Sometimes life throws a curve ball at you. Things go out of control. With me it was my health. Other than thyroid related issues, I also have asthma. Let me tell you about the last few months in my life. Over the winter my asthma decided it was ignored long enough. First it made itself known by showing up with a bad upper respiratory infection around November. I got that taken care of and was still not feeling well. Work started getting busier as well. I work part time in retail and as most of you know the holidays are Retails’ most busy time of year, which did not allow me much time to take care of myself.
When you combine not being able to take optimum care of yourself, plus lungs not being at their best, plus a lot of people indoors all sharing their germs together in the holiday spirit things go from bad to worse. Along about December my lungs decided it was still not happy and decided that upper respiratory wasn’t enough so Bronchitis here I came. That netted me a few days off work, which was literally all I could spare. We were able to get one person to cover my schedule so I could get at least that much off work and take some of the time I need to just stay in bed, take my medicines, supplements and lots and lots of water and healing broth and juices. I limped back to work, but this time with a cough that never quite went away.
Coughing on through the New Year, and still winding down Retail’s needs, I was unfortunately still unable to keep up with blogging or any of the other things that I love to do, so this little project was still put by the wayside as well for a little bit longer. One day middle of January, as things were finally slowing down back to my regular part time work status that I’m used to doing, I sat down glad that I caught up enough to finally have a lovely 3 day weekend I could get caught up with trying to get over this nagging cough. What is this? All the sudden I cannot get warm. I am shivering terribly, and my face feels like it is on fire. I go and grab the thermometer. 101.5 F. (definitely fever) Ummmm, that isn’t good. Go grab some water, some Tylenol and go get into pajamas and put myself into bed. In the morning I’m worse, and I have this horrible deep booming cough that feels like someone small has crawled in there with little knives and is working away every time I cough. As the day goes on I keep checking my temperature and it stays around the 101.5 degree Fahrenheit mark. I feel pretty much like death, but I am convinced I have the flu that is going around, so I stay in bed, drink lots of liquids and take vitamin C.
Next day is Saturday. I stay in bed all day. That afternoon, I start coughing up pinkish stuff. That rather alarmed me, so we went to the emergency room since it was past doctor office hours to get it checked out. After several tests including a chest x-ray found out I had pneumonia. Apparently all those lung issues I had had over the last few months had been building to this. They sent me home with instruction to take the medicine they were giving me, and to stay in bed, rest as much as possible and again stay in bed, drink as much as possible and then again stay in bed. I did not emerge from my bed except to visit my own doctor for a checkup for 10 straight days. I will tell you, do not get pneumonia, it sucks. I’ve had bronchitis several times and I thought pneumonia was just a little worse version of it. No, Bronchitis is like a slightly awful, congested feeling in your chest. Pneumonia is fire breathing, knife wielding demons living in your chest, who are constantly sticking their little on fire knives into your lungs every time you move, breathing or cough, or even think of doing any of the three.
Now after I got done with the worst of all this, then the guilt set in. I hadn’t done this blog. I hadn’t worked on my website much, or twitter, or any of the other projects that I love to work on. I neglected my friends, I hadn’t talked to family much. I felt so horribly guilty. I’m telling you Fellow Thyroid Warriors, this is normal, this is going to happen to you also. You are going to get knocked down and like me, you are going to need a pep talk after. I have to tell myself this every time. It’s ok to give yourself time to rest. It’s ok to take a break from things. It is ok to take time to recover from trauma, from illness, from heartbreak, from whatever it is that messed up your routine. However long it takes.
The main thing is once you have taken however long you need, then you need to ease yourself back into things. I started off by getting back into my thyroid group first. Calling some friends and doing a small get-together. Emailing some people I hadn’t talked to in awhile. Then working on the http://www.WarriorButterflies.com website. Now I’m trying to work again on this blog today.
Do not despair, whatever you are going through, you will get through it, and at some point down the road, you will find that you will again be going on up the road making progress towards some other goal again. Keep on fighting fellow Warriors!
Catch Britney on Twitter @warriorbtrflies
http://www.WarriorButterflies.com
Warrior Butterfly Britney 