Looking back now, the stress and unhealthy lifestyle choices is a culprit that needs to be managed in everyday life. Thinking that everything would settle down with my health after my stay in the hospital with my swollen jaw, I still resorted to the fact that I am immune to everything. Having an auto-immune disease and being stressed is not a good combination. If everyone could “look ahead” in life, it would be so much simpler. We can adjust ourselves how to react when situations come up and the stress would be minimal. This is not logical, but wishful thinking. I know everyone has a story of their own and has not had a stellar upbringing. I have learned that through this health scare that I am not a product of my environment and I know that there are tools out there that can help me.
The next several months had a huge toll on my health mentally and physically. My relationship with my girlfriend Nicole worsened. It took me a long time to realize that she was not my person, and I was not hers. I don’t have anything bad to say about her, the relationship did not go as I expected. Because my lease was up, I packed up my things and moved in with Nicole, I still had a lot of reservations. I noticed the little things and started to regret my decision to move in with her, but I thought, no, you can fix this. When someone tells you to always listen to your instincts, listen to them. There were personnel problems at work, I was dealing with my own personal issues with my health and in my relationship with my girlfriend. I was slowly turning into someone I did not know.
Around March 2017 is when things began to change. I made plans to get away to Virginia Beach for St. Patrick’s weekend. I asked Nicole to get time off work because she typically works on the weekends. It started out to be a great weekend and it ended with us fighting on the way home. When we got back home, everything started to escalate from there. The combination of stress from work, the uncertainty of living with Nicole and not being happy started to take its toll on me. After two and a half months of living with Nicole, she dropped a bombshell on me and said she wanted to move to South Carolina to help a friend open a grooming school. She asked me to go with her, but my intuition was telling me that there was something wrong with this picture. I took the time to think about it, I said no.
I was getting ready for work and did not pay attention to what was going on with my face, Lisa who is a very good friend of mine saw my face, and said “What the hell is wrong with your face?” It is lopsided! She said you need to go to the emergency room right now! I called my primary care doctor, and they had an opening. By the time I got to my doctor’s office, the right side of my face was numb, and I could not control the drooling from the saliva in my mouth. My doctor told me that I was having a Bell’s Palsy attack. I am eternally grateful that Lisa pushed me to go to the doctor. I am one of those stubborn people that say meh, it will go away. What I did not know is that if you don’t treat Bell’s Palsy within the first 2 to 3 days, the damage can be permanent. My doctor put me on two different medications, one of them being prednisone. Any type of steroid is great for inflammation, but it does a lot of damage to the body. I was put on a 14-day steroid treatment, and it took about a month before my face returned to normal.
I called my sister during all of this. I was slowly becoming aware of what I was doing to my body, not listening to what it was telling me. However, it was not registering with me, the full extent of what not listening to your body’s needs does to you. Pam asked me what I was eating and how I was dealing with my stress. This was the start of Pam sharing with me she had a hunch and a strong feeling that I have an autoimmune disease and stress is the trigger. While I was agreeing with her for the sake of agreeing, I was still eating semi healthy, but used junk foods like potato chips, Coke or milk as a stress reliever to get through the day-to-day shit that was going on at work and in my personal life.
My health issues STILL did not “sink” in with me about how important food, exercise, and rest are important to alleviate the daily stress that I was going through in my life all the time. I still had the mindset that when it comes to a healthy lifestyle and even though there are people who eat unhealthy food, drink, smoke, and don’t exercise, but live to be in their 90’s and were never sick a day in their life! I continued to do the same thing. What I failed to realize and understand is that food helps when you’re doing it right to help prevent any illness that comes up and the recovery time is faster. Thinking back, I should have taken the steps to change my lifestyle habits, but I didn’t because I wasn’t ready…