“When you cannot do what you have always done, then you only do what matters most.” Elder Robert D. Hales

I don't know exactly what is going on with my body right now.  That is a disconcerting thought/feeling/sentence to write.  I was frightened and surprised to find that I had strep throat two weeks ago.  I took the extra antibiotics I was prescribed, and now I'm right back on penicillin again.  But a week ago, I started noticing some pretty serious achiness in my joints.  Especially my hips and ankles...now my elbows too.  My chest hurts more than usual, and I get flushed more than usual---bright red cheeks.  I am tired all the time, unless I have been lying down for a good long while.  And my thinking feels cloudy, and muddled.  I hate this feeling most of all.  This confusion and lack of clear, sharp thinking.  I hate feeling that my thoughts and emotions are being impacted by my own body's reaction to strep.  It feels a whole lot like rheumatic fever.

And that thought leads to thoughts that make me want to cry all day.  I don't want to have rheumatic fever again.  It's fall...my favorite season.  It's time for the holidays with my kids who are growing up so darn fast.  I want to walk in this cool, crisp weather, and enjoy the leaves, and the rain, and the snow on the mountain tops.  I want to just finish decorating my house without having to sit and rest every fifteen minutes.  I don't want to have to slow down or stop doing things I have always done.

But I also don't want to experience these symptoms a second longer than I have to.  So this means that the past few days I've been talking to a lot of doctors and looking up a lot of symptoms, blood tests, heart sounds, etc.  online.  I'm thinking and talking about rheumatic fever all the time, because if I do have it, I will need to be treated.  I will need a "crap-lot" of aspirin, and maybe some steroids too.  I will need to rest so much more than I want to--maybe even bed-rest.  And I will need to ask for a lot of help.

None of that sounds very fun.  At all.  It sounds super-lousy.

But the other option--not calling doctors, and looking things up, and following up, and picking up blood test results, and finally getting the not-very-fun-super-lousy treatment --is so much worse.

If I let things go, and ignore my symptoms, and tell myself it's all in my head, and the doctors really don't have time for me, because it's not that bad, and I'm just being a hypochondriac, etc. etc. and I really do have rheumatic fever, then my heart gets so much worse.  My capacities are diminished even further.  My frustrating symptoms get more frustrating, and ultimately my life is shortened.

So I am not going to sit here and do nothing.  I am going to figure out what is wrong, and do all I can to get things fixed.  And if that means a couple of lousy days trying to get a hold of doctors and telling them my sad symptoms over and over again, then I will do it.

Because loving myself, is part of loving all men and women.  Loving myself means making the calls, and more calls, and insisting that it's not just in my head. And it also means giving myself those breaks in between decorating.  It means letting William's teacher know I am very sorry, but I can't come help this morning.  It means thinking kind thoughts about myself. It means doing "what matters most," and not getting discouraged by what I cannot do today.

And by loving myself right now it means I am giving my wonderful children and my patient husband a happy, healthy, thriving mom and wife....the best version of me.

I can do this, because I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me.