This Too Shall Pass – Part 1

An unbalanced feeling engulfed me, leaving me feeling like something was terribly wrong. It happened out of the blue so I challenged it for a while. Maybe I caught a virus or was just under too much stress… is what I told myself. After some time it was clear this was something that was not going away by itself and was making me quite nervous. I am a mountain biker, one who loves nature and the outdoors. There is NO WAY this was going to stop me~! So, I pushed through until my husband and I would walk together in the parkway and “fit and active me” would literally have to stop and sit down on the side of the road to regain composure and continue. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO ME??? Eventually I became scared and set an appointment with a highly recommended ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat Doctor) who will be left unnamed. Unnamed because this doctor, a person I looked up to and believed in, gave me zero hope. An ENT because I thought something was going on with my ears. His diagnosis was almost taken as a death sentence for someone like me. The words “no cure” and “it will slowly become worse and most likely NEVER go away” stabbed me like a butcher knife. I remember getting in my car to leave this doctors office and I cried. I cried all the way home and more. I am telling you when someone (like this particular doctor) is looked upon to provide help and an answer or cure, and gives the total opposite it can be enough to destroy all hope!  Maybe you can relate to this?

~Hope…Sometime’s that’s all you have when you have nothing else. If you have it, you have everything~

This unbalanced feeling was one of the very first of many, many symptoms soon to follow. Looking back I also think some earlier aches and pains in my hip were signs that something was wrong. My ears started ringing and hissing which gave way to sound sensitivity and neck, shoulder and jaw pain. I had TMJ symptoms to the max! Insomnia kicked in fast and furious. I literally did not sleep for 3 months, my husband can vouch for that. It was the loneliest, saddest, ugliest 3 months of my entire life. Anxiety and depression washed over me. I was trapped at home because crowds of people made me extremely anxious/nervous. My general practitioner at the time prescribed anti-depressants stating it was normal for me to be going through this at my age. Excuse me… what does that mean??? It angers me like nothing else when I think back to the MANY doctors I trusted in, who gave me no hope at all but were quick to prescribe medications for that “quick fix”.  The fix that would mask my symptoms but not solve the root problem… I was begging for help from anyone!

Other symptoms such as fibromyalgia, brain fog, gut issues including constipation, and hormonal imbalance all swept over me in waves. I was alive but not living and honestly felt as though life might not be worth living for.

~A single thread of hope is still a very powerful thing~

Hope was still a tiny bit alive in me, I just had to find it…