A year in review (warning....long)

As I have been writing this blog (under different names along the way) for over a year now, I wanted to write a little review of how my life has changed over the last year. I realize that this will be extremely personal, and if you are not interested in reading about a person's life, than this might not be the post for you. My husband will often share with me how he doesn't understand how I can discuss some of the most personal aspects of my life with complete strangers. I guess I don't look at that way. I look at it as entries of my life whether it be a diary entry, a musical entry, an event going on, or a series of photos that I have taken and want to journal the moments they captured. Who looks at the stories makes no difference to me, because what matters is that I write them, and I look at them.
I suppose one could argue that I could keep a journal without posting it all over the Internet. This is true, but maybe there is a small part of me that thinks I might say something that someone comes across in a search that does make an impact in one way or another. This actually did happen when I was sick earlier this year and had ringing in my ears and persistent dizziness. A young college girl from California with the same symptoms contacted me through my posts, and I was able to help her find a direction to go with her doctor. I don't know what the outcome was (maybe it was her thyroid as well), but I was at least be able to take my own experiences and help another person.

When I began writing last August, I was searching for an outlet. Trying to find a way to connect with myself through writing or whatever else I decided on. I had felt that somewhere along the road of life I had lost myself and didn't know where to go next. I think I had found the ever so cliche end-of-the-rope. Most of my posts aren't that introspective, but it was the connection I made that became important to me. I began to think throughout the day about things I wanted to write about. This started making me view the world and myself in the world in a way I hadn't thought about in a long while.
In mid-October of last year I became horribly sick. I felt ground down and exhausted. I also started looking ill. My eyes that had always shone brightly began to fade and look tired and watery. It took all my motivation and effort just to leave my house and find some sort of life outside of myself. I was dreadfully unhappy and physically drained. I still continued to write, not talking about my pain and unhappiness (but I wonder if some of that didn't come through anyways), but just about things going on in my life, even attempting some humor here and there if I could scour some out of myself.

The new year brought about more illness with a never ending case of the dizzies. I don't know if anyone can quite understand what that is like unless you have actually lived through such a thing. If you have ever been dizzy from an amusement park ride, or just spinning in circles, imagine that happening ALL the time for months on end. I was dizzy from the second weekend in January until the first of April. It was a living HELL. Additionally, my immune system seemed to be failing me and I was catching everything that passed through me. As a child, and even as an adult, I was never sick, so this disturbed me to no end. I became severely depressed. To go from being a fun, loving, enthusiastic person to barely alive made my psyche work against me. I thought I was having a break down. Either that or dieing. No doctor could tell me what was happening with me. I was eventually sent up to the U of U's medical school to become a lab rat of sorts.

Then one evening, home alone, I was battling yet another case of stomach flu. I couldn't keep anything down, but was crazy hungry (I had lost 15 lbs in less than 2 months), so I would eat anyways. As I was made to run to the toilet one more time, I started to cry. That kind of all over and throughout your body cry. I took my clothes off and jumped into the shower and laid on the floor of the shower with hot water pelting my body. I just laid there crying and shaking. I began to pray like I had never prayed before. I told God to either make me well or just take me now. I, being the person I am, could not live like this. I begged Him. I asked for his blessing....and....well...alone, naked in that shower, I received it. I continued to vomit as if my toes were going to curl inside of myself and come out my mouth. Every part; body, soul, and mind was purged that night. I was exhausted and felt dead.

I reflect on that night often. I believe that it was a baptism of sorts. I was not alone in that shower, and whatever was killing me needed to be removed. The next day I was no better, but God doesn't always work on my time line (this I have figured out). One afternoon, weeks later, I got the courage to call my doctor to have a series of blood test done. I made the appointment which was unfortunately 5 weeks out. I tried my best to go about my life in the same state of illness and depression I had been in. Side note: Do not go to the Internet for medical advice. I believe that every symptom of every illness has the potential to lead to death. Which, if you are at like me, means you are going to be the one that dies. I finally got to my doctor's appointment and had all kinds of blood test, including one to test my thyroid. My thyroid was in fact defunct and needed supplementation. I began medication right away and that slowly began to change my life. I had no idea how much that little organ played in my life, but it is huge. Now because of my own experience I tell people to have their thyroid tested for anything that might seem unusual, even if it just depression. It is not something that doctors seem to think about when you go in for an illness or complaint.

As I find my way back to the land of living once again, my zest for life has never been so strong. It is as if my experiences of "near death" (at least it felt that way for a long time) made me see my life for what it really was, and I was not too happy with what I reflected on. I now realize that you only get to do this life business one time around, so it better be great.

I chose to give up a lot of my bad habits, change career paths even though most tell me I must be crazy, tell people I love them, spend a lot of time hugging my husband, stop caring about money not being made or material items not being purchased, chose to go back to church if only to meet people with similar beliefs and become active and engaged, spend time outside everyday preferably doing something active and strenuous, have dreams about my life again, want to do everything again, feel fear is falling away from me more and more everyday, love my family and friends, find myself as a voice for those who have none.......I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. I have changed completely, inside and out. I am still me, maybe more of the me I thought I had left behind, and I am excited about life again.

If one could ever say there was a year in a person's life that changed them, this would be it for me. No, I did not climb Mt. Everest, or go to Nepal, or talk with the Dali Lama, but rather I lost myself, became ill, cried on the floor of my shower, and begged for my life. Thank God, that is exactly what I got.