A Year of Un-health

It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. (Mohandas Gandhi)

This year has not been a really good one for health in our family. Just one thing after another. It’s not just one member of the family, not just mine or my husband’s family, it’s everyone, it seems. Almost.

The year started with my sister almost giving birth to her second baby 2-3 months before her due date – again! She was on bed rest (and hated it) for two and a half months and in and out of the hospital till she gave birth to her healthy baby boy in February. That was such a wonderful gift to all of us, this little man!

My grandmother, who is my only living grandparent, at 82, has been in a clinic for senile dementia for over a year now, and this year, she has been getting worse. We never really knew this disease is in our family, because I guess back when her parents were suffering from it, they called it “old age”. She has always been the healthiest in my family, physically, a 4’9” (if that) dynamo, so this came as a big shock to all of us. My family could no longer care for her at home, because of her nightly wanderings, which were very hard to supervise, so she had to go to this special place.

Her physical health is declining rapidly, along with her fading mind. It is so unbearable to watch. And to watch those who care for her (like my aunt) fall into depression themselves, as the care giver is equally impossible, at times.

My husband’s aunt has been diagnosed with colon and uterine cancer, at 72. She has undergone a massive surgery to remove most of her colon and all of her reproductive organs, sometimes in the summer (June?!). That, alone, is massive surgery for anyone, at any age, but particularly for an older body. After the surgery, she underwent several (I think five) rounds of chemo, just “preventively”, we are told. During this whole time she has been in the hospital twice with massive abdominal infections, various cysts, just complications of this whole intervention. We saw her last month, a year and a half after we saw her at our wedding, last year, and she was almost the shadow of the woman I remember. Her eyes had the same glitter in them, and her smile the same welcoming warmth. Disease can take a lot out of us, but it cannot and should not kill our spirit.

Around the same time his aunt was diagnosed with cancer, my husband was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes! He jumped on the wagon of medication, constant blood sugar checks, new diet, several doctors’ appointments, reviews at the Diabetes Management Center, and re-designing his eating and exercising habits. It was a tough blow for him (already a high blood pressure patient), although he was kind of expecting it, since it’s a “family disease” on his side. It’s never easy to hear such confirmation, though.

My brother in law, at 32, just found out that his cholesterol and blood pressure are off the charts, too and whereas his blood sugar is not scary yet, his A1c test showed clear disposition to type 2 diabetes, as well. My sister and I are exchanging diabetes and heart disease friendly recipes now. Another big, unwelcomed “surprise”, of two very traumatic diseases, for someone so young!

Lastly, but not in the least, there is my mother in law. She is a double amputee, having lost both of her arms in a farming accident when she was 4. She is 70 now and has lived all her life with prosthetic arms, doing everything we are doing as “normal” people. She is my role model of strength and perseverance despite all odds! She is a walking lesson.

She is also a diabetic. In the past year or so she has lost a lot, and I mean a lot, of weight, trying to keep her diabetes under control. She walks 3-4 miles every day from spring to fall (she lives in Michigan, so winter walks are tricky to say the least, but she does walk on the treadmill then), and she has totally revamped what she eats. After 69 years one can still change what and how they eat, and how they manage their exercise routine! She is living proof of that! But all these changes caused her to lose so much weight (while her blood sugar is back to normal values!) that she has needed new prosthetic arms. The old ones are too large now, and she can’t work them too well anymore. Well, after months of waiting and close to $12,000 paid, she got arms that are made completely wrong for her! Totally unusable. The arms, much like ours that we take for granted, are her freedom. The old ones are cumbersome and hurt a lot, since they don’t fit her “stumps”, and she needs new ones. After months of explaining to the makers of them what is wrong with them, she gave up and she is back to her old ones, in pain, but still free.

And then, there have been my own issues. On top of everything else I knew about, on top of the perpetual “flunk” tests and off numbers (the usual), I also found out about my defective heart (not because of cholesterol, alas, this time, but just because of pure faulty genetic anatomy), and about uterine fibroids that are a pain (pun not intended) to live with, every day!

Despite everything, though, I still consider myself lucky. Looking at all my relatives who have crossed large abysses this year in their fear for their (or their baby’s) life, I feel lucky that whatever I have been “blessed” with has not landed me one day in a hospital, or one hour disabled!

I am grateful for what I have and I am learning, every day, from these wonderful people around me, how one can survive a bad diagnosis, no matter how horrible, and still go on. One foot in front of the other, one day at a time, one prayer and “thank you” at a time, we will continue to walk on. There is no other possible alternative.