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Saturday, July 5, 2014

That Time I Tried to Kill Myself (By Becoming Healthy)

"While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die." ~Leonardo da Vinci 
Here I am a year after life began again and what do I do?  I try to die.  And all I really want to do is live life to the fullest.  All because I forgot that my body still doesn't know that I am a superhero.

Because I forgot I'm not entirely healthy.  I'm not normal - y'all knew that.  But I'm not talking mentally.  I'm talking physically.  I have PCOS, which from what I can tell means that my hormones are screwed up and don't process the same way everyone else does.  For me this means I don't have enough progesterone.  At my age this can be a good thing guys.  It means I am extremely even-tempered most of the time and have a very healthy sex drive.  Who cares if I need to be best friends with a pair of tweezers because of the stray hairs that pop up from the extra testosterone?  But it also means that my iron can drop significantly and therefore so does my red blood cell count.  

What does that mean as far as my health?  Well, running a half-marathon is not an easy feat for anyone, and especially not for someone overweight and with minimal training.  But I did it.  Got my medal.  Felt like crap for a few weeks but then felt invincible after all the swelling and pain disappeared.  Still wasn't very motivated to work out and even had this discussion several times with my health coach.  We attributed it to my just being busy and distracted.

Then about a month later I took one of my crazy trips - worked all day, drove 15 hours to Tulsa, slept a few hours, conference all day and karaoke at night, a few more hours of sleep, all day conference, a 15-hour ride back, a quick shower and wardrobe change and then to a wedding.  Yes - I'm insane.  Felt tired for a few days and by Tuesday my iron totally took a nose dive.  I just didn't realize it yet until I watched the video of me speaking at the conference.  I was completely out of breath.  It hit my like a Mack truck.  It wasn't exhaustion that was causing my fatigue - it was the fact that my body couldn't process oxygen.  I was suffocating by just walking around.  After a year of trying to remember how to breathe my body just couldn't do what it was supposed to do.

Basically, I fried my adrenal glands.  There was simply more healing going on then they were able to handle.  What seemed to work before didn't work this time because I piled on thing after thing after thing.  There was no time for recovery.  And since my body doesn't work like other people's, they simply gave out for a while.

So, we're getting things back on track now.  My doctor is taking a very aggressive treatment plan.  I have absolutely no intention of dying any time soon - I have waaaaay to much to live for now.  Getting healthy has an entirely different look to it for the moment.  It's not about pounds or inches or cardio or miles.  It's about breaths.  It's about those little moments in between one breath and the next.  But really - isn't that what life is about anyways?

5 comments:

  1. Beautifully written. I love the line about "those little moments between one breath and the next." It sounds like you're doing a good job learning what your body needs - even through the hard lessons.

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  2. Wonderful post full of insights - for you and for others. Taking care of the body God has given us is another way of honoring Him. Glad you know what you need to do and are doing it.

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  3. Beautiful and true! I'm glad you're sticking around! The world needs what you have to offer!

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  4. I'm glad you are focusing on how you feel instead of the inches. I think that is SOOO much more important.

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  5. You know this already, but in case you forgot...You are Worthy! Self-Care, it's a good thing! <3

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