I was reflecting today on 2010 and all the interesting twists and turns it had. I feel like I can give an Amen to a friend who’s Facebook status reads “2010 you thought you could whoop me….nah, nah, nah, nah, boo boo! Bring it on, 2011.” Except maybe the “bring it on” bit…I’m not really interesting in challenging this new year :)
At the end of 2009 I wrote this post, in which I declared 2010 to be the “Year of the Makeover.” Wow, little did I know. I started off exercising and eating right. We chipped away at the remaining medical bills and one debt we still had. Then, some interesting things started happening. In the Spring I learned that I should start avoiding gluten to help my auto-immune disease. Amazingly enough, I started loosing weight, which had always been a challenge for me. We also had been able to pay off all of our medical bills, and were chipping away at that last debt.
Then, I started having trouble, this time with yeast. Candida yeast imbalance is a yucky thing. So, I started a yeast detox. I had no idea what I was starting. The entire summer found me stranded at home. It was so hard for me to leave the house! I was afraid of what my body was going to do next. It was a very interesting time for me. I remember vividly times of praying to just be healed, and of other times in which I would simply long for heaven.
I ended up needing some prescription medications to help get me back in balance. My test results showed that I had 2 types of bacterial infections, and a parasite infection. I also found out that I have Celiac Disease, and needed to stay away from gluten all together. That started me down a path to the greatest health I have experienced in 10 years.
As I finally began to improve, we had a scary episode with Sugar Belle, including a trip to All Children’s thinking she had a life-threatening infection. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything serious, and life continued on. Six weeks later our lives were rocked again when Shug was in a 4 wheeler accident. Definitely the scariest thing Mr. OverKill and I have ever lived through. But God was so good to us, she had excellent care and healed so quickly. A few weeks later I was hit with the reality of the medical bills we incurred. I was SO frustrated, and struggled, wondering why the Lord would impress on us to become debt free this year, and for us to get so close, and then get totally buried again. The Lord was gracious to me and didn’t fry me with a bolt of lightening. He revealed to me that I don’t need to understand the why, I just needed to trust Him.
And so we are. And we have been so incredibly blessed!
Two years after the onset of all my health issues, I ran in my first 5k, on Thanksgiving morning. I’ve lost and kept off about 40 pounds (unheard of for me!) and continue to run and exercise on a regular basis. My immune system seems to be restored to a healthy balance, and I am adapting to the gluten-free lifestyle fairly well.
Sugar Belle is healing and has grown spiritually in such amazing ways, I wouldn’t change what happened. She only has a faint limp at the end of the day, when she is really tired.
2010 was definitely the year of the makeover, just not how I thought it would be.
I wonder what the theme of 2011 with be….