Wellness

There's rarely a day that passes that I don't marvel at the body's ability to independently sustain life.  Moreover, I'm usually in awe of the fragility surrounding its ability to sustain life.  The delicate balance and complex number of processes and systems never ceases to amaze me.  Over the past several months, I've gone through a number of medical changes.  New prescriptions for this, exams for that, supplements for this and that.  In this mix, I've learned something I knew nothing about, and this new knowledge only serves to reinforce my conclusion that the body is an amazingly complex thing.

I have never had a great immune system...basically for as long as I can remember.  Someone could sneeze three houses up, and I'd catch what they had.  As I grew older, I started to try to remedy this through healthy eating, obsessive handwashing and lots of other stuff.  Based on how I have treated my body, in theory, I should be the last to catch anything.  However, the serial infections just continued.  Over the past month or so, I stopped feeling myself.  I lacked energy, I could barely complete a normal day's work without collapsing before reaching my couch (and I sit in a chair all day!).  My body's ability to regulate my temperature started to go really wacky...I wouldn't just have a passing chill, I would have to huddle under covers sometimes with a heating pad, and I wouldn't just get a little warm, I would start to sizzle and stay that way.  More than anything, though, I was having to sleep 3-4 extra hours a day just to have a normal day.  There aren't enough hours in a normal day, let alone one where you add several hours of sleep time--and this was in addition to a standard 7-8 hours overnight.

In any case, I have finally learned after testing that I have a serious Vitamin D deficiency.  I sort of scoffed at this initially because, seriously, Vitamin D is gonna make me feel all of that stuff above?  Sure enough, it can turn pretty serious if left untreated, and it definitely causes both immune deficiency as well as weak muscles and fatigue.  Thankfully, my health care professional was able to figure things out and will now help nurse me back to prime condition.  But, the important thing to note is that I made multiple trips to the doctor before this was able to be determined.  I was being treated for the various infections that were occurring, but until last week, no one stopped to investigate why my system tanked and continued to fail.  So, definitely be your own advocate and remember that if things don't seem right to you, they probably aren't.  Our body needs us to listen...I'm sure glad I did.