The Most Difficult Part of Illness & The Most Glorious Part of Healing

Hi, friends and readers :)

By this time, I would most definitely place myself in the category of a recovering CFS/ME patient. It's been a long, hard road. Hopefully this is the last time that EBV says "Boo!" to me as it jumps out of the shadows. It was nice to be able to say "Boo!" to it with vitamin IVs, a vacation in Atlanta, an extended prescription of Valacyclovir (Valtrex), completely cutting gluten out of my diet, and a ton of sleep.

Now, looking back, I'm beginning to be able to pick out the superlatives of my illness. When things were worst, what was worst, what I learned most, etc. Today I want to tell you about the most difficult part of my illness. I don't think it is something unique to me, either, because someone unexpectedly mentioned this in an e-mail as a difficult part of her trial as well.

It's isolation.

Life challenges and changes are, as a general rule, separate us from those we love. Death, moving away, breaking up a relationship, choosing a new life direction, and illness are all common changes or challenges which force us into isolation and separation. In some cases, it will lead to better, deeper, more fuller new relationships, but it really depends on the people you are around in your new situation and your ability to connect with them.

And that's why one of the important parts of healing is reconnection.

Society. To me, it's an exciting word. It's big. It's noisy. It's messy. But that big, noisy mess that can bring pain and shame also has limitless possibilities for love, growth, expansion, wonderment, dreams, and new horizons.

I love to explore it. I have loved exploring it. I've loved every conversation about the inauguration, literature, philosophy, women in the military, bacteria, wellness, weight loss, and doctor's appointments. I've loved every meal, car ride, cafe, and coffee shop where friendships have been rekindled. I've reveled in the phone dates and email conversations with far away friends. I've basked in the sense of new responsibility and independence that have come with getting a new job, depositing my first pay check, making my own loan payment, and using my debit card again.

World, you are beautiful. 

No longer alone,
Camille

My Constant Companions Are in for a Surprise

The past week I have been researching candida albicans, a wonderful little bacteria that has decided to stage a full-scale invasion into my gut. These little buggers feed on my favorite sweet treats, breads, and yeasts and keep viruses, fungus, and unhealthy bacteria alive and thriving. But these constant companions are in for a surprise: I plan to starve them to death. *insert devious grin*

While I've been trying to deal with dietary adjustments due to my many allergies (whiiiiich I never blogged about. Heh.) I haven't had the energy and discipline to start treating my candida, but that's going to change fairly soon. In fact, the more research I do, the quicker I want to begin getting these pesky little energy invaders out of my body!

A friend from church graciously let me borrow some of her candida resources. The past two days I've made it through nearly half of Complete Candida Yeast Guidebook, Revised 2nd Edition by Jeanne Marie Martin and Zolan P. Rona. Martin was a candida sufferer for many years, and Rona is an M.D., and both offer great advice for supplements, medications, and dietary changes to consider in order to make your body an inhospitable environment for candida. Another book, which I am certain will come in very handy when I actually get around to driving out the candida, is The Candida Control Cookbook by Gail Burton. As usual, these three authors have some differences of opinions on what foods are alright to eat while on a candida diet, so I will hopefully navigate the waters of "questionable foods" by trial and error and see how my own body reacts.

I chuckled at this paragraph in the book, and hope you will find it amusing as well.

Some people think that occasional cheating, having ice cream once a or twice a week, for example, is okay. If you wanted to starve someone and fed him or her twice a week, the person might never die. Likewise, yeast will not die if you feed them sweets or refined foods, even occasionally.

So whatever your dieting or weight loss goals are this year, resolve to take them prisoner, and together we will starve these problems to death!

January Report

Hey, friends and faithful readers!

January has been an up-and-down month, as Januaries usually seem to be (for me). It started out with a lot of excitement about my new job working in an office in Erie. Then right after I started working I got a bad cold and so I was back to being a sickie for a while. But now I'm doing better and am excited again about regaining independence and health. I've still been doing normal-people things, albeit my life is still a bit duller than most people's. I've been doing quite a bit of reading recently. My favorite thing to read at the moment is The Journal of The Christian Institute on Disability. It was published by Joni and Friends and sent to me by my friend Molly, who works for JAF in their response department. The journal articles have really been stimulating my thinking in a lot of different ways, and I think I've really benefited from reading them by becoming even more empathetic towards people with struggles I sometimes have difficulty relating to. I recommend it to anyone!

One simple way to show empathy for people with disabilities is participating in JAF's Heart for the Disabled project. If you like making homemade cards, being encouraging, and enjoy mail, you should participate :) Check out this link and the video on this page for more details!

More Normalcy

A few months ago, if you would have looked at my to-do list, it would have looked something like this:

(1) Take supplements
(2) Read
(3) Write letters
(4) Blog
(5) Rest a lot
(6) Watch movies

About two months ago, it looked like this:

(1) Take supplements
(2) Take it easy
(3) Don't screw anything up
(4) Heal

A month ago, it looked like this:

(1) Take supplements
(2) Start walking
(3) Start being more social
(4) Pursue normal-people activities
(5) Continue healing

Now, it looks like any normal person's to-do list... but "take supplements" is still the first thing to do every morning :)

Every month I evaluate where I am and I decide what priorities I need to pursue in order to be more normal and get back to having a typical twenty-something year old's life. I feel like I'm still playing catch up, but that feeling lessens when I look back at the beginning of a new month and see what I have accomplished.

One goal I set for myself in the month of January was to get a job. This is a big step of getting back to normal - one that has to be pursued carefully. I knew that I needed a sitting-down job with not too early hours, preferably in a relatively placid environment. I assumed that this would take a bit of doing to find, but I was eager to start, so I began looking last Saturday online at Craig's List, Erie Times News classifieds, Monster, Snag-a-Job, and a number of other websites. I filled out a number of applications, sent my resume to more than a dozen potential employers, and waited. I got one scam call, and another scam e-mail. That was funny, but discouraging :P

On Wednesday I got a call from a fellow named Andrew Wagner (who said that he pretty much called me since we had the same last name) asking me to interview for his company on Friday. Friday I went in for the interview, that evening they called me back for another interview the following day, and after the second interview I was asked to come in to work on Monday morning. Talk about fast!!

And so, I am now employed part-time as an administrative assistant on the west side of Erie.

And there you have it; another step closer to normalcy.

Excited about life,
Camille