Healing

I am lucky to be blessed with good health, the last few months would have you thinking otherwise, but despite being diagnosed with Crohns in the '90s it has been in remission for some time.  I have long held the belief that if your mental health is good then your physical health will be too.  I am not for one minute suggesting that the two are always interrelated but they definitely have an effect on each other.

December was a hard month for me, I know I have mentioned it here often in the past weeks but writing and talking about it has helped me immensely.  When we left hospital on the 9 December Alice was much improved, she was smiling and talking again two things that she had virtually stopped doing whilst she was very ill.  I was coughing and sneezing a little, very tired and mighty glad to be going home, I thought that both of us would continue to improve with plenty of rest at home.  Alice did, but not me.  A week later I was feeling much worse, I had had a few days of feeling better in the meantime, I hardly moved from my bed, my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and I was utterly exhausted.

I knew that there was nothing that the Doctors could do for me,  I was pretty sure I didn't have an infection so rather than calling them I called a dear friend of mine who is a great listener and a trained homeopath, within twenty four hours of her advice I felt like a completely different person.  The fog had lifted, the ache had gone from my ears and head, within twenty fours hours my sore throat had abated and a few days later my cough too.  I felt completely relaxed.

What I now realise is that it was all down to tension and stress.  Alice was seriously ill when I took her into hospital, she had had me by her side the whole time.  I went into hospital well, but worried, I came home ill, I had had no one by my side.  I thought I had come to terms with it, but I hadn't at all.  Physically I wasn't particularly ill mentally I was, because the physical symptoms were the obvious ones I had concentrated on them. I hadn't even realised how tense I was until it was gone.  My fitful sleeping wasn't allowing me to properly rest something I knew I desperately needed.

It is always hard to be ill when you have people who are dependant on you, it may make them realise how much you are the glue that holds it all together but it is not an advisable way to help them find that out.  I have long realised that it is just as important that I look after myself and make time for me to be able to do my 'glueing' to the best of my abilities, I have had a reminder of just how important that is.  So next time you are ill if you have dependants don't feel guilty or that you are failing, make sure they are cared for by others so you can get properly better, easier said than done I know, but so important.