Everything sublime is as difficult as it is rare. Baruch Spinoza

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Through the Mist

I have been on a long and difficult journey the past few years. I withdrew from society, both physical and web, while I struggled to come to terms with who I had become. I had a serious head injury almost three and a half years ago and became someone else, someone I didn't recognize and definitely didn't much care for. My strong, confident, sardonic self was replaced by a tentative, ill and unhappy shell of a former personage.

I gained a massive amount of weight, lost interest in my horses, my gardens, my life. Dearest husband did not know what to do with me, so he compensated for my disappearance with heroic efforts at holding our life together while he struggled with my disassociation. 

I have been through medical treatment and did get somewhat better over the past year, but fatigue and chronic pain persisted in swallowing me whole. In desperation, I sought help from an MD who in recent years went back to school, learning holistic and alternative methods of health treatment. She was twenty-five years an internist with a traditional practice. It was the best decision I have made in recent history. 

After extensive blood testing, what should have been obvious to an MD who cared, I am diagnosed Insulin Resistant and have been for several years. Ta Da! I still have residual effects from the head injury and always will, but getting the inflammation caused by over-production of insulin under control, retraining my cells to accept the sugar which gives us our fuel, has changed my life as I had come to know it.


Myself is coming back, a little battered and worse for wear, but me all the same. I'm not as quick witted and definitely not as full of surety, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I got myself into trouble more than once with my certainty. 

I laugh. I didn't realize how much I missed laughter. Last evening Mark told me when he first met me I was like a magnet. He said I glowed, I had an aura impossible to avoid. He told me he had never met anyone so happy and full of life (mischief!). 

Life, worries, illness, accident all conspire to take the glow away from us. I let it. This young woman, this me of thirty-five years ago is the glowing person Mark spoke of. I had every reason not to smile; divorced from an addict, the mother of a toddler, struggling to support us while trying to get an education, what did I have to smile about? The future and all I felt it held.

Now, again I smile and look forward to the future and all I hope it has in store for me and mine.

Welcome back, Sandra. I have missed you.

11 comments:

Lori Skoog said...

Thank you for sharing this. I look forward to seeing your smile!

Sandra said...

Hi, Lori. It feels good to be me again! I hope to be back with some regularity, but first I have to start being involved in the business of life again, otherwise I have nothing to talk about, other than my troubles. I do smile. It's a good thing indeed.

Unknown said...

I have missed you. Welcome back, Sandra! ☺

Cyndi and Stumpy said...

Welcome back, Sandra! I have thought of you often. I can tell a similar story so I know your pain. I am so grateful you are seeing the light, again!

IR! that's kind of ironic, huh? You probably would have diagnosed that in a horse, in no tome. Right?

Sandra said...

Thanks, Ganeida. I haven't seen anything of you for a while. It's good to hear from you.

Sandra said...

I had a horse with IR! It explains a lot to me, as what he went through is just the same as me, never put it together. Still in the desert?

Mel said...

Sandra, I'm so glad you found a doctor to help you get well and find your way back to yourself again. This post really struck a nerve with me, because I too could tell a similar story. I've thought on several occasions that I miss my former self, and am trying to act like her for the sake of my kids. I don't want them to remember me the way I feel on the inside, so I'm trying to project who I want them to see on the outside, but it would be much easier if I felt like that person for real. I also miss laughing most of all. Chronic pain really ruins a sense of humor.
I'm so glad you are finding your way back to life and light and laughter, and able to enjoy your horses, your farm and your life again. Keep going for the glow, and hopefully you'll keep posting along the way. I've missed your updates here. Welcome back :)

Sandra said...

I sent you an email, Mel. We women need to stick together.

julochka said...

i know that feeling of losing a sense of surety. i wonder if it's a part of getting older? Interesting to know that maybe it has to do with something that can be helped through diet and exercise. (i probably would improve dramatically if i stopped drinking a couple of glasses of wine while i make dinner).

in any case, i'm glad you're back and that you're feeling better and more like yourself!

Sandra said...

I think losing so much surety on my part was a good thing! I could be very strong-willed. I think getting older does make you pause, perhaps because reasonable people begin to think about things more before acting. Life has a way of teaching us that we sometimes aren't all that.

Don't you dare give up that wine, I need someone who can keep up with me!

Thistle Cove Farm said...

Wandering around the web, found this post. Prayerfully, I hope your life is well and happy again. God loves you with an everlasting love and underneath are His everlasting arms.