Thankful

This past year I have gained a deep appreciation and gratitude for life, health and freedom.


About a year ago I started getting sick on a regular basis.  I started to become sick so frequently that I was convinced I had some horrible condition: Lyme disease, West Nile, a brain tumor, cancer, Menairs disease.  (I definitely recommend that if you are going to self diagnos your self using the internet to remember Occam's razor: the simplest explanation is most likely the correct one).  I don't even know what Menairs disease is. 


Some times I would be so sick that the hours would feel like days and the days would feel like weeks as I lay in bed fighting a fever, nausea or vertigo.  Some days I would be well enough to to sit up and watch tv or read a book.  I'm glad that I had accumulated so many days of sick leave at work, because in the past year I have taken seven weeks of sick leave. 


During the times when I was sick I felt so isolated.  I was confined to my house, and often to my bed in my room and sometimes to my mind.  It was frustrating to think and plan, but not be able to carry out my thoughts, ideas or plans.  I felt horrible for not even having the energy to make my son supper or do the laundry.  


Thankfully, I have a doctor who is quick to sent me for tests and to specialists and I soon found out I had an ovarian cyst.  By December I was in so much pain I couldn't sit or stand comfortably.  With every step I took I was well aware of the mass growing inside me that could have been malignant or benign.  I couldn't sleep properly and I started have trouble eating.  At the beginning of January I had surgery to removed the cyst and spent a few weeks at home recovering.  This past year I have been working on getting my health and strength back.


Had my health and connection to others not been taken away for a bit, I would have never appreciated or been thankful for a day like yesterday.

• Yesterday I had the energy to do a bunch of boring chores: laundry, dishes, errands.

• Yesterday I let my son sleep in and then woke him up to eat the breakfast I had made for him.

• Yesterday I went on an epic bike ride that involved a stop at Homesteads (try the British '99).  We biked for 18 kilometers.

• Yesterday the wind pushed me to pedal harder, it left a layer of dirt on my hot sticky skin, it gently blew the smell of the water to me, and brought with it that beautiful sound of rushing water to my ears.

• Yesterday I had the best shower ever.

• Yesterday I had the energy to work on the "its not a bulletin" information handout for my church, Journeys .

• Yesterday I got to "encourage" my son into coming for a bike ride and managed to stay positive, despite his grumbly, mumbly, rude teenage self.  

• Yesterday I got to hang out with friends who love me enough to speak truth into my life and not let me keep pushing things below the surface.  

• Yesterday I let my son stay out way late, before picking him up.

• Yesterday I fell asleep exhausted, happy and thankful to have the health to live life.

~b~

ps.  "encouraging" is just a nice way of saying I bribed my son to come hang out with us by telling him to meet us at Homesteads and then telling him he couldn't hang out with his friend unless he biked back with us.