For the month of November I’m participating in a daily gratitude challenge posted by the journaling app that I use, Day One, and here’s today’s prompt:

What are three things I’m grateful for about my physical health?

  1. I’m still here… and I can still walk. It’s funny that when asked about what I’m grateful for related to my physical health, my first thoughts go to those times when I almost lost my health. I’ve written about this many times before (see links in Sources below), but in 2012 I was diagnosed with an autoimmune illness, Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), that attacked the nerves in my thighs causing the associated muscles to atrophy to the point where six-weeks after I started to fall I could no longer walk or support my body weight. I had been under treatment for chronic leg pain for about four months, so when things started turning for the worse I was able to get neurological care in the form of IVIg infusions. I started infusion treatments in September of 2012  and had the last of 88-treatments in May of 2014. The chronic pain and then rapid onset of losing my mobility was a powerful wake-up call and opportunity for me to revisit my life’s priorities. Prior to that experience I had taken my health for granted and didn’t have a doctor that I could call, until this happened. My oldest sister, Kathie, had similar symptoms five years before me and then, I guess, “got better” without professional intervention. But then just around the time that I was diagnosed and began treatment, her illness flared up. Maybe because she got better before she didn’t get the same treatment that I got, except pain medication and some physical therapy. Sadly as I slowly got better, she got worse, suffered a fractured hip from a fall and never really recovered. She passed away during the Christmas holiday of 2013 most likely due to a combination of her pain medication and sleeping pills. Supplies for upcoming IVIg treatments arrived at her house the month after she passed. There’s more to the story, but safe to say that I got needed treatment quickly enough to eventually recover and she didn’t. I can’t imagine after being in pain for over a year what it must have been like for her. My case was considered mild but it robbed me of my autonomy and ability to walk, but my sister’s case contributed to her death. 
  2. Type 2 Diabetes. Remember how I never visited doctors hardly at all most of my life? Yeah, even after my experiences with CIDP and the long recovery, I grew less vigilant about my health, especially when my health insurance became an issue after getting laid off at the end of 2014. When I moved to Las Vegas in August 2016 I didn’t bother getting a GP or continuing my Metformin medication (being diagnosed pre-diabetic before my CIDP diagnosis). Doh! So, around Christmas time 2019 I noticed that I was losing feeling in my finger tips, which was annoying in that I was using LEGO in my teaching and that can require a lot of finger strength and as a life-long guitar player I didn’t like thinking that I was going to lose that too. So, back to the doctors I went, got yelled at and got prescribed something a bit stronger than Metformin. Damn, I guess that’s one bad thing about having previously had pretty good health, is that one can take it all for granted and not develop good habits when it comes to eating healthy and getting enough rest (guilty on both counts!). I’m all better now, but given that I’m not on my feet as much (having left the classroom), I have to consciously set aside time to get more exercise and sleep. Ugh. 
  3. Eyesight. I didn’t know that I needed glasses until I failed the eye exam when I started working for the phone company in 1979. I had gotten my drivers’ license several years earlier, but I guess their tests weren’t as thorough. I was bad at seeing distances but okay reading or seeing things up close. When my finger-tips started to go my new doctor was adamant about me needing to be vigilant about my eyesight. I noticed some loss but I was in my 60s now so I didn’t think too much about it. Then in May 2023 I got up one morning and my right eye was way blurrier than my left (I also discovered that my very right eye dominant). This is not good. Back to the eye doctor, yeah, it’s not good. I get a referral to a specialist and there’s some bleeding in the retina that they can treat. I don’t know what to expect, I’m thinking minor surgery, how do you treat bleeding on an interior surface? Turns out that it can be treated with an injection every three to four weeks. In the not so distant past there was nothing they could do about this, one just lost their eyesight as the bleeding got worse. Of course, like my A1C medication, I have to get this treatment on a regular basis or the whole thing will begin to unravel. That’s no fun, but I’m thankful that there is something that can be done, that doesn’t require surgery. All of this does make me a lot more aware of how fragile our health can be and appreciate how many decades I’ve had to just live my life and not give it a second thought. It’s been an interesting journey. Do take care of your health. 

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