Apr 8, 20219 min read

Here we go.....Again

Oh, were doing THIS again? I have played this game before. The one where everything is seemingly going exactly how you want it to go, everything is “perfect” and then the bottom falls out of everything and you are stuck asking the same question, why?

…..it’s not fair.

I remember when I was diagnosed with RA, I was in the best shape of my life, and had a beautiful family. We were active and our life was “perfect”. Then I got sick, and I fell into a spiral of grief and depression. I would spend many years trying to get back to the “old” me, the “perfect” life, only to discover that was not the lesson. Instead the lesson was to learn to become a different version of who I already was. It was a lesson in adapting and growing, not when things are going “perfect” but when they are seemingly falling apart. I have seen this lesson before…..I guess because I failed it, I have to repeat it. At least that is what it seems to me, because here we go again.

It seems that once again, everything is going so well. I have devoted time to getting healthy again. I find time to recharge and I get plenty of sleep. I take vitamins, I use essential oils, I meditate and I pray…..I use gratitude to stay in my blessings. I have an AMAZING job, and the people that surround me are the best of the best. I have my own place to live and am almost divorced (I hope). I spend time at the beach and I devote time to becoming a better version of myself each and every day I wake up. So, why?!?!? Why now? I honestly have a hard time not being angry. I have a hard time not crying….and I guess that, that is ok. This is one of those times, you have to feel the feelings. They are uncomfortable and they suck, but you have to sit with it to heal it.

Look, let’s be honest…I am just as sick today as I was a month ago. Nothing has really changed. I am a sick person, which will never change, RA does not get cured. You manage it, you do not fix it. I do think ignorance is bliss however and I could have done well not knowing my RA was progressing. I could have done without that knowledge, but now I have it and it is a total mind fuck! I thought I was going to get my “happily ever after”. I wanted the happy ending. The one where I do all the “things” I should and I am not sick anymore. I wanted my RA is be cured.

I wanted to not be sick anymore.

I was diagnosed with RA eleven years ago, and four years ago I decided to stop treating my RA with meds. I made that choice because the meds were not making me “feel” better. They actually, in my opinion, made me feel worse! I could not keep putting all those drugs into my body and not feel any better. I have since understood this, the RA drugs are not what is ever going to make me feel better (or worse, for that matter). The drugs (for whatever you need drugs for) will never make you feel better (the side effects may make you feel worse, so weigh your options). Just like your partner will never be able to “make you happy”. That is an inside job. Feeling good, feeling healthy, is less about our physical body and more about our mental state (but get your mental state right and your physical body will follow…I guarantee it)! Being healthy is about wellness, not just about your actual health. I have worked hard at that over the last four years. Health….overall wellness. Not focused so much on the “being sick” and instead about just staying healthy, overall.

I actually really enjoy being healthy. I enjoy having a positive attitude about the wellness of life. I try to use all the things in my life to drive me forward. I try to see the “collateral beauty” in life and it has served me well. The bad part here is the meds themselves. I see them as poison. It is very hard to see them as anything else….I am not sure why, but I guess I truly believe that the body will do what it naturally needs to. It will heal where it can and if it cannot heal, you are not supposed to heal. If you get sick, maybe that is something that you have to try to live in balance with. When you see that your life is limited (which all life is limited….we are all dying) then you should start living with joy and start really leaving a good impact on this world, because your body is sick. That Tim McGraw song says it best “Live Like you were dying”. When you start trying to change the course of life that is dangerous. I am not sure we are supposed to be doing that…..

I see the meds as something that is disrupting the flow of my body. Everything has a flow, all energy flows….I try very hard to connect to the flow of the energy around me. I have gotten really good at this. It is why I believe I am so good at my job. I can flow with the energy of others and hence they leave feeling better. The flow of my own body, learning what makes it feel better and what leaves me drained….then making better choices to how I want my energy to feel, not just to me but to those around me. When I think of these meds I see like toxic, sludge water cursing through my veins. It feels dirty, and it feels “off”. Sitting with the knowledge that I had to start using these drugs again, broke my heart. Literally….broke my heart. How was I supposed to keep my energy flow open, with toxic shit in my body? I went back and forth for a week about taking these…I even asked one of my besties what I should do. She is so smart, she said “Neither choice is wrong. They just each come with their own set of consequences” (Terri is so smart!!!) To choose not to take meds, it is not the wrong choice but when I sit with the consequences, it seems there are many things that come into play.

The biggest, is my kids.

They worry about me, we all worry about our parents. Especially little boys and their mommas. There is a special bond there. Austin was witness to my first time around with RA and the endless meds. The countless doctors’ appointments, surgeries, not being able to move, missed field trips and disappointing vacations. He has watched that me, I NEVER want him to have to do that again. Not the being sick part, because that cannot be helped, I didn’t choose that….but the part where I stopped trying. I don’t want them to ever think I quit trying to live the best and most filled life. I want them to see me raise up like the phoenix from the flames. They saw me fall, now I want them to see me fly. This latest news, it scares me. I don’t want to go back to the “old” me. (Funny how that has changed….I once fought so hard to get back to an “old” version of myself and now I fight to keep the one I have become….ironic, really) I don’t my kids to see that “old” me either. We are so on our way to a beautiful new chapter. This was not part of the story I had written out. Lol I have this all planned out ya know, that is why God keeps throwing me curve balls. I never learn.

I am supposed to get my happy ending. I am supposed to get well. I am supposed to not be sick…..but that was never really what I asked for. I never asked God to make me “not sick”. I asked him to give me continued health. I asked him to continue to work in my favor, because God IS and if God IS, then God IS health, and my health keeps me alive. I believe the spirit of God works through me, and if that is true then nothing can be against me, because it will be used for my best good. Trying to keep that attitude with these meds is hard because, remember, sludge water….lol Would God send sludge water into my body? Would God give me toxic waste? I don’t think he would. I think the secret here is all about what I see the drugs as. Toxic waste, or maybe we can see the drugs are a sort of magic potion??

Is that weird?!?!? Lol

I decided this morning, that was what I was going to start visualizing…..instead of seeing toxic waste, or sludge water, I was going to see a flow of beautiful light flooding through my veins. I meditated on this, I cried and cried. I prayed and I sang. I asked how to come to terms with this new knowledge. How do I keep living healthy? How do I not disrupt the flow of my body, of my LIFE! I spoke to one of the smartest people I know and she walked me through the process of how my body will process my meds, where they end up….how that flows within my body. So, from this day forward that is what I will visualize when I think of my meds. A potion that is all light and healing energy. I will visualize it as part of the plan, a very well thought up part of the plan, to be honest. It is like bringing in back up. I am doing all the right things to be healthy (we covered that earlier….) now, we add the secret sauce, if you will. We bring in the real badasses, and they are going to help us achieve the rest of the story. The only way I pass this lesson, this time, is if I do it differently. The definition of insanity is doing something the same way over and over and expecting different results. No more….we are growing, we are about learning a better way. We are not going insane! We are going to find a way to let this propel up forward into everything we have asked for (I am not sure why I always say “we” but I am tired of going back to change it, so consider I have a mouse with me at all times….lol)

It is hard to see this as part of the plan, but maybe it is. Maybe this is the victory dance, not because I will “beat” RA. Not because I will not be sick anymore, but because I will learn to be sick AND still have my happy ending! When I first got sick eleven years ago, I could not even see a life with health. I was in a really bad place, I have come a long way. Maybe this part of the plan is the challenge. You know when you ask the universe for health, or happiness. When you ask for joy or strength….it will say “Challenge accepted”. It will set forth giving you what you want most, but in the most fucked up ways. It will do it by making you learn how to find that stuff for yourself. I believe when you are grateful for the things the universe gives you, more of those things will be given….I am grateful for all the challenges the universe has given me…so it keeps giving me them. HAHAHAHAHA Kind of fucked up universe!

Well played universe, well played.

Seriously though…..that is how it works. If you want joy, you must learn what despair is. If you want happiness you must figure out what makes you sad. If you want light you must have experienced the darkness…..to lack in something teaches us to appreciate those things when we have an abundance of them. To be taught or given strength you have to first be weak. I give gratitude for everything in my life. The good, bad and ugly. I give thanks for the people that come into my life, and I tell those people daily what they mean to me. I give thanks over my body, everyday….I say thank you for being so healthy, so maybe….just maybe, these meds are a consequence of THAT choice. Maybe these meds, instead of being “toxic” are actually a blessing to me? A way to live in continued health. A way to prolong my career. Maybe they are being given as a blessing and not as a curse?

One thing I have come to understand lately, it is this…..when life finally decides to give you all the things you keep praying for, it is more than likely not going to be wrapped in a pretty package, with a beautiful bow. It is going to be wound up in sandpaper, with barbwire and roses. It is going to be rough, and it may even make you bleed a bit. When the universe sets forth to lead you into everything you want….say challenge accepted