have been from all the treatment that I tried to do to make myself better.

At one point I was told that he was a race car and I was trying to keep up with him with a flat tire. I was told that I needed to do whatever it took to get healthy because he wasn't going to stop for me. I did. I worked at fixing all the stuff that I had been putting off for the many years I went without health insurance. The harder I worked at getting healthy, the worse I felt. Even the basic dental stuff that I had done would end up with me feeling horrible for days. There is, without a doubt, a mental and emotional aspect to healing. The worse I felt physically, the worse I felt emotionally... which made it hard to heal physically.

Very early in my relationship with Michael, we were at IHOP having breakfast. We saw this couple that was elderly and frail. They had a beautiful, tender way with each other, helping each other. The next day he sent me an email saying that he hoped that we would be able to share life with each other like that... that we would take care of each other in that way. I have beat myself up for making the wrong choice in marrying Michael but these are the promises that our relationship began with. I truly believed that he would love me in sickness and in health. I believed he was in it for life. I definitely did not intentionally get sick (or depressed) but I don't think it was wrong for me to expect him to do what he said he would do from the very beginning of our relationship. I guess it's easier to make the promise to take care of someone when they become old and frail when you think that time is 40 years off.

People new to my blog won't know this but I had a serious breast cancer scare last summer. It was a situation where the mammogram came back bad at the same time that some other symptoms were presenting themselves. My regular MD checked me out and tried to prepare me by advising that my symptoms almost always indicate cancer. She even increased my antidepressant and added anti anxiety meds, she was that certain that it was cancer. I was scared to death. The sad thing is that I was more scared of what it would be like battling breast cancer with a man who couldn't even support me through a kidney infection than I was of potentially losing my life to cancer. Fortunately, all the follow up testing showed that I was fine... a few things that have to be watched more carefully, but not the death sentence I had come to fear.

For the most part, I feel self-sufficient (or God-sufficient!). For the most part I don't mind being alone. I wish I had companionship sometimes. Sometimes I miss the pillow time with Michael - watching Jeopardy, watching football, talking, watching CNN, debating political issues, laughing. Sometimes I am so glad to be away from the emotional struggle, the guilt of not being who he expected me to be, the disappointment of him not being who I thought he was. The biggest fear for me in being single is being sick and not having someone who loves me enough to take care of me. I see these older couples who take care of each other as they age and I really believe that it takes a lifetime of loving someone to be able to have the love and commitment to stand beside them when they are no longer strong and beautiful and able to do anything for themselves, much less for you. I know that I am better off.... I know that it was never going to be right... but I fear never finding someone who will be there for me like that.

Sooooo.... my goal is to work at being as healthy as I can be to improve the quality of my life. I wasn't able to get healthy for him. By the grace of God, I hope to get healthy for me. I also believe that finding out what has been making me feel so bad physically will go a long way toward helping me feel better emotionally.

Time to get started on my chore list for the day!

Jeremiah 33:6 ".... I will heal my peole and will let them enjoy abundant peace and security".