Healing And Recovery

As I had mentioned in my last post, it had been a couple of weeks since I have taken my medication and been on a proper schedule to keep the A1AD in check, and now I am paying the price for that.  My lungs are stinging when I breathe, my muscles have been catabolized, the tendons in my joints feel like they are tearing just from bending them normally, my eyesight has gotten worse, my hearing has drastically decreased, and of course, my cognitive function has definitely diminished!

With this type of genetic disorder, relief does not come at a single dose of medicine, or one day of being back on an adjusted lifestyle and schedule.  Healing and Recovery are cumulative, and come by many weeks and months of proper diet, medication, exercise and sleep!  It is cumulative; it takes time.  And it must be consistent.  Any interruption, even missing one day, will set healing right back to the beginning! 

So please, if you know of people suffering from genetic disorders, have patience, and do not get them off their Healing regiment!!!!  Do everything you can to help them stay on their programme for Recovery, please!

A Rough Couple Of Weeks

 A couple weeks ago, my wife was worried because the baby in her womb stopped moving.  It took me several times of asking her to go to the hospital, but she finally consented.  And we got the worse news!  The child had passed.  It was almost full term, and it would be born now.  It is so difficult, when you see your baby fully developed, and looking beautiful.  When you hold him in your arms!

It was a horrible experience in the hospital for my wife.  She was treated so horribly by the doctors and nursing staff, it was shameful for me being Canadian, for my wife to be treated so terribly.  The racism and sexism was far too extreme to be believed!  My wife no longer wants to live in this country.

We had the funeral recently, and are now going through the aftermath of the tragic event.  It is a sad time for all of us, especially for my wife.  

As for me, being A1AD, my muscles have deteriorated, my chest stings, My breathing is poor, my liver has swollen, my body is in pain, it is difficult to even focus on writing this simple post, and all the regular symptoms have returned.  This stress has certainly taken it's toll.  

Injuries And Blogging

 I have all these great ideas for blogging, but the problem is, I love to work, so I do not get to blogging.  Of course, I injured my leg yesterday, and now I am waiting for the swelling to go down enough, and for the leg to heal enough to get back to work.  In the meantime, I can write this post.

It is raining a lot lately, and the fields are wet.  It is difficult to do much of anything, but I could be working in the shop, if I did not have this injury.  Now, I get to do the computer work, the part that I really do not like.  Paperwork is not as much fun for me.

I am slowly going crazy....

I Love Work!

 Today is Sunday, May 22nd, and it after more than a week of rain, we have some sunny weather.  The only problem with living in this place, seems to be that there is so many cloudy days.  I certainly do like the water, and all the precipitation we had this year, which brings the water table back up, but I still miss sunny days!

During this past week of rain, I have been able to work on building a shop, and it is now about half done.  I am so looking forward to getting back to work, after more than 4 years of difficulty.  I love working!  Working provides a way to take care of family, friends, and many others who need help.  Without work, there is no way to provide practical care for anyone.  I love work!

Heavy Bloating

After this last bout of sickness, a lot of my muscle tissue has been catabolized(A1AD, genetic disorder from birth), and my abdomen is extremely distended.  It is painful!  Yet this always happens.  The body tries so hard to repair the lungs, that it steals from the muscles to rebuild the lungs, while at the same time, the liver goes into overdrive, trying to produce the antitypsin protease, which of course cannot escape the liver very well, and then causes a great deal of swelling of the liver.  It is quite painful!

This is made worse, if I cannot stay on a proper daily schedule, and eat properly on a strict schedule.

I hate the medicine!  It is so disgusting, and makes me feel so poorly.  There are serious side effects of brain fog, and tiredness, and stomach pain, although the pain is not as bad as when I do not take the medicine.  Really, it is only trading one pain for another.  Some days, I certainly do look forward when this life will end. 

Then other days, I absolutely love life!  I love the great outdoors, I love practicing martial arts, I love my Metis religion and culture.  I do blog from time to time, and love to perform ceremonies for all those who ask!  It is ironic, all the ceremonies I have performed, and I have such difficulty healing myself!  Yet, I am happy to have lived this long!  And I bless the Great Creator and my ancestors for bringing me to this point.  I look forward to seeing them again.  I miss them!

Stinging Lungs

 My lungs have been hurting a lot the last three days.  And today, my muscles are very sore.  This always happens when the body robs the muscles to repair the lungs.  It will take a while to rebuild the muscle lost over these last 3-4 days, but that is what happens when the body catabolizes itself, just to stay alive.  This is just one of the things that happens all our lives, those who live with A1AD.  I need to up my protein intake, and definitely get rid of the carbohydrates.

Energy

 One of the difficulties of A1AD is that of limited energy levels.  I find it common to have only limited daily energy until about noon, afterwards I must resign myself to chores that take less energy to accomplish.  I have no idea why I felt to write this today.  I just wanted to share, so others with A1AD do not get too discouraged at not having as much energy as others.  The body spends most of it's energy repairing the lungs everyday, so we can breathe, therefore we just sort of do the best we can.