EOM Check-In: Health Update (June 1)

Greetings everyone and Happy June 1st! I hope your April Showers brought you May Flowers and so forth and so on.  This post marks 50 entries in my blog series and as always, I'm nothing short of grateful for the all of the love you've given me since I started.  It's only fitting that the 50th be a health update, since that's what's most important these days.  That being said (yeah, another not-so-short one)...

*Inhales deeply.  Exhales slowly*

I guess it's just easiest to begin with a heartfelt apology because I let you guys down this month. 

Total weight loss = -4 lbs.
You read that right, negative four pounds.
I GAINED weight.  

My scale is now on a baseball field, as home plate.

I could say that the daily discomfort of the muscle damage was the reason, but it really wasn't.
I also sustained a minor injury, but that was later and it really wasn't enough to stop me.
I just wasn't feeling it last month.  At all.

Outside of minimal efforts in physical therapy, I succumbed to a month of self-imposed quarantine and eating my troubles away (I shouldn't say "away" because they never left).

Since honesty is what makes my monthly check-ins effective, holding me accountable, let me continue that trend.

In May, I lost several people including one of my oldest and best friends.  To make matters worse, my mother's mental health continues to decline and this past weekend I got to experience it first hand.  I finally got to see her for Memorial Day (she turns 80 this month, but we all decided to use the extended weekend to get together and celebrate it), but the happy reunion was wrecked by the realization of the damage dementia had caused.

My sister rode with me to pick her up from the nursing home.  Once we got to her room, I had a few moments alone with her when my sister left to sign her out. It wasn't long before I just held my mother tightly and cried uncontrollably after she asked me for the 3rd time where we were going and who I was.  All I could say was "I love you so much, momma", over and over and over again.

Our reunion selfie.  My mother.  My queen.

On top of that, my mind just hasn't been right, as of late. I'd all but given up.
I know, that's not the attitude to have and I'm better than that.

If I'm to be real about things, I've been off of my game for awhile now, so I used April's downtime to better assess everything.  My Fitbit shows that I averaged 3.5 hours of sleep each night while in the hospital (some nights being completely sleepless).  I did use that time however, mulling over some hard decisions that I've spent the past two months weighing. Unfortunately, I fear that one or two of the choices may result in more disastrous consequences than the temporary-to-permanent fixes I need.  But I'll have to live with whatever comes my way.

Honestly, the best thing about May was the 3-hour conversation I had with my sister, the morning I arrived.  My family went to the mall and she and I sat for the first time, uninterrupted, talking about everything.  I mean everything.  I honestly don't remember the last time, if ever, that we talked intently at length like that and definitely not face-to-face.

End result? Peace. That's what my sister gave me.  Peace.
Peace in my current life-situation.  Peace with my past.  Peace with who I am, or who I've become.  And most importantly, peace with what I must do.

Just so you know, this is the girl who literally saved my life when I almost fell off of an embankment by a bridge in Kankakee as a child.  In fact, we laughed about how the other girls ran "like girls" while Denise sprinted with perfect form like Florence Griffith Joyner to get to me and form a human chain to rescue me from falling to my doom.

My reward for straying from the church event and placing myself in peril? Spending the rest of the trip, caked in mud, sitting on the bus with a pissed off bus driver who had to babysit me.

Unlike Flo-Jo, Denise's head was angled down with a look of ferocity.

But seriously, "Niecy" came through like she has all of my life.  Still, that's another blog.

Suffice it to say that I'm recharged, rejuvenated and refocused.  April and May were bad, but things will get better.  They have to.  Too many people have expressed their sadness in my "lack of" joy that they say they all know and love.  And if you know me, truly know me, you know that life is love and happiness.  Besides,  I made a promise to my mother and I intend to keep it.  She's outlived my father by 20 years now and physically, she's a picture of health.  Momma told me that her children were warriors.  She looked at me and said to keep fighting.

And I will.

So we goin' back to basics, baby...


And for those of you who feel that this was more of a mental than physical health update, please note: I never specified in the title what it would be.

So HUSH.

I'll see you in 30 days! Love y'all!

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