Lessons learned from being ill

I have recently had an opportunity to ponder health in a more personal and intimate way than is usual, and so I hope that you will forgive me for an article that is more personal than usual.

On the Friday before Christmas I began to experience severe stomach upset after having gone to dinner with friends. I assumed that I had salmonella.

I saw a doctor about the diarrhoea and she basically took some samples for bacterial testing and told me not to worry unless it continued. The intestinal upset remained and I began to exhibit signs of severe dehydration – despite the fact that I was both drinking and taking electrolyte supplements. My pulse was highly elevated (tackicardic) and I was very weak with low blood pressure.

We went into the emergency department of the hospital where I was admitted and placed on a drip.

Through further investigation (colonoscopy) it was discovered that I have Crohn’s disease – a form of inflammatory bowel disease. It wasn’t a condition that I had really heard of three weeks ago.

My initial response to this was disbelief and a fair amount of fear. There is currently no cure for Crohn’s disease, at least according to conventional medicine, I am yet to get out of hospital and consult my alternative practitioner.

The drugs that are used to control it are a mixture of steroids and immune suppressants – anathema for me – I don’t even like to take mild pain killers.

For someone who has always made such an effort to eat healthily (no tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, lots of fibre, fruit, veg, beans, etc) it seemed rather unfair to me that I should have this problem.

But in the two weeks I have been in hospital I have had quite a lot of time to think and I have learned a few interesting lessons.

Firstly that to a large extent our bodies are beyond our control. There is a lot of medical research for and against certain things and it can be used as a really valuable guide, but at the end of the day we are not in total control. Our genetics, a bug, just a random upset can attack the health of the most conscientiously healthy person.

And what have I learned from this? Definitely not to be bitter. And not to toss healthy eating and lifestyle aside, or say that it doesn’t work.

What it has been is the most fantastic clarifying experience – it has helped me focus upon what is really important in my life, it has helped me to discard a lot of the mental and emotional “noise” that is a bigger enemy to quality of life than ill health is.
For example, I am much less interested in expending emotional energy upon being “right” than I was. What I mean by that is that I do not need to insist on my point of view at the expense of my relationships with other people. I am happy to share my point of view as coherently as I can and then listen to theirs, really listen and change my point of view if I think that is needed.

I have also gained greater appreciation for my body and more respect for its needs. I am much more caring towards it. More aware of how I should love it and not just use it as a tool to be pushed.

What will I do differently in my life as a result of these things? I will take time to do a massage course with my husband. I will find time for exercise that I really love such as dancing, hiking and water aerobics. I will plan meals properly ahead, not just grab something, resentful at the time that it takes to prepare good food.

I feel much more aware and concerned about others. I value them more. Life is short and each life should be treasured and beautiful. It is a sense of the sacredness of life that has touched my soul – in a way that is not easy to verbalise.

Closely linked to this appreciation for others is a deeper appreciation for my relationships with them. My husband, my parents, my siblings and friends and probably above all, the Lord.

I appreciate more deeply the love that all these relationships represent, that my relationships with them are the most life giving and important things.

The fact that I have learnt these lessons and feel grateful for the experience does not mean that it has all been plain sailing emotionally or spiritually. And there are some things that I have found were crucial in making this experience positive and keeping it positive on a daily basis.

Gratitude is the first that springs to mind. I have found it important to be grateful for the improvements my health has made, even if small.

I think this gratitude is important for a number of reasons.

It keeps me positive and positivity is powerful. People who are positive are happier and less stressed, and the less stressed we are the better health we have.

Counting out all the things that I am grateful for (I do it in prayer, but it can just be done in meditation depending upon your faith) stops despair setting in. And despair has to be avoided. Despair leads to misery and all kinds of self destructive thinking and behaviour.

So I go over in prayer all the small improvements, all the things that could be worse.

I haven’t had any adverse reactions to the drugs. I haven’t developed a clot, I haven’t had to have a blood transfusion, although my haemoglobin was very low, I haven’t had pain or nausea, I have been able to get all the fluids and potassium I needed. I could have had arthritis, eye trouble, kidney problems fistulas, ulcers leaking into my body cavity, all from the Crohn’s disease, and I haven’t had any of that. They could have cut or punctured my intestine while doing the colonoscopy and it went smoothly without me remembering any of it. The health care I have received has been great, all the doctors and nurses excellent.

One of the most important things I have decided is that I am not allowing this health care problem to become the primary source of meaning in my life.
It can be easy to make a health concern the primary source of meaning in our lives. Especially if we want to take an active role in managing our own health.
We can over analyse our health. Eating healthily becomes a “religion” that takes too much of our thoughts and emotions. When we succeed and eat healthily we feel validated, strong and righteous. When we slip up we punish ourselves and feel that we have to atone by being extra vigilant. We feel a despair out of proportion to the crime.

There are many people out there who are seeking to control their health through healthy eating and this is fantastic, but all too often there is a temptation to spend more time and emotional energy on this task than it needs. Plan a healthy meal, cook a healthy meal and eat a healthy meal. But have other things in your life that are also goals, that give meaning and purpose to your life. Otherwise, you don’t really have a balanced life, just a balanced diet.

And these deeper things that feed are souls are what sustains us when our health is bad. As our health inevitably will be, to a greater or lesser degree. We are all going to grow old and die, if we don’t die young, and as we grow older our health deteriorates. It is at this time in our lives that our years of character development can become very obvious. I have known older people who are bitter and frustrated at the idea of aging, as though life has played them a cruel joke, and then I have known older people who have faced old age with a joy and gratitude that was second nature to them. They were by far the happier and pleasanter people to be around.

I am actually a lot happier than I was before I became ill, and it is because I am more grateful, more focused on people and more aware of the truly important things in life.