Those Curve Balls

Back in early November, I made a conscious decision to stop letting myself get stressed out. I had a business trip coming up, and was juggling all the items that needed to get done and in what order. I remember when I made that decision. It was a Sunday night and received one of those work emails that has your Sunday night mind working overtime. It was at that point I took back my power and made that decision. I felt a new sense of calm about my energy. I found I was able to have more powerful meditations in the days following because of it.

I was even helping my team handle things better. I was able to shoulder some of the burdens and lighten things up. What a concept!

I was feeling so good, taking in the curves like my HD Softtail, wind at my face, my favorite tunes in my ears. Feeling pretty bad-ass.

Then, I was working late Thursday evening, moving through my tasks and I touched my chest area and felt a small raised area. My skin is super sensitive, so I didn’t think much about it. It was itchy though. Again, I didn’t think much about it.

I woke up the next morning and there were more bumps, a smattering of bumps and in the middle of some of them were little raised red spots. Ok, this isn’t normal. What the heck? My inside voice says, “You don’t have time for this shit…” Groan…don’t know it!

I take an early call at work and decided to go right to the walk-in clinic. I’ve learned that if I’m traveling, I need an answer quick. Dilly dallying doesn’t make anything better. The Doctor sees me and tells me it looks like Shingles.

Seriously?

She prescribes me an antibiotic for Shingles. Happy day! She also confirmed I could still travel, I caught it early thank goodness. I just can’t have anyone touch me “there”. Whatever. Not a problem!

As I’m digesting all this new information, I turn to my trusted Louise Hay book, Love Your Life. It has a list of emotional root causes of various illnesses and I look up the emotional roots to Shingles. It says:

Shingles: Waiting for the other shoe to drop. Fear and tension. Too sensitive.

But hey wait a minute…. I was feeling GREAT. Perhaps I was feeling that fear and tension the weeks leading up to making my “decision”.

Life certainly throws some curve balls. It’s the classic one step forward two steps back. And I had a feeling the devil would push me back now that I’ve declared my freedom from being stressed.

And as I discovered, I was right, the devil certainly was NOT done with me. He had a few more things up his sleeve for the ultimate trifecta of fuckery.

As I was getting up for my early morning flight to San Diego, I felt like I was not just itchy but also coming down with a sinus thing. Nothing like a sinus cold to make a 6-hour flight across the country a pleasant experience.

I somehow get through the conference, trying to fight off whatever I had. I was taking Dayquil, Nyquil, EmergenC, working a cocktail effect. Long West Coast days on East Coast time pushed me to my limits. I swear though as soon as I touched back down in Boston, the virus let loose and I couldn’t function. On my way home from the airport after a redeye, I stopped back into the Walk-in clinic (visit #2 in a week) to be seen and get any last medications to accelerate healing. Once I got home, I literally went to bed and didn’t get up for the rest of the day. I start to recover slightly a day or so later… But Wait! There was one more thing in store for me… I woke up one morning and my eyes were glued shut. Classic conjunctivitis, are you kidding me?

I call the Walk-In Clinic and ask if they would just call in eye drops so I don’t have to go out back into the public, but of course because I had shingles, they wanted to make sure it was not a shingles thing. I knew what I had having dealt with this before. But I begrudgingly went for visit #3, whereupon they handed me a mask in reception just in case I wasn’t feeling totally toxic. Finally, they gave me the drops I needed.

That was one angry virus, that’s all I can say. All I could do was surrender and let it blow on by. I really don’t get sick and I know this is not something of a totally serious nature, many I know in my circle have worse, much more serious things.

However, it is a good reminder to lean back into God, put my trust in Him because me trying to drive that bus didn’t work. It’s also a good reminder that when we do step out onto a platform of faith, be prepared for a push back to test you. Having said that, I’m even more committed to not letting stress rule me. I am kicking it to the curb. Hear that Universe? I AM DONE.

Shingles Schmingles. Virus Schmirus.

With God on my side, who can be against me?