Counting My Blessings: #3

If you’re just join­ing me in this series, be sure to also read Bless­ing #1 and Bless­ing #2.

Today’s ode is to my health.

While it is true that I suf­fer from a num­ber of chronic ill­nesses that range from mildly annoy­ing to mildly debil­i­tat­ing, I am not being sar­cas­tic or face­tious in count­ing my health as a bless­ing.  I feel I am truly blessed to enjoy the level of health that I do and I make an effort to give thanks every day for that fact.

My Chal­lenges

I have asthma.   Though expo­sure to cig­a­rette smoke or a trig­ger scent can send me into an instan­ta­neous full-blown attack, such attacks are rare.  My daily life is vir­tu­ally untouched by my asthma.

I also have exten­sive food aller­gies includ­ing but not lim­ited to soy, yeast, corn, vir­tu­ally all seeds and nuts, and all legumes.  These aller­gies have restricted my lifestyle in that I must cook every­thing from scratch and can­not eat in restau­rants (or people’s homes or at potlucks, etc).

I’ve been diag­nosed with sleep apnea that requires I sleep hooked up to a CPAP machine every night.

I have Fibromyal­gia — the result of which my daily pain level varies, at best, from hav­ing mild flu-like aches and pains to, at worst but bless­edly infre­quent, expe­ri­enc­ing sharp, shoot­ing, intense local­ized pain and/or gen­er­al­ized severe nerve pain.

As of Sep­tem­ber of this year, I have no thy­roid gland and cur­rently suf­fer from debil­i­tat­ing hypothy­roidism.  The symp­toms of hypro­thy­roidism are var­ied and quite indi­vid­ual.  For me, the worst of them is an insur­mount­able lack of energy.  Just being awake and semi-conscious dur­ing the day is a huge accom­plish­ment.  My mem­ory has been very not­i­ca­bly affected as have my moods.  I sim­ply can­not reg­u­late my body tem­per­a­ture and no mat­ter how well I bun­dle up, I can’t quite get warm enough.

Yet another of my chronic con­di­tions is that of IBS (Irri­ta­ble Bowel Syn­drome) which is gen­er­ally con­sid­ered a catch-all diag­no­sis for a col­lec­tion of symp­toms that doc­tors can’t oth­er­wise explain.

On top of these chronic health issues, about 4–1/2 years ago I suf­fered what might have been a series of TIAs (mini strokes).  These TIAs left me tem­porar­ily unable to func­tion nor­mally or care for myself.  My speech, my gait, my mem­ory, and my cog­ni­tive func­tion were all affected.

My Bless­ings

Despite my chronic health issues, I enjoy a full, overly-blessed, healthy life.

My cog­ni­tive func­tions have fully recov­ered as have my speech, gait, and long-term mem­ory.  Although my short-term mem­ory is cur­rently suf­fer­ing, I have every expec­ta­tion that it, too, will recover once my thy­roid lev­els are corrected.

None of my chronic con­di­tions are life-threatening and none (with the pos­si­ble excep­tion of the TIAs) por­tend life-threatening issues as I age.

As shal­low as it might sound, I am blessed by the fact that by all out­ward appear­ances, I look to be in excel­lent health.  I can tell you from per­sonal expe­ri­ence that even the most well-meaning of cit­i­zens treat the out­wardly ill quite dif­fer­ently than the healthy.  I had more than enough stares, pity, and baby-talk dur­ing my TIA recov­ery to last me a lifetime.

Even more than look­ing healthy, I am healthy.  I main­tain a healthy weight and my diet is rel­a­tively healthy.  My cho­les­terol and blood pres­sure num­bers are excel­lent.  I have no strong fam­ily his­tory of can­cer — nor any other genetic dis­ease, for that mat­ter.  Other than thy­roid med­ica­tion and a daily Clar­itin tablet, I’m not depen­dent on med­ica­tion — nor at risk of poten­tial side effects.

In con­clu­sion, daily pain aside  life is good and so, bless­edly, is my health.

Related posts:

1. Count­ing My Bless­ings: #7
2. Day 291: Movies, Gifts, & Groceries
3. Quick Check-In
4. Sick Kids & Misc Nec­es­sary Supplies
5. $$: Dec 15 — Phys­i­cal Ther­apy, etc.