I’m home from the hospital. The last few days have been busy with meeting my new physical therapist and occupational therapist, setting up an appointment for an apartment inspection for rental help, and just dealing with a new way of life. My back is still in the healing process. I still walk bent over and my left leg still feels like it is asleep. Now that the rush of emergency is gone and the 1000 MG of solumedrol in the hospital are gone my emotions and realizing how close I was to becoming paralyzed has hit.
Walking with a walker is not fun at all. It is hard to carry things, but I am thankful for the use. My therapy right now is walking and being more active. With back pain or issues with the back bed rest is not a good idea.
I am thinking about my words for 2015. The words I want to focus on for 2015, Proactive, movement, nutrition, surrender, self-care, and serve.
Let’s begin with the word surrender: Surrendering to me involves Jesus. I have to surrender to his love and his timing. I have to surrender to looking at things with reality that I am not as healthy as I think I am. I also have to surrender that I am not at the same place emotionally, spiritually, nutritionally, or even with my abilities as those who I compare myself to. I have no idea how to surrender. I am a planner. I like to control things. I like to have action plans. The funny thing is I am not good at the follow through aspect. In my past, as I put my head down in shame and guilt as I confess. I have made plans to eat more naturally or start moving my body. I get started with excitement, and passion. Then I fizzle out somewhere along the way. I start hurting so I give up. I have surgery and have no energy to cook so I eat packaged foods that are easy to cook. That is why Surrender is number one and the other 5 are under these words. Because surrendering means trusting Jesus and myself that I can follow through and concentrate on my well-being this year. I am letting go and let go. As I have read in the Al-anon day book I have been reading. Letting go and surrendering doesn’t mean I don’t have work to do. It just means I will follow where Jesus leads me.
Proactive: I am discovering and with this last bout in the hospital that being proactive is fundamental in one’s health care. If I would have listened to my mind that said “just a bit of back pain, I can handle this” I wouldn’t be able to use my legs. I would have become paralyzed. How scary is that? This one example of mine is the reason I want to focus on being proactive and not just in my medical life. I am thinking about all the sections of my life. That includes, relationships, my blog, financial, my book. I am sure more thoughts on being proactive will be coming up as the year progresses on. One thing that I can think of right now about being proactive is having a log that I can keep track of my blood sugars, oxygen levels, and heart rate, blood pressure, movement, and food choices all in one notebook. I am one of a few who doesn’t have a smart phone. I am hoping someday as time goes by that I will be able to have one then I am sure keeping track will be a lot easier.
Movement: This one will be tricky. I am starting at the beginning again. I am learning how to walk again with the help of a walker. Also my left foot is still is numb. For right now, I am following the advice of a physical therapist. After the physical therapist ends his time with me. Then I will figure out other things I can do to strengthen my core. My core is weak. Apparently it is since I had a L4 L5 blow out that ended up with me needing emergency back surgery last week. The physical therapist is having me walk down my hallway to the rec room. I want to purchase a timer and a planner calendar so that I can start keeping track of my movement. I figure if I get up and walk around once an hour until I go to bed daily then I am doing well. No longer will I be sitting the entire day. Even if I just get up and walk around my living room to the front door at least I am moving. That is why I need a timer. With a timer I can set it at 1 hour intervals to remind me to get up and move. The planner calendar I believe will be a great resource of keeping track of all the things I need to including appointments and important information.
Nutrition: For Christmas my sister Carri gave me the book “Practical Paleo” by Diane Sanfilippo that I am loving. Inside has all the information about gut health. How to make sure your gut is working properly with her poop diagram? I love it. And some yummy looking recipes. I have picked out a few that I am wanting to make. I will keep you posted when I cook them up. I will also be posting a book review too. I believe for my health not eating a ton of sugar, prepackaged foods, and no gluten is the way I need to go. This will be challenge because I love bread. Yum! Sometimes you have to stop doing something you love if it is hurting you. I believe the paleo way will be the best for me. I have read of many who suffer with chronic illnesses and they are doing amazing. I have been on it a week. And I already have noticed a difference. For three days I wasn’t allowed to eat in the hospital because of an impending surgery. So when I was finally allowed to eat guess what my breakfast was? It was a bunch of wheat carbs or gluten carbs of oatmeal, fake eggs, and another wheat item that I don’t know what it is was. They are supposed to be feeding the Diabetes diet and low fat diet. Guess what, all of what they gave me caused me to have a blow out of poop that hurt. Lunch wasn’t any better. Vegetable lasagna and bread so a lot more gluten. So I told the nurse and that is when I chose what I was going to eat. I chose fresh fruit and rice toast for breakfast and then a chicken breast and vegetables for dinner. It was so much better. I didn’t have any issues. This one experience has opened up my eyes to the issues.
Self-care: I am beginning to understand that part of being healthy is lovingly taking care of your body. Taking care of my body, mind, and soul is vital for me. I didn’t always understand this. As my body progresses with this illness and my recent back surgery I am realizing that has to take priority. For me, reading my scriptures every morning when I first get up and the two devotional books I am reading gets my mind ready to face my day. I find peace. I find strength in the bible. I am currently reading the book of Luke. As 2015 continues on I hope to find the small things that will keep me healthy and strong as I face the challenges of the year. I know that my life’s mission isn’t to be a mom, but I am to nurture the relationships that I am in right and ones I will be in the future. I want to show those with chronic illnesses that you can still have a life despite the pain, emotions, anger, or even the medical issues that arises. We are still lovable and we are all worth fighting for.
Serve: Service is an important part of my life. I want to serve others. I just haven’t figured out how to do that and doing self-care at the same time. Both are equally important. Right now, I am apart of Living Ministries. Living Ministries is an organization that helps the community build relationships with each other. We just had the Christmas Joy Telethon and we have small events through-out the year to help other organizations. I want to be more involved, but since I live in Vancouver and the main meetings are in Longview. I am not always able to be able to attend the meetings. Still I try, by answering and looking at the emails and be part of the events. My heart’s desire is figuring out how to serve others. I know one of my thoughts on serve is serving those of use with chronic illnesses. I’m not sure how or what I am going to do, but I know that this is one core place I want to serve along with the people we help and love through things with Living Ministries.
These are my words and the reasons why I want to focus on them. I don’t have goals for each section. I just have the intention and I will trust Jesus in showing me what I need to work on in each category. He knows my heart. He knows what I am needing. What are your words to focus on for 2015? Share with me and we can both pray for each other as we handle each day.
Please wait...