Hope on ... Journey on!!

I was ready for the new year but apparently my body (nerves) were not! I didn't take a single picture in January and barley got around to it in February!! I somehow...someway lost the month of January and start of February!! I had a rash around my right eye and it continued to get worse! It was so painful to get wet... I kept an ice pack on it most of the day and just didn't know what to do.  I thought I had had a bad outbreak of Eczema.  After about the third day, Allen took me to the ER in St. George.  They diagnosed me with Shingles of the Eye.  My eye had started to swell shut and blisters were on my eye lashes and eye lid, too.  I looked so bad and was so worried that it had attacked my eye.  The Doctor said it looked like it had stayed on the outside of my eye but sent me to an Eye Specialist the next day.  That was only the start of appointments weekly for months.  Family Doctors to run blood tests, Skin and Cancer Doctor, Eye Doctors... to see why a young woman would contract Shingles.  After countless test, stress and elevated blood pressure (180/110)... finally came to the conclusion that sometimes things just happen.
Just as I was getting better Fro Shingles...I felt a knot on my back that was getting bigger... and growing larger.  I called Allen and he scheduled an Appointment for the following day with my Skin and Cancer Doctor.  I had developed a cyst the size of a golf ball under my skin (I only could feel about a size of a quarter... it started out the size of a pea).  He said the best thing to do was to clean and drain it.  And that we did! The procedure was a piece of cake ... but for days... I was in so much pain!  I couldn't believe how stinking tender I was... I had to ice and heat four times a day... and that was difficult enough!  
I couldn't believe how stressed my poor body was.  I think everything had finally caught up with me.  It was time for a change and bad habits to stop.  But how do you tell a mom to stop worrying and relax.  I know worrying won't change anything and I thought I was doing fine... but my body told me otherwise!! I'm still trying to change bad habits that are affecting my skin and seem to be a trigger for Eczema... but only time will tell.  Sometimes life just gives us speed bumps and we have to manage to keep going... keep moving forward.

 "Hope on ... Journey on" ... my new motto for 2013!!