Everyday is a Gift

Everyday is a gift.....I have this vinyl saying on the back of my bedroom door so I can see it every night before I go to bed and every morning when I get up.  It has been a good reminder for me to appreciate the beauty and blessings of each day....even when things go wrong or they are hard.  This very saying has been on my mind a lot lately and I feel the need to share why.  I don't know if this "journaling" is just for me or for someone else, but the feeling is the same....to blog. 

On May 31st, 2013, I found myself in the ER in a lot of pain and symptoms that just did not seem to make sense.  I mean, who would think a lump by your collar bone would make you feel sick to your stomach and cause you to feel like you can't breath? It didn't make sense to me and it sure didn't make sense to the doctor in the ER.  After being there for hours on end and having normal blood results and imaging (other than the obvious lump they thought to be a hematoma) I was sent home to rest and get better.  Two weeks go by when I finally feel like myself again, and then the exact same lump and symptoms arise!  This second round of symptoms would be the start of endless tests and multiple doctors  I have had just about every blood test you can think of and every appropriate test done.  Unfortunately, after the many tests (that have come back normal) I have had over these two years, no one can tell me what is going on, why my body has these symptoms, or what I have.  Sometimes the not knowing can be just as scaring as knowing. 

As anyone would be in this situation, I found myself frustrated with doctors and everything medical.  We are in the great age of technology!  Can't you just scan me and tell me what's wrong?!  My own personal Baymax would come in handy about now.  It just doesn't work that way and we do call doctors practicing physicians after all. But the frustration mounted and I found myself giving up when a doctor "psych-carded " me.  The tests were normal....what else were they to think or believe?  But I am the one who lives with a body that has a mind of it's own!  I live with flares and ups and downs.  I live with days and weeks were I can't eat because I am so sick....yet they think it's in my head.  To this day I have to fight for myself to not believe them.  I have REAL symptoms.  I have REAL health issues, that even though they do not make sense....they are REAL.  I thought the not knowing was bad.....it's even worse when they do not believe you and basically wash their hands of you.

I have had some help along the way that has pointed me in the right direction.  I drastically changed my diet after visiting a wellness clinic and I do my best to get out an exercise on a regular basis, but I still have days and weeks and periods of time that I just do not feel well or find it hard to function.  This blog is short in comparison to the last two years of health challenges that I have had and as much as I have fought to help my body physically, I have really had to really fight to see that everyday truly is a gift.  I have had many moments of tears, frustrations and anger over these two years....that seem a lot longer lol!  I can't tell you the exact moment that my thoughts of despair and questions of why changed.  For me it came by changing things little by little.  I put up my sign to remind me that today was a gift. I started counting my blessings more in my prayers at night. I stopped asking why all the time.  Little things changed so I could see the tender mercies that Heavenly Father was blessing me with along the way.  I let people help me more instead of thinking that it made me look weak.  I saw the blessing in not being able to eat for a week because that made my food supply last that much longer.  lol! 

I guess what I am feeling is that no one truly knows what tomorrow will bring.....I might be cured....or I might find myself in the ER again....but for today, right in this very moment.....I am alive!  My today and everyday is a gift! And for that I am grateful for!  

Love,
     Sarah