Take Time Out
There are so many tedious situations that we face each day with bitter ambition. We slouch, we bitch, we moan but we do them day after day. You would think that one of my tedious situations like most normal people would be waking up each morning but unfortunately its not. It is the most unbearable situation that I have to do each day. You see, when I was 14 years old I was diagnosed with a viral condition (non-contagious) called Epstein Barr Syndrome. At first it was really bad and they thought it was a severe case of mono but then they came to find out what it really was.
After the first year of having it and being home-schooled I was fine and then as I was a teenager it didn't come around at all. Through the years I was indestructible, nothing could get me down when I was that age. Then I started going through my 20's and it started getting a little worse and by my mid to late 20's it was getting even worse. For the past 5 years I have struggled terribly with it. It sometimes jeopardizes good jobs that I have because I cannot wake myself up in the morning or sometimes on real bad days I can barely lift my body.
What Epstein Barr Syndrome is known as at times is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I am constantly tired. I do not know, nor do I remember what it is like to NOT be tired. I have never had the joy, or the pleasure that I can remember, of being or feeling awake. My mom used to think I was depressed or just plain lazy and she never understood, she said it was all in my mind and that I shouldn't claim it, it was all mind over matter (her faith healing influences). She would yell at me to wake up, clean this, do this and would think I was some kind of lazy teenager when I wasn't. I could barely lift my arms at that point. She continued doing and believing this throughout my adult hood, even when it was progressing worse and worse. Also, with this virus it affects my muscles and my bones. I always have chronic muscle and back aches, along with chronic allergies, sinus conditions and my immune system goes down if I don't take care of myself by taking vitamins and eating right.
I remember at one of my jobs I was at for 5 years, everyone I worked with thought I was this hardcore partier, out every night of the week. The funny thing was, I was at Bible study almost 6 or 7 days out of the week. I finally got sick of them thinking this and finally one day in a meeting I told them about my condition. And then of course there are those people (health nuts) who try to suggest things you could do without even knowing fully your illness or capabilities, but yet they still love to give advice. "Take Vitamins, exercise, eat right," they would all say. "Duh, like I never thought of that!" I have to always assure them that I have taken all the proper measures in trying to make my life easier and healthier but they never seem to believe you. Frankly I am so sick of advice now and I am so sick of people who just don't understand. I have been blessed though with a husband that has taken his time to read and study and get to know about my condition probably a lot better than I know it. He is real sensitive to my needs with this viral condition. I thank God every day for his love and support with this, it totally blows me away. He doesn't make me feel week and decrepit, he doesn't make me feel like I am mental and it is all in my mind and he doesn't try to give me advice I already know. He takes his time out to empathize with me and that is sometimes all I need.
I started writing this because I started thinking a lot about my health and things people take for granted each and every day with living their life. People take for granted waking up in the morning, no chronic pain nor miraculously no allergies of sinus trouble. I just want you guys to know how great you have it. I was just in a conversation today with a friend about HIV and the people we have known that have it or had it. I was telling him a story of my friend Marshall that I knew for awhile at church. He had struggled for years with heroin addiction even when he had given his life over to the Lord. He and I had become quite close at church always talking and laughing together and me giving him rides home here and there. I ended up leaving the church and loosing touch with him for about a year or two. About 4 or 5 years ago I was with my friend JudyAnne at the laundry mat and some man came up to me calling my name. I didn't recognize him at first but then I saw his beautiful eyes and I knew it was Marshall. He was very skinny but yet he had a huge impregnated stomach and his hair was long and bleached, he looked horrible. I gave him a big hug and started talking to him laughing and telling him how much I missed him and what a great friend he had been to me all that time. He started to tell me how he had struggled with heroin all these years and he was trying to get clean by going to the methadone clinics and he was living in a motel. Then he dropped the bomb on me and said, "You probably don't know this, but I have full blown AIDS." I couldn't believe it, and then he said something to me I don't think that I will ever forget, he said, "You know Woody, I woke up this morning asking God to give me just one reason why I shouldn't kill myself today and then I ran into you and you said all these great hopeful things, that was God telling me not to."
After that meeting with Marshall I never saw him again but I thought about him every so often. I feel bad I never got his info to keep in contact and always wondered if he had taken his own life or not. Today I finally remembered his last name and I thought he would be easy to find since he had played with TSOL and other known bands for awhile. I looked online and found his obituary. He died October 2005. I was so relieved to see that one conversation that I had with him that one day helped him go on for another 5 years.
So basically, sometimes all the help sick people need is your laughter and confidence to get them through each day, to wake up each day. That is sometimes all we need to go on and hope that there is not only people who love us but there is a loving merciful God who loves us and will be there for us more than anyone. If I didn't know these things I think it would be even more unbearable to wake up each morning than it is now for me.
After the first year of having it and being home-schooled I was fine and then as I was a teenager it didn't come around at all. Through the years I was indestructible, nothing could get me down when I was that age. Then I started going through my 20's and it started getting a little worse and by my mid to late 20's it was getting even worse. For the past 5 years I have struggled terribly with it. It sometimes jeopardizes good jobs that I have because I cannot wake myself up in the morning or sometimes on real bad days I can barely lift my body.
What Epstein Barr Syndrome is known as at times is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I am constantly tired. I do not know, nor do I remember what it is like to NOT be tired. I have never had the joy, or the pleasure that I can remember, of being or feeling awake. My mom used to think I was depressed or just plain lazy and she never understood, she said it was all in my mind and that I shouldn't claim it, it was all mind over matter (her faith healing influences). She would yell at me to wake up, clean this, do this and would think I was some kind of lazy teenager when I wasn't. I could barely lift my arms at that point. She continued doing and believing this throughout my adult hood, even when it was progressing worse and worse. Also, with this virus it affects my muscles and my bones. I always have chronic muscle and back aches, along with chronic allergies, sinus conditions and my immune system goes down if I don't take care of myself by taking vitamins and eating right.
I remember at one of my jobs I was at for 5 years, everyone I worked with thought I was this hardcore partier, out every night of the week. The funny thing was, I was at Bible study almost 6 or 7 days out of the week. I finally got sick of them thinking this and finally one day in a meeting I told them about my condition. And then of course there are those people (health nuts) who try to suggest things you could do without even knowing fully your illness or capabilities, but yet they still love to give advice. "Take Vitamins, exercise, eat right," they would all say. "Duh, like I never thought of that!" I have to always assure them that I have taken all the proper measures in trying to make my life easier and healthier but they never seem to believe you. Frankly I am so sick of advice now and I am so sick of people who just don't understand. I have been blessed though with a husband that has taken his time to read and study and get to know about my condition probably a lot better than I know it. He is real sensitive to my needs with this viral condition. I thank God every day for his love and support with this, it totally blows me away. He doesn't make me feel week and decrepit, he doesn't make me feel like I am mental and it is all in my mind and he doesn't try to give me advice I already know. He takes his time out to empathize with me and that is sometimes all I need.
I started writing this because I started thinking a lot about my health and things people take for granted each and every day with living their life. People take for granted waking up in the morning, no chronic pain nor miraculously no allergies of sinus trouble. I just want you guys to know how great you have it. I was just in a conversation today with a friend about HIV and the people we have known that have it or had it. I was telling him a story of my friend Marshall that I knew for awhile at church. He had struggled for years with heroin addiction even when he had given his life over to the Lord. He and I had become quite close at church always talking and laughing together and me giving him rides home here and there. I ended up leaving the church and loosing touch with him for about a year or two. About 4 or 5 years ago I was with my friend JudyAnne at the laundry mat and some man came up to me calling my name. I didn't recognize him at first but then I saw his beautiful eyes and I knew it was Marshall. He was very skinny but yet he had a huge impregnated stomach and his hair was long and bleached, he looked horrible. I gave him a big hug and started talking to him laughing and telling him how much I missed him and what a great friend he had been to me all that time. He started to tell me how he had struggled with heroin all these years and he was trying to get clean by going to the methadone clinics and he was living in a motel. Then he dropped the bomb on me and said, "You probably don't know this, but I have full blown AIDS." I couldn't believe it, and then he said something to me I don't think that I will ever forget, he said, "You know Woody, I woke up this morning asking God to give me just one reason why I shouldn't kill myself today and then I ran into you and you said all these great hopeful things, that was God telling me not to."
After that meeting with Marshall I never saw him again but I thought about him every so often. I feel bad I never got his info to keep in contact and always wondered if he had taken his own life or not. Today I finally remembered his last name and I thought he would be easy to find since he had played with TSOL and other known bands for awhile. I looked online and found his obituary. He died October 2005. I was so relieved to see that one conversation that I had with him that one day helped him go on for another 5 years.
So basically, sometimes all the help sick people need is your laughter and confidence to get them through each day, to wake up each day. That is sometimes all we need to go on and hope that there is not only people who love us but there is a loving merciful God who loves us and will be there for us more than anyone. If I didn't know these things I think it would be even more unbearable to wake up each morning than it is now for me.
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