Healthy, wealthy and wise?

Health is the soul that animates all the enjoyments of life, which fade and are tasteless without it.

          ~Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Despite the smile, hiking in the Grand Tetons made the pain in my foot almost unbearable.

     Lanny and I were talking at lunch today about the past 12 months. It has been a time for me to deal with some major health problems, and I commented that I think at long last I have them behind me. For now anyway...

     Last July I suddenly was hit with extreme fatigue. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced, including the times I was pregnant. I could hardly get out of bed to the bathroom. I remember having to sit down halfway through blow drying my hair. I also remember being very. very frightened that I had something life-threatening. I literally thought I was going to die... After a ton of tests, I was diagnosed with (of all things...) mononucleosis. Yup, the "kissing disease"! What I didn't know was that mono can infect your liver, which is what had happened to me, and the reason why I felt so awful. I was told the mono would resolve on its own, that I needed to allow my body time to rest and be patient, but eventually I would be back to my usual energy level.

     It was well into September before I could say I was "healed", and I was so glad for that. But at about the same time my foot, heel and lower leg started to hurt. Rest didn't help. I went to the podiatrist, who suggested Achilles tendonitis. More rest, anti inflammatories. No better. Eventually I had an MRI which revealed a bad heel spur that had torn my Achilles tendon. This would have to be repaired and to prevent a recurrence the heel spur would have to come off.

     The surgery was December 8th. I was in a splint, then a cast for 8 weeks or so, then a boot for months. Then a brace. I overdid it and got put back in the boot. After that I wore the brace all the time for a long, long time.

Here I am in my fetching holiday cast...

     Finally, only about a week ago, I realized that the heel was not causing any pain, and while sometimes it tightened up a bit, I could walk without any brace quite well. For longer periods too. We cruised through an art fair for over 4 hours and my foot did just fine.

     There is a lesson here, and it may sound so obvious as to be trite. But it is an important lesson for me and after struggling for a year, I am listening...  One should never take one's health for granted! If you have your health, you have everything. When you lose your health, it doesn't matter what else you have.  And recovering from illness or surgery takes a lot of time. And when it is time to rest, trying to overdo will only undo the healing. And finally, I have learned what an impatient, lousy patient this nurse is!!

     SO... listening to my body and to this rather loud lesson, I am working hard to take better care of it for the time I have remaining to me. Lanny and I are trying to get more exercise. We are trying to eat healthier. We remind each other to take our meds. We try to get consistent, good sleep. And we are trying to live life each day as fully as we can, making memories as we go, so that when our bodies finally do break down we will have a boatload of memories to keep us going.