the fruit of intention is sweet

rejoice! the letter came yesterday from lewis & clark college and i am thrilled to share that they have accepted me into the graduate school of education, the school counseling program. out of the 115 people that applied, the committee accepted just 35. i am feeling so honored and blessed to be in that select group!

as the news sunk in yesterday, it was if the 20 little monkey hands that have been strangling my stomach slowly let go and floated away. i knew i was deeply stressed and that it has been seriously affecting my well-being, yet the flood of relief was something i actually felt, not just emotionally, but physically.

oh, thank-you universe. thank-you friends for your love and support!

tomorrow i will mail back my confirmation of acceptance and hopefully then be able to quickly get in to meet with my advisor and the financial aid folks. the summer term begins may 11, so in almost a blink of an eye, i will be a student! i am so excited about this chapter, about learning and meeting new people. i am sure it will be a healthy, growing time in my life.

ah, health. my back is much better, not 100%, but better. that is also a relief. however, there is something wrong. i feel in in my bones, my gut, my deep self. i am not out looking for problems, but my body has something as of yet undefined going on. my blood tests were inconclusive, so now i am hoping to get accepted by the top specialist and get to the bottom of things with some x-rays. sadly, the average time it takes a woman to be diagnosed with any of these reactive arthritis disease is 9 years. often, after much damage is done and symptoms are severe & constant. i personally am not going to be satisfied with that. if i do indeed have a degenerative disease then i want to know now, not after serious damage is done!

today i made a list of all my weird symptoms. all the odd things that have plagued me for months or years. when this blinding back pain struck a few weeks ago, i would not have connected it to jaw pain & locking, or life-long intestinal issues, or my heel bone spurs, or even my hair loss. however, now that i have done hours of reading, especially on discussion forums where real live people report what is happening to them...now i see that all this weird stuff may be connected. strange symptoms, some occasional, many chronic for years, that i never even saw a doctor for. or when i did see someone for the severe intestinal problems, they ran some tests and told me what i already knew...that something is wrong. my bowel is irritable. brilliant, i knew that at age 18!

it starts to make you feel crazy. like you are just creating symptoms from stress and all the weird stuff isn't real if no one can name what is wrong. thankfully, my current doctor does not think i am crazy and is willing to look at all the possibilities. i fear, however, that diagnosing something really odd might be beyond the scope of her abilities.

meanwhile, i am just working on taking really good care of myself and doing as much healing as i can with diet, exercise and stress-reducing activities. the ymca has approved me for financial assistance, so i can have a membership to their excellent facilities for only $25 a month.

little by little, i am determined to turn the tide in my body to abundant health. and i am certain that entering a career path that asks me to utilize my brain & heart, over my brawn - that path will be an important part of my healing.

life really is too short for me to burn up my one precious body with simply making a living. thank goodness my brain and compassion seems to be inexhaustible...when i take proper care of myself.

now that is the real work. excellent, consistant self-care.