My Warrior voice says, thank you,
Why? Because you taught me I have no control.
What a strange thing to say, thank you to, right?
But all of the loss taught me my minimal win was the most important & what truly mattered.
When I found my stomach flu & ovarian cysts rupturing were not temporary?
Then a prayer group asked if I was being punished for something? And could they pray for me? I was taught, shown, given priceless lessons beyond the ones I had already been given. Which allowed me to hear my Dad’s voice (who passed away in 1977) say pray for them cause “you know that is not right.” (I could hear & as well as see him.) So doubled over in abdominal pain undiagnosed, at the time, about to lose my job for the first time, I prayed. I immediately felt better about the whole spiritual situation & it was the beginning of a very long walk with an accelerated one-on-one class in prayer & meditation that doesn’t have to answer to anyone except God Jesus & the Holy Spirit. I had my great aunt’s tray beside trying to sip chicken broth & had no idea that it would be approx 4 years before I would find my answers. This was a blessing y’all!! Some of us who were ill & looking for answers in this time period~~ would float around 8-12 yrs before being diagnosed.
When you cannot eat, digest, absorb nutrients, sleep, move your bowels, regulate your blood pressure, or blood temperature well enough (even though you can use biofeedback when needed) .. You never did actually control these things but you had the illusion of control. You had the illusion each day was an “ok day” not at the mercy of a comprised vascular, digestive, … And so forth EXCEPT you awaken with the ability to see each day as a clean slate!
Joy Cometh in the morning —- Remember the one thing? The one thing is the choice to see, feel, & be joyful. You learn to choose your battles. You begin to redefine the paradigms you have been living your life through. The confidence. Self-confidence that has been a work in progress begins to accelerate rapidly. A beautiful lil book The Four Agreements with its 4 agreements – one in particular (Don’t take it personally – nothing others do is because of you. )Marry this with the Beatitudes? Morning prayer & meditational journaling. Beautiful, inspirational works of like The Ragamuffin Gospel, Hinds Feet in High Places, The Alchemist, there are so many which take a homebound experience with advocacy into the most amazing Sanctuary. See even though there are factual reasons to see multiple incurable diseases as a prison that is something to be angry & bitter about. Yet I am inclined to Rewrite this story since several Doctors have put me in the grave already & told me expiration date has expired. I instead choose to educate, encourage, enlighten, be of service, in any way however small I can 💚 When I say I am a cog a part of the “ragamuffin – the peons” I know I am not in control and I can find a peace in knowing #ItIsOkay – I never was– My strength is in choosing to be at peace & letting myself not be anxious or upset over a constant comparison of what I “used to be able to do vs what I can do or able to do now!”
*Choose my battles – let my day be joyful by doing what I can when I can. I cannot control the rate of motility of my stomach. Nor can I control my 5-7 inches of my large intestines (a colectomy was done in 2001 with a direct resection to my rectum – I did not require colostomy bag.) I did not know this until awoke in recovery and asked my husband. It was my first question to him. This too became another moment of strength through this opportunity in the crisis. I was shown so completely to trust and be at peace because the other choice is a turmoil of emotions. We were told before the surgery I might have the ostomy bag. There was no guarantee until the Dr got in there and saw everything & he was going for the best choice but no promises! It all went well & I have never regretted that surgery. But the lesson embedded in this moment was let go of the illusion of control. Bit by bit I have taken more & more of this lesson. I did take the outward definition of of the recovery & how “I had lost some of my old life!” No! “I had gained a life!” One that didn’t include me crawling on the floor in pain, throwing up, in pain & at times passing out from the pain because my large intestine did not work. At all — it was paralyzed. I ask for others to try to imagine to try to do something with a body that is paralyzed from the waste down — BUT you can feel pain — it is a very odd dichotomy! The nerve pain is still being sent to your brain but the body function of the colon is dead & gone. Now it is out & I am dealing with the partial functioning rest of the digestive tract. Still a much better situation.
The stomach & the small intestines the fact that it does not work the majority of the time. Nor can I control the fact that my small intestine is slowly progressively getting worse – as in it is losing motility as well. I have a lot of adhesions & twists & turns in my intestines creating more pain & chance of obstruction with my chronic intestinal pseudo-obstruction Syndrome/colon Inertia.
*Be thankful I still have a working port-a-cath I cannot have a feeding tube due to adhesions, twisted intestines, & scarring. So I can be very thankful for what I do have vs what I cannot have. 💚 I am blessed on Heaven on Earth Prayers made 6 work I have no doubt about it. 💛