In 2012, I was beginning to struggle with my whole self, I wasn’t feeling good physically and I felt stressed and burdened by an ongoing melancholy I couldn’t shake. As I continued to wave away symptoms, I was constantly facing new pressures. The greatest upcoming pressure was our move back stateside. We flew back in June of 2012 and by the end of the year, I was once again begging the base clinic to test me for something. I was ready to hear that I had a fatal disease—I just wanted an answer. I didn’t want to accept that the way I was feeling was just in my head. If only there was some kind of technology that would allow the doctor to physically feel their patient’s symptoms… For now, the doctors kept suggesting that I was psychosomatic by asking me what my typical daily life was like. Yeah, I’m stressed. My eldest moved several states away for college, I was still homeschooling, and now I’m in a new state with no car, friends…but most people suffer this kind of stress and more and yet I didn’t hear of others feeling the way I did.
My blood panels once again came back normal, other than severe anemia. Once again, I was prescribed iron supplements and just like before, even after my iron counts were normal, I still felt worn out…constantly fatigued. At this point, my quality of life was going down the drain…I was not going to bed until two or three in the morning…then I would wake up late. I would slog through the day, trying to do the things I knew needed to be done, despite physical exhaustion constantly weighing my body down. I couldn’t consistently workout any more…and to make matters worse, when I did workout, I felt constant back pain. I had the sensation that an elephant was always sitting on my chest, making it hard for me to breathe or feel rested. Up to this point, I was known to keep an immaculate home. Now, it was all I could do to make sure the house looked clean-it didn’t actually have to be clean. I wasn’t finding joy in my life any more…I was jostled from one stressful event to the next, with no rejuvenating reprieve in between.
I knew in 2014 that I was hitting an all-time low when my eldest came home for summer break. I was feeling fat, more unhealthy than I ever have in my life, and that things would not change for the better any time soon. I had said to my daughter, “I know I’m only 39, but I feel like I’ve done all I’m going to do in my life. If I die today, I’m okay with that”. She just stared at me, not knowing what to say. She had seen me declining over the years and knew that I was under constant emotional stress. It’s hard to comfort someone like that, and I didn’t expect my young daughter to have the answers. I didn’t have the answer, and neither did the doctors at the base. And then my back started to give way…
To be continued…
Writer Bio
Don’t think CJ Heath’s future is bleak. She has endured a lot but pushes through, like we all do, to get answers in order to make things better. Keep reading! Part 4 coming soon…
