Knocked for six
Have you ever visited someone in hospital and wished it was you in the bed looking at the grapes being eaten by the visitor who brought them? ‘No!’. Okay, do you know anyone with a long term illness and think ‘that could never happen to me’? Dawn Davies answered yes to the later – but then it did happen to her! Here’s her adventure.
Well, we’re not invincible, despite what we like to think most of time. I found out recently that it can happen to healthy people – at any time! Yes, you guessed, it has happened to me!
Not my idea of a break!
I am usually very healthy, excluding the odd cold or tummy bug and enjoy a full life packing as much as I can into each day. However, I have gone from rarely sitting on my settee to spending the last five months going from my settee to my bed with very little of anything else. I never expected a headache to progress into Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome (a form of M.E.) over the space of 3 months. I needed a rest but this is not what I had in mind!! Two weeks in the Bahamas would have been much more appealing.
How long is a piece of string?
I have done some research into my illness as I didn’t know much about M.E. and have never been close to anyone who has suffered with it. Research tells me that I could be ill for some time, but I will gradually recover if I do all the right things. This could be weeks, months or years – they say! That is a hard pill to swallow as most ‘small time’ illnesses I have had go over a natural progression of ‘too sick to move’ to ‘back at work looking slightly grey’. This has been like a yoyo for the past five months, from really ill for a few days then a slight reprieve for a couple and then back to really sick again. We hear the saying ‘live one day at a time,’ this is exactly what I have had to learn!
Just a cloud or Silver Lining?
I am not what you would call a ‘quitter’, in fact, I often persevere when I should use wisdom and stop. However, it is all too easy to resign myself to the situation I find myself in and accept its limitations on my life. What choice do I make? Lay down with the facts or accept and work with the limitations, hand in hand with a hope that I will get well again. I do know that everything that happens in and around our lives has the potential to squash us or can be an opportunity for us to grow in character and strength. It is often hard to look beyond the difficulty of the circumstance and look for the good that can come from it, especially when it is you who is in the situation. Kind of like ‘the silver lining’ almost impossible to see. It’s times like this when a time machine would come in handy. I have had some very dark days but I have made a choice almost every day to look at the positives instead of the negatives and trust that I will come out of the other end a stronger person. It takes courage to dig deep and choose to believe that there is silver lining in every situation even if we cannot see what it is.
In this very tough time of my life, one that I did not choose, I have found a lot of comfort from my family and friends. I have found that my best friend is God because He can be with me all the time. You may think this is something people just say, but when you allow God to be part of your life you soon find out that in the darkest times, He is still with you even when you are physically alone. When I had a CAT scan, I couldn’t take anyone in with me, except God which gave me courage. In the night hours when everyone else is asleep and I’m tossing and turning, God is with me and even though it isn’t a physical presence I have faith to believe that He is with me. Whatever situation you find yourself in – you can find hope in God which gives you strength and courage to persevere.
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