If You Have Your Health...

The old adage is true: if you have your health, you have everything.


Yesterday I took a drink of soda and nearly choked on it for some unknown reason, leading to a full-blown coughing fit. I'm fine, but incongruously, my chest muscles started hurting and it made my normally bearable chronic tension-headache pain even worse.

Suffice to say, I was in a lot of pain yesterday afternoon and had to abandon working on my next novel. I took a nap instead.

My husband shook his head at me last night after I woke up and he said, "All it took was one thing to throw your day completely off."

Indeed.

And that's just plain frustrating. I try to eat right and my goal to exercise three times a week at Curves remains a solid, do-able one that I reach most of the time. So it's not like I'm sitting on my bum, eating junk food and doing nothing but being a slug. I am trying to get healthy. I've even started going to a massage therapist to see he if he can help with the tension headaches. As you know, I've been to an acupuncturist for my "female" problems and I can't even begin to tell you how many doctors I've been to over the last ten years.

Maybe I could train my cat to type for me when I have an "unwell" day...

But it all boils down to this: I'm not a healthy person. Hardly one day goes by that I feel good - whether it's a bad headache, a sick tummy, aching muscles, menstrual problems, fatigue, etc. My poor daughter doesn't understand and has asked me why I am always sick. It's hard to tell her why because even I don't know why.

Accepting that I am not a healthy person is hard. My husband said yesterday that I really was a "frail" person and I had to agree with him. I am frail physically in a lot of ways. It doesn't take much to make me feel miserable and detour me from my intended goals for the day, whether that means reading a book or doing housework or spending time with my daughter or whatever. It plain stinks.

However, despite having a fragile body, I like to think my mind isn't fragile. In fact, after what I've been through in my life, I'd say I'm a strong person, but only because God made me strong by putting me through situations where I needed Him and His strength.

I'm becoming more and more aware that each day is unique. Some days I may feel great while others I may feel lousy. The key is not to chastise myself for the days I feel awful. Again, it goes back to self-love. Why should I get angry at myself if my stomach starts to hurt? Or if my headache becomes so unbearable I need to take a pain pill and go to sleep? That only exacerbates it all.

Acceptance is a beautiful thing, but it is incredibly hard to achieve sometimes, especially when there are so many things I want to do.

As a writer, probably one of the best things I can do is write about my experiences. I firmly believe that writers were meant to share their words with the world and in so doing, help others. That being said, I hope you don't mind if some of my blog posts center on how I deal with living with chronic illness and pain. Because really, I am a writer, and unfortunately, chronic illness/pain is part of my life.

And that means the other adage is true, too: Live life one day at a time.