Triaging Life

Hello beautiful people and welcome to your weekly dose of Celestial Goodness. As always, and especially today, I want to thank you for joining me in this space and on this journey.

I was talking to my mom before I wrote this up, and I said to her, “I just want to feel better.” She said to me, “You are stressing yourself out, and honestly you just need to relax.” She was right of course. I was feeling a sort of heaviness from not having created much over the last several weeks. As you may have noticed, or maybe not, I have not posted either a blog post or a video in a few weeks. You can find this week’s video here: https://youtu.be/LiGgRVhJo_8

In truth, the summer months have been good to me—I have absorbed family and friends—really feeling their presence after the long night of the pandemic. Sitting together in the physical space and presence of someone that you love is truly a priceless feeling. Being able to have long, rocking side to side hugs with my friends, that has been pure joy to my heart.

We have also been busy with some travel—the last year really grounded me in the sense that I was not able to travel. I love to travel for a variety of reasons, and it is especially delightful if my travels lead me to the sea. So, it was with great joy that I got to experience a lot of the sea. As mentioned in previous posts, we went to the amazing beautiful Turks and Caicos, and then we got to experience the Atlantic Ocean in the Tybee Island—the Eastern most point in Georgia. After that, I went with some of my favorite people for a quick trip out to Ocean City.

The sea was never far, and my soul felt it. There is such a peace for me from hearing the water, from seeing it stretch out for miles into some mysterious and beautiful horizon point.

Whether at sunrise or at sunset, the sky over the sea is always like a divine painting sprawled on an endless canvas.

And yet, somewhere along the way, some water born bacteria creeped into my body.

Enter from stage right, helicobacter pylori, or h pylori. Somewhere along the way, I started to feel really nauseous, dizzy, and faint. These are the symptoms for many ailments, so I made my way to my doctor for a series of blood tests and questioning. Science and medical technology are always something that I will be grateful for. Based on what I told the doctor, they were able to recommend a test which seemed a little weird at first. I had to blow into a bag, and then drink a clear liquid that tasted like some kind of weird Kool-Aid. I waited about 15 minutes and then blew into another bag. They air sealed the bags and sent them off to the lab, where their suspicions were confirmed.

The treatment for h pylori has been two weeks of two different antibiotics and an acid reflux pill. I was also given an anti-nausea pill because that was one of the main symptoms—the inability to hold my food down. All of this made me feel very weak, and most days I truly struggled to get through the day. While my brain said, “you need to be doing something.” My body said, “no, you need to rest.” And my friends and family said, “What advice would you give to us?” Use my own words against me, will ya? Ultimately, I had to submit to rest, and also the researcher in me found out as much as I could about h pylori. As it turns out a very larger portion of the world’s population has h pylori, but it doesn’t always do anything. Sometimes it just sits there in your tummy. Other times it causes stomach ulcers. In addition to my treatment, a few people also mentioned taking a probiotic, and I added that in.

This whole experience provided me with a valuable lesson. We can make plans, but sometimes we have to be flexible for what might unfold. In my case, I had tons of plans for the last few weeks, and ultimately, I had to triage things. Some days I had just enough energy to make it through the day—doing my regular work—slowly to my chagrin, and then making dinner lol!

It reminded me that sometimes our life requires triage. What are you triaging? What is triage? It is the act of making some things a priority—it is assigning a degree of urgency to a patient’s treatment by the severity of their condition or likelihood of recovery with and without treatment. This is a pretty common thing at the hospital, but it is also something that we do in our own lives. We make things a priority.

Stephen Covey said this about life. “The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things.” I also came across a quote that said, “Make yourself a priority; at the end of the day you are your longest commitment.” I felt that. So over the last few weeks, my priority has been on health, recovery, and rest.

We can feel so guilty about taking rest and about making ourselves a priority, but trust me—everything else that you want or desire in this life depends on your ability to also take care of yourself. You cannot pour from an empty cup either, so whatever you are trying to do for the world, requires that you make your care an important part of the equation.

And that really is my message this week. In the game of life—we must triage somethings. We can make all the perfect plans that we want, but things can happen that seemingly cause everything to fall apart. Flexibility, and adaptability are very essential and beneficial tools for living. This week, triage yourself—do something nice for you, even if it is simply taking a nap. There is healing and peace to be found in the simple things—water, sleep, and stillness. Take care of yourself and may the stars shine brightly over your week!