I look good

Do not be fooled by the title, though it may seem that I am full of myself, I am not. Even though some may think me as such, I try not to be the kind of person that thinks she is, nor places herself above others. Those that honestly know me know that I am not one of those who degrades others to make herself look better or think better of herself. My title could probably be better, but it is the whole focus of this post, especially since I cannot do anything about my present situation but to blog about it and vent out my frustration.

Looking good and looking well maybe thought of as the same thing, but the funny thing about rhetoric is that words are not always used by their real meaning. Looking good refers to our outward appearance whereas looking well refers to ones' health.  Figuratively speaking looking good in my case refers to the same thing as looking well. In this post, "I look Good" refers not to my self-esteem or about how "great" I look but rather to the fact that after a few years now, my health or rather how I feel, and my appearance happen to be two different things, and although I may look okay, I am the opposite of being that.

If you have read my past blogs, then you know the deal. If you haven't then let me tell you, in a nutshell, the predicament I have found myself in for the past two and a half years. A while back ago, as soon as my first daughter started school, I decided to go back to school and receive my education. The last year of my four year degree, during my student teaching, I began to feel like an entirely different person.

Although I had been experiencing some mild dizziness ever so often sometime before, I never considered myself ill because the dizziness came sporadically such as being in certain heights or positions and only at certain periods of the month. When I began my student teaching, my dizziness had evolved to a new level, and it commenced to occur every other day from out of nowhere followed by a stab in the temple, fatigue, and a stiff neck. Soon it was not just at certain heights or certain positions, but it was more often. Like clockwork, every Sunday I would be unable to move my heavy limbs, get up out of bed and when finally able to get up felt tired, stiff, and dizzy.

After graduation, I began to experience some tingling throughout the body that kept me from getting up from bed or from anywhere that I was sitting. When I was not experiencing dizziness, or tingling everywhere, and anywhere, my brain was on fire. Soon I found myself afraid to move a muscle because of the tingling, dizziness, and fatigue. My limbs felt as though they were weights. I was pushing myself all the time to get around or do anything. I sometimes was stuck sitting down in one place for a while unable to move an inch of my body, not even my head.

Because I was one of the many people who did not have insurance, I began to consider alternative medicine, essential oils. Using the essential oils helped the headaches and the pain in the back of my neck. When those were not enough, I got on insurance through the health market, also known as Obamacare. I went to the nearest doctor and after the second visit told that she did not know what to tell me and advised that I work out without knowing that I had to stop working out because of the pain and fatigue. Discouraged by the doctor, whose name I shall not reveal, I decided to venture elsewhere, to a nurse practitioner who I had worked for before. Listening to my pleas rather her own, she sent me to a neurologist who prescribed me some anxiety medicine which helped with the headaches but not the tingling or numbing of the face that accompanied the tingling ever so often. All the while I am not looking the part.

All this stuff is going on inside of me and people begin to say that it is in my head and for a while start to believe it myself. I consider the possibility of this and because I look healthy decide to make the decision to stop worrying about the things my body was doing and stopped going to doctors and just try to live life without thinking about it. Instead of comparing my symptoms with other people too apt to tell of their illnesses or symptoms or getting on WebMD to check under what diagnosis my symptoms fall, I went about my daily tasks as any other healthy looking woman. At times I felt strong, and at other times I did not. I had never felt so out of wack. I was happy that I could pass off as someone that had nothing wrong, but at the same time, I dreaded it because I wanted -still do- to act like everyone else and do what everyone else was doing. I want to be the woman that I look like healthy, energetic, and active, not unlike the woman I was feeling. I had become afraid of being called a fraud or of trying to seek attention or being thought of as lazy because I am neither one of those things.

Unlike cancer or other forms of illnesses, mine is not one that you could tell it by my appearance unless you knew me. My father could tell the difference, but other than my sisters and parents, not even my husband felt like there was anything the matter with me. He believed what he saw and what he saw was a healthy woman who looked well enough to care for him and their family without noting the exhaustion in my eyes, the heavy limbs I could not lift, nor the dizziness and tingling feeling that passed through my body. I looked healthy, and to him and many others, I was fine. Soon I chose which events to attend or not to attend. I could not possibly do everything I wanted to do or go to all the places I wanted to be.

So I skip events, especially when I am not feeling well, events that for the most part require my vitality and my strength because I do not want to feel like I am falling over when I am not or feeling the discomfort of the tingling and the pain that comes along with it. The battle is still going on. This Thanksgiving was unbearable because when I woke up, I was stiff from my neck down to my legs. I am thankful that I can move unlike a year and a half ago when I could barely lift my legs up the stairs of my in-law's home. My head was on fire, I was tingling in every other place from time to time and my legs and face kept going numb whenever they wanted.

Although I was there, all I wanted to do was be in bed and not move, regardless of my condition. I headed off to my in-laws' for lunch and to my sister's for dinner. The holidays are busy for our family, and I always enjoy having an American lunch at my in-laws home and Mexican dinner with my parents and my sisters for Thanksgiving. When you are unable to move around without the feeling of falling or feeling the room spin it becomes hard to enjoy your family the way you want even when you look alright and healthy. In short, I may look healthy and as if there is nothing wrong, but my body tells me differently and the only way to make it better is to lie down in bed.

Trip to Grandma's

In January of the year 2014, on a sunny Sunday afternoon after church, I was driving towards my mother in law's home.  My kids and I were headed there to meet with my sister in law and her two daughters so that my kids could spend the night with their cousins. Unfortunately, the event never took place. Instead of having a week of playing with cousins the week became a traumatic experience for my kids and myself that would later fuel future conversations around the dinner table and family gatherings.

As I drove my  Honda Odyssey with my two daughters and my son,  I made the decision to take a quick look at my hair in the mirror. In the few seconds that I spent looking at myself in the mirror, I drove off the road; I then overcorrected to make my way back to the road which then caused me to overcorrect again and go off the road again. I kept driving, afraid and shocked of finding myself unable to get myself out of the situation. I turned to look behind me, watched as my son took a bite of his chocolate bar and saw it hit his mouth; when I suddenly crashed into a culvert causing the airbag to explode against my right hand gripping the wheel and my face.

At that moment, the only thing I worried about was my three kids. I turned to face Emma who was beside me in the front seat to see whether she was alright only to find that she had not been bleeding nor had she experienced anything fatal. I then turned to check on my younger kids who although are thirteen months apart look like twins. Natalia who was scared did not cry nor did she complain and was okay, but Viktor, my youngest, was bleeding.

I took off my seat belt, got out of the car and walked over to him. As soon as I saw his swollen, bleeding mouth, I began to cry at the sight of what I had caused him, and he started to cry in return. When I realized that my crying was making him cry, I stopped crying and in a soft voice calmed him down saying that everything would be alright. He stopped crying and asked if we were going to be alright, I then reassured him that we were. The car in the other lane stopped, and the people got out to see if we were alright. Before I knew it, my wreck had created a long line of cars that included my mother and sister in law.

A lady, the owner of whose yard I had ruined, came out with blankets for my kids. My husband arrived at the scene shortly and after several minutes, an ambulance came and took my two daughters to the same hospital as they were trying to keep Viktor from falling asleep in case he had a concussion. He was then carried off in a helicopter which flew my son to a hospital one hour away to see if he needed oral surgery.

I did not feel anything physically wrong except maybe my hand burning from the airbag hitting me.  The only thing that worried me was my son and his health. I had no time to think about myself whatsoever or to check me in into the hospital. My daughters suffered no issues and Viktor who wore a swollen cheek for a couple of weeks did not have the need for surgery. I on the other hand well let's just say it is the result of many, many other posts to come.