Journey to Recovery

February 17, 2014 began the long, presumably four month journey of my recovery. I was still on the couch at this point, but I had gotten over my depressed and overwhelmed feeling.

Monday morning I felt highly motivated to start the regimen that I had been given. We didn’t have everything that I needed; mom still had to order quite a bit of it, but what we did have, I began to hit it hard. I had a new amount of energy to get better. Now that I knew what I was fighting I had a more focused and determined attitude.

I was up more on Monday and by that afternoon I was feeling faint. As usual, I had done too much too soon.

    If you know me, you know that I love giving my all. I like to see how much I can handle, and far too often, I push it beyond my limit and pay for it. I do it every time. I love it though.

I continued to get up more the next two days, but I finally conceded that even though I was taking supplements that would restore my health did not mean that I would magically be better in two days. That was a little disappointing for me to grasp in the beginning. You would think that I was used to living on the couch. In truth, I was! But after spending thirteen weeks on the couch I wanted up!

Patience. Patience is a valuable lesson that the Lord is teaching me over and over again in each and every area of my life. And patience I would need in order to endure this.
Fourteen weeks on the couch rolled by and I was getting ready to enter the fifteenth week. Almost four months on the couch.

The change came slowly, in subtle ways. For the first time in a couple of months I was able to sleep lying down. Due to the fact that I hadn’t been getting enough oxygen to my blood cells I had trouble getting enough air. When I tried to lay down I would feel a compressed feeling on my chest. As if I was being suffocated. It was scary and every time I accidentally threw myself into a panic attack. So I slept sitting up for almost four months straight. But then suddenly, that compressed feeing was gone, and I slept a whole lot better.

  Mom and dad went on a marriage retreat Wednesday through Friday, and circumstance would have it that I needed to watch the children and take charge of the house for a few hours. Of course, presumably from the couch. I could order the little minions around, ahem, my siblings and all would be well. But when I had to step up, something snapped. It was as if I had been given a recharged battery and inserted it in my adrenaline glands. I had a new found energy. Totally unexpected. I walked upstairs twice that evening for the first time in four months. The past couple of times I had been on the back of one of my older sisters. I didn’t feel winded. Not at all. I didn’t tell anyone because I was expecting a serious crash. I thought, ‘I am more than likely going to pay for this, but whatever.’

That night my heart rate soared to 142. The highest it had been ever. With wintergreen essential oil on my temples, calm music in my ears, and held tightly in the arms of my older sister Stephanie I calmed down within a minute.
I didn’t make the connection then, but now I realized I had paid for it, but compared to all the other times I had paid the piper for my actions this didn’t seem as bad.
But I didn’t pass out. Friday rolled around and I was still up and at it. I hadn’t sat on the couch at all, and I had gone upstairs again. Friday evening I packed up all of my stuff that was in the living room, which over four months had accumulated to quite a bit, and took everything to my room. I slept in my own bed the first time in four months.

My journey to recovery is not over. I confess, there are many times where I haven’t taken all of my medicine or stayed on the diet that I was put on. I’ve paid for that. Even now, as I write this, I’m paying for the bad decisions I have made. But through it all, I’ve learned valuable lessons. I am still reaping the benefits of this illness. I would not trade them for anything. I would not have it reversed. I’m thankful I went through that because I have grown closer to the Lord.

One lesson I’ve learned is through the taking of my medicine. It has to be consistent if it is going to work. Just like spending time with the Lord is necessary in order for us to grow closer to Him. We can’t expect to give Him a few minutes here and there and think that we will be fine to just get by with that. He wants a consistent relationship, not just an every now and then.

Are you facing a difficult time in your life right now? How is the Lord growing you through these trials?