RAISINS INSTEAD OF CHAMPAGNE

I love to run.  If you have been a follower of this blog you know that.  What you might not know is that I have loved running since I was a kid.  As I grew into adulthood my love of running, exercise and health expanded and deepened.  Age 30 was a magical time for me.  I loved being 30 for many reasons; I felt great about who I was, confident in where I was life, I was in great shape, I felt sexy, I was running, I loved the age my daughter was at 9 years old, I felt like I understood myself better than earlier in my 20's.  I don't know, but all those things added up to loving age 30.  Around age 32 things started to change for me as I grew extremely fatigued.  While running, after only a couple of miles, I would have to stop and sit down somewhere and rest while figuring out how to get myself home with no strength left.  Over the course of 6 months or more doctors were trying to figure out what was going on.  I was in shape, a health nut with eating while losing energy and weight rapidly.  I can remember the date - March 12, 1999 - my doctor called me at home after yet another battery of tests for everything you could imagine.  He asked if I was sitting down as he wanted to talk with me - explaining that after all these months of trying to figure out what was wrong I had Type I diabetes - juvenile diabetes.  He said they hadn't looked at that because of my age firstly coupled with the fact that I was in such great shape physically.  I was at a loss for words.  I asked him how someone my age could acquire Type I diabetes just like that.  His best guess was I had gotten a virus that destroyed my pancreas' insulin making ability, but because I was into exercise and eating right it had probably delayed the severity of it until now.  I would need to go back to see him and learn about a life of insulin shots to live.  As I hung up the phone  I was devastated, confused and already figuring how to conquer all at the same time.  My personality believes anything can be done and yet I felt betrayed.  I had done all the right things, but instead of champagne I had gotten raisins (hate them!).  I would use my self discipline abilities and apply them to this disease, I told myself.  Over the course of the next few years I found out that my discipline wasn't enough to conquer, to subdue.  On top of that diagnosis, I was struggling with other auto-immune diseases which complicated everything.  My health went from bad to worse.  I often tell people that chronic and/or progressive illness is tough enough just in the physical realm, but the emotional, mental and even spiritual battlefield is deep and treacherous.  I was not winning physically nor mentally, emotionally or spiritually.  One day, a few years into this diagnosis, I was sitting in my elderly endocrinologist's office.  He was a kind hearted man who cared about not just the body but the mind and emotions of his patients.  We were discussing my high level of frustration at not being able to control my blood sugar numbers consistently no matter what I did.  With tears in my eyes I told him that I had done all the right things leading up to this horrific disease and instead of champagne I got raisins.  I was angry.  That I couldn't seem to get past that in my mind or my relationship to God.  He listened intently as I poured out my heart about the physical part I constantly was experiencing but also not knowing how to fully move forward mentally.  As he leaned forward in his chair he took my hand and patted it, "Lynn, I don't know why you got a disease like this at age 32.  It doesn't make sense, maybe it never will.  It is what it is - horrific indeed.  You did do all the right things in life and did not get the result that they should bring.  You are doing all you can to care for this chronic illness and still not getting the result you want.  You have a very brittle form of this disease which happens when you acquire it at your age.  At some point you will have to know you are doing all you can but there is a segment of it that is totally out of your control."  As I stood to leave that day he hugged me as I cried over my inability to relinquish control even in fighting it daily.  My scrappiness was a blessing, but now a curse.  I wanted to be rescued by God and was angry He was not.  I wanted what I thought I deserved, a life free from this ball and chain.  I wanted the result that should have come from a lifestyle of exercise and healthy ways.  My heart and mind were blown wide open with this exception to the cause and effect principle.  I really wasn't in control - not of my health in preventing this, nor in successfully navigating its ups and downs.  In June of this year I was sitting in my doctor's office, a new doctor since early spring.  He and I were talking about how tenacious I am with wanting levelness daily to this disease and how that does not happen for stretches of time.  He is not a man of many words and was patiently listening to me share my frustration, which I have danced with off and on for 12 years.   When I came up for air he said, "Stop being so hard on yourself with a disease that is very fragile and very brittle in you.  Keep doing what you can as I know you do.  We will tweak some things, but there is much of this that is totally out of your control.  Go easy on yourself."   Going easy on myself is not something that my relentless self finds naturally easy to do.  Over these 12 years I have prayed and prayed and prayed to be healed of this particular disease and struggle.  God has healed me of other things, but at this time He has chosen to leave it in my life.  I have made peace with it as much as you can make peace with an enemy that resides in your house.  I continue to learn that most things are out of this relentless girl's control, and, that the cause and effect principle has many exceptions to its rule.  I am thankful that after some rough years physically I can run again.  I too am thankful that 7 shots a day and God allow me to live life.  So, maybe I did get some champagne after all - the gift of living.