Sick Day with Chronic Health Problems

I came across this post from a couple of years ago, and it rang really true for me this week, so here it is again for anyone who, like me, needed the reminder. God bless your week!

****************************************

Days like today shake up my rhythm.  I don't like that.  I like spontaneity when I'm the one choosing to be spontaneous.  But I don't like the routine being thrown off.

I caught a cold last week.  For me, catching a cold can be a normal cold, or it can turn into something dangerous.  Problem is, I don't know which is which.

The space between "something's wrong" and "here's what to do" is frightening to me.  It's always a gamble, and I'm no good at gambling.  Sometimes I react too soon, and take measures that were unnecessary.  Sometimes I wait too long, and have to pay the consequences.

I don't like being responsible for choices that have so much at stake.  That's why I don't like the routine being thrown off.

For example, this cold.  If it's a normal cold, I'm not supposed to have to go up on my steroids.  Only if I have an infection or fever.  But then an unexpected symptom or two added to it.  Did that mean I had the flu?  Should I go up?

If I don't go up when my body needs to, I'm going to be in bad shape.  If I go up when I don't need to, I'm going through all the extra med issues and then the tapering for no reason.

So I went up a little, then a little more.  By Sunday we decided to do a stress dose.  That's a whopper dose--which we did in the hopes of wiping out the sickness so it wouldn't run on and compromise my immune system any more.

Now today, Monday, I have to decide what to do again.  Should I start going down, so the tapering wouldn't be so difficult?  Or will going down just flare up the sickness again and I'll be worse off than before?

No, I'm not a schizophrenic.  I'm a control freak.

Having a day-to-day disease is not easy for a control freak.  However, maybe the Lord knows it's just what I need, to learn to let go of my need to be in charge.  My body is not my kingdom.  It is God's; I'm just a steward of it for this lifetime.

Last night I was discouraged, feeling sick, and struggling with the fact of having this to deal with at all.  And I was thinking about brain surgery and the risks involved.

As I lay in bed, fearing the weight of so many choices with so many ramifications, God whispered to me that it wasn't my responsibility.  Yes, I'm responsible for the daily decisions, like whether to go up or down on meds.  Sometimes I choose rightly, sometimes not.  But my life and my body are God's.  God knows the number of my days.  He know which one will be my last.  And He's not going to let me mess up to the point of changing that.  I'm not that powerful.

What a relief.

Tomorrow, I'll wake up and have to go through all of this decision stuff again, and again the next day until I stabilize.  Then once I stabilize, I try to establish a nice routine that will be broken up next time I get sick or have a flare up.  And when that happens, I will struggle with my natural tendency to worry and fear . . . again.  

I'm not sure if I'll ever learn to let go of some of my control-freak fears for good.  But I'm letting go of them tonight.

That's a start.

What? know ye not that your body is 

the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, 

which ye have of God, 

and ye are not your own?

 For ye are bought with a price: 

therefore glorify God in your body, 

and in your spirit, which are God's.  

I Corinthians 6:19-20