Exhaustion

It’s been almost three months since my last post, and they were pretty sparse for a few months before that. This whole year for me has been a rough one in terms of my health. But I’m finally making very slow progress, and hope to be able to write more often again. Not only do others enjoy my posts, but I really enjoy the writing process. It is good for me to exercise the artistic muscle.

When I first got sick 10 years ago, it all started with adrenal exhaustion as a result of a stress overload in caring for my mother-in-law. The meanness and deception she introduced into my life was too much for me to handle. At that time, I was also into the second year of my publishing company, and was preparing a book for publication. Once the exhaustion really hit, it was all I could do to stay awake during the day. My blood pressure was extremely low because the adrenals weren’t producing the hormones required to maintain proper blood pressure. This is still a problem. With supplements, I managed to maintain a reasonable level of energy to accomplish basic activities in life.

Late last year, I started to get to a point of complete exhaustion again. After some testing, it was determined I had infections in the intestines and the sinuses. I had already been through a parasite eradication process, and the infections were what was left. We worked at getting the infections under control. At that time, the new naturopath (Dr. Maple – named for the city in which he practices), took me off the adrenal supplements and put me on a tea. In alternative medicine, the idea is to encourage the body to do as much as it will do before just replacing what it will not produce. The tea was a formulation to do just that. A few months later, it looked like my adrenals were responding and I started to have some energy. But by the next visit, they had crashed again. He put me back on the supplements the first naturopath (Dr. Dundas) had prescribed, but now it seemed I had become sensitive to one of the ingredients in this combination supplement. Until the new supplement came in, I would have to endure daily migraines. I found that the lower the dosage, the lighter the migraine, but that meant I had no energy. I no longer get migraines from the new supplement, and very slowly, my energy levels are increasing. My next visit with Dr. Maple is next week, so we’ll see if the test results bear out my perception of improvement.

This exhaustion has changed my lifestyle dramatically. Over the past 10 years, I have changed things a lot to deal with lower energy levels. But in the past 9 or so months, I’ve had to change even more. I used to buy groceries during the week so we didn’t have to chase around on the weekend. I found I put myself into trouble if I carried the heavy groceries. So, this now has to wait until the weekend when the hubby can carry the bags. I bought a couple of bags yesterday, and I am again paying for it today. The house is a disaster! And the gardens. A couple of weeks ago, I finally had a little energy spurt so I pruned some shrubs in the back yard, and pulled some weeds. Still a long way to go, but it felt good to finally get some of those tasks finished. And slowly the cleanliness around the house is improving.

Even thinking has been difficult. The brain just doesn’t want to work. So I play games on Facebook. My Facebook friends like that they can talk to me, but I was feeling pretty useless just playing games. Then there was a period of a few days where I couldn’t even get online and I was missed. I realized at that point that I wasn’t doing “nothing.” God still graciously provided a way for me to serve even in such a low physical state. These people needed to talk to me, or have me pray for something in their lives. They needed my words of encouragement, and my sense of humour. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and thanked God that He gives me what I desire most – to always have a way to serve Him.

Until next time, give thanks for the ability to do things, even things that seem insignificant…