My Journey Back To Health - Part II

I was beginning to get excited for the Cubs game my son's class won at an auction. It was to take place in May. About a week before the game, I started to feel really tired and sore. My body ached like I was getting the flu, but without all of the other symptoms. The next day, I started to feel this subtle nerve tingling throughout the right side of my body. It felt as if an electrical current was shooting through my body at a very low voltage. It seemed like the 'current' wanted to exit my body but it didn't know how to leave. It would go up and down and try to exit at my joint areas. My ankle, knee, elbow, wrist, shoulder, neck, everything ached and began to burn. The 'voltage' grew worse as the day went on and continued in severity until I had to lay down and sleep. I remember waking up on a Friday and having the 'burning' localized to my back.
Sure enough, when I looked, there was a rash that looked like a chicken pox/ blister conglomerate on my lower back. The electrical current in the rest of my body didn't subside either. It made everything I did, from sit, to walk, to breath, painful. I thought of it as my skin being peeled back and someone blowing air onto my exposed skin.
Unbelievable!!! I knew I had shingles!
Huh?! you say, shingles? Isn't that an older person's problem? That doesn't happen to young 30 year old healthy women.
Well, it did and I was the lucky recipient.
The doctor (yes, I succumbed to the doc for this one) said it was brought on by stress and a weakened immune system. It's just plain bad luck.
I received my anti viral and painkillers and retreated back to the couch for the next 5 days.
You know, being on the couch for that long gives someone a lot of time to think, and think I did.
(For the record, I did miss the Cubs game but was happy that daddy got to go enjoy it with his son)
I really evaluated my life and where I was at, during my stretch of couch time, and was enjoying working through my spiritual, mental, physical health.
One of the things that struck me was the way that I was taking care of my body.
I wasn't in a regular exercise routine, I was eating all the foods I knew were bad for my body and I really wasn't managing my stress very well with home and work and all the pressures working mom's have to manage. I think it is known by now that everyone who lets stress get a foothold in their life is setting their physical well being up for disaster.
Well, I was my own disaster and needed to do something to fix it.
yikes!!! It looks like I will need one more day to bring the story current...
Stay tuned tomorrow...