A friend told me the other day that she thought I sounded discouraged. Am I? I had to ask myself that question and then address it honestly. After listing all the items that had changed for the better–and for the worse–last month (see “Little Things” from January 27th, and “What’s the Point?” from February 11th) I started thinking about what was going on now. In the last few weeks I’ve had to go back to using the walker full time at home; there hasn’t been one day when I could get along without it. That’s one giant step backwards according to me, and I don’t care what Simon has to say about it! I am also struggling with almost everything I eat, and I am having that pulsing headache on a nearly constant basis. I try pinpointing problems only to find that alternatives cause the same results. Wouldn’t that discourage you?
So yes, in answer to my friend’s statement, I guess I am discouraged. I think that anyone facing a long-term health problem must go through bouts of feeling this way. How we handle that discouragement is the true test, because if I were to give in to that emotion things might really get ugly. So what now? There are things I thought I’d be doing (for example: driving) that I can’t do at all anymore, and they don’t let up. I have only driven once since October–and that was only because we had to drop my truck off for service. And though I never expected to come home from Texas ‘healed’, I did expect to slowly improve over time instead of going in reverse. I’ve had to stop exercising too, because I’m currently unable to make it back up the basement stairs. I can get down there, but after my last workout I almost didn’t make it back up. That leaves me asking “Now what do I do?” once more. I’m having an impossible time trying to keep up with my housework as well, and cooking and cleaning are becoming as difficult as driving and exercising. What do I do when I can’t stand long enough to do any cooking? I’ve reached that point more than once lately. For a lot of meals I’m able to take my time doing the prep, but then I have to get Paul to do the actual cooking because I have to sit down before I fall down. Joelle is learning as best she can, and has begun to make more things than she used to, but she’s not up to making a complete meal yet.
I’m not happy having to ask “What now?” about every part of my life. Maybe I was deceiving myself, but I never expected things to go this way. I counted on ‘improving’, and that those improvements would have me traveling in the right direction. That’s not happening. And I’ve been praying a lot lately about not getting too discouraged while we fit all the pieces in place before we can return to Texas.
My hope is that I will be able to go in the right direction from there.