Do I Deserve Help? My Pride And My disappointment

Help me! (Photo credit: mariateresa toledo)

During my relapse I am extremely debilitated so I often need help. But, I am living alone, also I happened to be a person who never learned how to ask help. What's worse, I am a person who doesn't look like need help. My relatively strong body build, my absolutely decisive countenance, my firm stride as long as my health permit me to be vertical, all these qualities make girls want to depend on me, guys want to leave me alone. This, also is why I better live alone during my chronic condition.

I have been in major relapse since June, and just started recovering since recent several days. This morning I feel almost perfect so I wanted to move several gardening stones (small size like football!) back to my backyard. Trust me, this is far less than a piece of cake for anyone in normal health condition, but for me, it is a serious task, so serious that I planned to do but have not touched it for days due to the fact that it might trigger another crash, which also could cause the cancellation of my weekend classes, on which my current income depends. Anyhow this morning I felt I could do it, at least I could do part of it. I also had my strategy, first to put several stones in my small dolly and push them to backyard. Plus, the fresh morning air was tempting, so I put myself in action.

Right after I put about 5 stones into my dolly, I realized that I was again overestimated my strength. Half way to my backyard there is a small slope, and I realized that if I "pushed" myself to pull the dolly up, I might have big trouble following up, and my weekend classes will be again jeopardized . So I decided to stop right there no matter what. But my dolly was right in the middle of lawn, between my house and my neighbor's. Just as I was wondering what to do, I saw a guy was knocking my neighbor's door, so I asked him if he could help me because I had heart problem. Since I was already breathless, my voice was extremely weak. He looked at me and said: I too have heart problem. And he lifted his shirt to show the scar on his front chest. So I immediately said never mind.

What happened the rest was that I struggled to move the stones one by one to my "territory", which is only a couple yards away from the dolly, then I took the dolly back to my backyard, and after that I immediately went back and lied down for a little while, let my heart back to normal function. So far, I don't feel big trouble but, I already could not cook lunch as I planned. I decide to boil some dumplings instead, because it costs almost no energy at all.

Thing is, I believe that guy could help me. Though he does have scar on his chest, but from his attitude, his loud voice, his brisk stride, I can hardly believe that he could not handle what I asked. Why didn't he offer me help? I don't know exactly, but based on my past experience, I have reason to believe it was because I did not convince him that I needed help. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I happen to have a relatively big build, don't look fragile, so I generally give people an impression that I am a strong person. During my past years, I just cannot count how many times I had to handle things I was actually not able to handle, and caused my crashes sometime relapse for days or weeks, and these disasters could be avoided only if people knew how serious my health trouble was so they could give me a hand. But I am very proud person, I would rather die than having people pity me, or misjudge me. Thinking that people would take my weakness and my asking for help as "mentally weak" would simple kill me. Truth is, this character of mine certainly contribute its huge share on worsening my health problems.

Of course, after lessons and lessons, I have learned that I need to take it easy on how people think of me. It doesn't matter. I also should learn to be responsible to my body, my health. It's the only thing my life rely on. If I need help, I may should just ask. As one of my blogger friends said, asking help is being responsible to yourself.

On the other hand, I can't help but feel so disappointed about some of our fellow human beings. The selfishness, the distrusting each other, and many more negative aspects of human nature, just darken my view on life. And sometime, I just cannot help to have such a strong sense about myself, that this earth is not for me, simply because I am too good to be here.

Call me cynic!

Time Line Of Chinese Herbs Taking

8/2013，黄芪水（红枣，党参）,effective；
10/2013，补中益气丸，effective；
02/2014，姜汤（红枣，黄芪），extremely effective；
07/2014，十全大补丸。

How Much We Know Ourselves By Science

Old Chinese medical chart on acupuncture meridians (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In her book "The fate of Chinese medicine" (temporary translation of 问中医几度秋凉), Ai Ning told the story of her father, who was doctor also a "die hard" believer of science and modern medicine. He got some disease when he was 60 year-old and did not get help from modern medicine. Out of desperation, he accepted treatment of Chinese medicine and he was "magically" cured. So his mind was in great confusion because he thought by theory he knew exactly what's wrong and believed that he should have cured by "science". After this experience, he gave up fighting against Chinese medicine. In conclusion, Author said this:

"If in this world we only had one medicine theory (implies modern medicine), he (father) would die without regret. But ironically, Chinese medicine let him lived with perplexity."

Contradiction Between Body And Mind

My state of life (of all these years): a passionate mind trapped in a lifeless body!

A Retreat After A Giant Step Forward - My Body Says No To My Passion!

English: Sleeping cat (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It seems I overdid again. Not sure how long this punishment would last, but certainly, it's not going to be just a few days, or a "minor step back", as I mentioned in my previous post.

I recently discovered my new passion: gardening. My front yard is getting beautiful. But it has been proven that gardening did more harm to me than good, even though I did not really "push" myself at all (only one of a few flowers a time!). I crashed again and again. My body simply says no to my passion!

Not only my health take one step back, my financial situation also suffers. Yes, I have to make very penny I spend, because doctors did not believe there is nothing wrong with me!

On the other hand, I have to focus on the fact that I had made the biggest improvement in recent 5 years. I need to be more patient, that's all.

Thinking carefully, these are the reasons I stumbled:
1. overly exercises. I did avaragely 3-5 times a week, which was fine first, but later after I increased the amount for each time, it was a little too much. Again, I wouldn't be able to tell how much was too much because when I was exercising, I felt fine.

2. The extreme humidity. For weeks we had extremely humid weather, it did not provide oxygen I needed when I exercised. So, I felt fatigue first, later on, symptom was triggered.

There are what I could think of now. Maybe there's more which I am not aware of. Well, what else I could do except going back living in my old "lifestyle" for a while.

A Minor Step Back

I hope it's just a "minor" step back. I had crash since last weekend. After two days rest, I was feeling good again, but, yesterday, gardening work seemed to be just a "little" too much, my heart is giving me trouble today again.
I already canceled my evening class. Hope I can be better tomorrow so I could hold my classes as usual. If not, it's OK too. I will NOT push myself again.

Rough Weekend

Sunday (Photo credit: _bobi + bobi)

I had rough weekend. It seems my increasing exercise overworked my heart, and during the past weekend I had crashed (heart malfunction, my old "friend"). I had to cancel one of my Sunday classes. I almost decided to push through, because my money is getting tight, but finally I decided to rest, because I reckoned that losing money was still better than suffering.

I am still on the "uptrend" since February. I had total about 4 or 5 medium scale crashes total, which is not bad at all. All I need to do is be careful with exercise. Rest is still more important to me.

3 Hours In Heaven, 3 Days In Misery. Yet There Is HOPE!

morning (Photo credit: Wolfgang Staudt)

Last Monday, which was 7 days ago, I woke up and felt like in Heaven. I went to bank and grocery store, then stopped by a coffee shop for a couple of coffee (hazelnut flavor with french vanilla creamer). I did all of these during one trip, which was quite an achievement to me! I found I was able to smile to people with ease (yes, even smile was energy taking for me for many years) and driving home with a feeling almost could be described as "euphoria". After I got home I turned music loudly and danced like when I was 18!

It was a few hours in Heaven! Really.

About 11 o'clock I went into kitchen to cook my lunch, and found I need some tomatoes. "Sure, I will go get them." I heard myself saying that with confidence. So I rushed out again to grocery store. Just when I was about to be impressed by the fact that I could handle all these things without a bed break, I realized I was reaching the limit of my energy. On the way back from grocery store I "prayed" desperately that my improved condition could keep me stay away from another serious crash, which I hadn't had one for a while. Well, it didn't. My heart started malfunctioning (felt like lack of blood or oxygen) around 3pm and it got worse and lasted for whole 3 days! I did not feel better until Thursday evening (my Wednesday class cancelled). Fortunately, I felt better on Friday, and during whole weekend I felt decent and was able to keep all my weekend classes.

Today is Monday again. Good news is, I have been feeling quite "heavenly" again. This time I was more careful to not have "too many" physical activities.

Living with unknown chronic condition is like walking on the thin ice, you never know when the ice would break. But, despite all of these, I still found my condition has been improved a great deal during the recent 2 or 3 months, first by taking the herbs (beginning of August), soon by completely eliminating regular outdoor exercise (I do yoga stretch daily, which helps blood circulation excellently).

Looking back, since more than a year ago, gradually, I found most of my symptoms were gone: shortness of breathe (the worst), stomach disorder (not much better than the worst), back pain, arthritis, constipation (chronic, for over 3 years long!), and many more (yes, I was totally and chronically screwed!)! Now my heart condition (which was the root problem for all) is pretty much the only symptom that still attack me from time to time. However, during the absence of heart problem - which is still very serious, I definitely feel much more alive. I do hope, after this year - my snake year, my condition could be back to my own "norm", so I could start exercising (walking or biking) regularly. And if I could keep doing that for several month, I could have a "remanufactured" physical health condition!

Progress Made

Pictures of herb samples from categories of Chinese Herbs Tonifying Herbs: Herbs that Tonify the Qi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I've been feeling decent for a while (more than half month), except Thursday last week, when I had crash due to cleaning the kitchen floor. It took a couple of days to recover. I think the progress was made by multiple efforts:
1, almost completely cutting off exercises (walking ad biking), only stretch everyday;
2, Chinese herbs;
3, good diet;
4, good rest.

I will keep going like this and see how far I could go.

I realized my "fighting spirit" is very harmful to my health recovering. All these years, as soon as I felt better, I went to walk, or bike, then crashed after. I know my problem is energy, so this means, whenever I had a little energy saved, I used it up by exercise. So basically, I need to stop pushing myself like I was so used to in my first half of my life. I was right to think that life style (even personality) was the primary cause of all this mess. Of course changing life style or personality is nothing easy, but not impossible. And there are always many "blind spots" to discover: first walking (over 10 years ago); second rest (sleep, about 4 years ago); third diet (about 3 years ago); fourth, Chinese herbs (over 2 months ago); fifth, quit exercise (now!). Interestingly, each time I found something I thought it was the "last piece of my health puzzle".

P.S. I was highly annoyed by an incident another day when I encountered a person, who showed a kind of attitude like: What? you are still not well YET? or didn't you mention how much you had learned about health? She didn't say those words, but I just "imagined" all of them by her expression. People just don't know how complicated the condition is. Well, I better not even mention it. But I did, in case someone read this blog, so at least more people would know a little more understanding toward this so called "invisible illnesses".

Exercise Needs To Be Stopped!

By all these years experience, I think I got enough failures to convince me that exercise is more harmful than beneficial to me, at least during this period of my life. It needs to be stopped. If I desperately need to go outside walking, maximum 15 minutes!

Astragalus is still working. I found it works better when I am not exercising, or more specifically, walking. Stretching is the only type of exercise my body allows me to do. So I should just respect that.