The Mystery of Illness

Illness can be a most mysterious thing at times. Sometimes it's simply difficult to ascertain what is going on in ones body, what is causing the disease, and how to solve it. Or, how to solve it in a way that doesn't make the issue ever worse.

I've been on an Allergy Elimination Diet, that was prescribed by my doctor, for the past 3 weeks. I started on the diet because I suffer from eczema on my chest, in my ears, and on my scalp. So, I know what the problem is, but I am intolerant of most topical medications that my doctor could prescribe to resolve the issue. Hence, his suggestion that I search for a 'food solution' to the problem. (He also noted that if this doesn't work, it might do me good to look into homeopathy or acupuncture. He doesn't usually suggest these options to his patients, but both of us know I'm an unusual subject.)

At this point, the symptoms haven't subsided at all -- or at least not by appearance or symptomatic result (my chest and ears still itch and my scalp continues to 'burn' each time I wash or rinse it). The only 'overt' result has been that I've lost 15 - 20 pounds of weight (down from around 225 to 205), which is weight that I can't lose easily. I'm a fairly thin guy to begin with, so losing this weight, while it makes my stomach flatter, also lessens my energy levels. And my stomach is upset a good deal of the time, so I am using antacids more often.

I guess in the larger scheme of things, I'm not doing that badly. I don't have cancer or arthritis or some fatal disease. The eczema isn't likely to kill me, directly anyway, though it is making my life pretty miserable. I wake up with itchy ears every morning [and then tend to scratch them until my 'smarter Self' stops me, knowing it isn't going to help in the long run] and I scratch my chest more often than is even slightly healthy. And my scalp has that 'burning sensation' almost all the time, even when I haven't washed or rinsed it. Plus, my stomach upset literally 'sets me back on my heels' periodically, especially when it results in an allergic food problem, or when the stomach acid just gets to be too much. Not pleasant, but not deadly either.

Whenever I get sick for some reason or other, I become more hyperaware of 'that condition' and notice it around me in other people. There are a lot of people who are sick in my community, with conditions far worse than my own, and I become hyperaware of their conditions only when I'm feeling pretty awful myself. My intimate partner says "Welcome to the club. You've got a chronic condition, which many people have. You're a special 'case' in that you have to use alternative medicine to treat it, because you can't tolerate conventional medical solutions. But it's not likely to kill you." And my good friend in New Mexico, whom I know from the men's wellness movement, says "All the guys in my men's group talk about the ways in which their bodies are falling apart as they age. They can't urinate or defecate without pain, their bones and muscles hurt, and generally they are experiencing the whole panoply of symptoms related to getting older. Get used to it - you're getting older and your body is falling apart. Surrender to the facts while searching for temporary solutions."

I attended a performance last year by Clark Terry, the jazz trumpeter [he was 89 at the time]. On the stage, he was joking about the aging process and he barked, somewhere between laughter and pathos, that "anyone who says the Golden Years are wonderful is fooling themselves - they really suck!" That surely put it in perspective.

Frankly, I'm a bit amazed to even be alive at this point of my life (I'm 59). I was so thoroughly depressed as a younger man, due to the incest, physical torture, and emotional abuse I had experienced, as a child, in my parents' home. I spent many years deeply involved in substance abuse and alcohol dependency, which I luckily 'kicked' around the age of 32 (hence, I've been sober for 27 years now). There's no doubt in my mind that that was a great obstacle to overcome, and I did it successfully (with the help of mental health therapists and supportive friends). Which doesn't mean -- no matter how much I hope it would mean this -- that everything else in my life would work out wonderfully.

I've now been professionally unemployed since 2002 (with small short-term and part-time jobs in the interim), though I still have my 'official' status as Executive Director of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, which is my nonprofit, of which I'm the only employee (and an unpaid one at that). It's not that life hasn't been more positive since being sober; indeed, for the past three and a half years I had the first long term intimate relationship with a woman in the whole of my life -- a situation that I never thought would actually come to fruition. That alone tells me how much I've healed emotionally. It's just that I had hoped that sobriety would bring more 'benefits'. But as a good friend noted recently, at least I'm a 'late bloomer'. I'm happy that I've bloomed at all!!

So, back to this diet. Losing more weight (and not really trying to lose any weight) and trying to keep a positive attitude about my life in the midst of the lightheadedness. Growing older and falling apart, but trying to keep what I can 'together' in the meantime. As the saying goes, growing old isn't great, but it's better than the alternative. The 'solution' to this condition isn't readily obvious, and isn't likely to become so, but I keep plugging away, doing the best I can. Which, of course, is the best any of us can do.

Note To Readers Of This Blog

Readers of the MMWI Blog may be wondering what happened to this blog, since I had been posting regular weekly entries since August 2010. I wanted you to know that I'm still writing, but have been experiencing some physical maladies of late which have limited my ability to write weekly entries. Hopefully, those will resolve themselves in the next couple of months, but in the meantime, I do plan to write blog entries as often as I can, when I'm not feeling overtly ill.

The other point I want to note is that I'm also now a Contributing Editor [CE] for WomensRadio.com. You can view my CE profile at:

http://www.womensradio.com/users/Donald-Jeffries%2C-MPA%2C-MSW/994.html

If you want to read my column, click the 'column' tab; if you want to see my videos, click the 'video' tab. This forum should allow me greater access to readers throughout the Internet. For the present, I'm largely reprinting the blogs that have been posted here on this site, that I've written up to now, though (as noted above) I do write new ones when my health permits it.

Thank you for being active readers of this blog. Hopefully you'll access the WomensRadio.com site to follow my work. Comments are always welcome.