It's hard to believe that it's nearly been a full 15 months since my diagnosis of an overactive thyroid condition known better as "Graves' disease". I never anticipated that the condition would still be affecting me on a daily basis over a year later.
After a week of rigorous testing, I was given the appropriate medication to treat my thyroid last fall, and after a few months, I started to feel a lot better. It wasn't a smooth process, as I remained enrolled in all my classes, and had to live in an apartment by myself with little help. But in the spring, I started to feel much more normal and returned to my usual activities (writing for the school newspaper, exercise, intramurals, etc.).
I never quite reached feeling my normal 100%, but I was exponentially better physically from where I started. With graduation on the horizon, I had my heart set on starting my career as a freelance journalist. I was stoked to finally put all that I've learned to the test and get my career going. That was my plan, but not necessarily God's.
Not long after graduating, I started feeling extremely sick and tired again. After some medical visits and tinkering with my medication dosage, we discovered in the late summer that my thyroid had reverted back to the state it was in when I first began my treatment, only worse. My thyroid levels were poorer than they had ever been before.
So here I am, in mid-December, still enduring the same trial, still unable to work, and still on the sidelines. Yet, I'm far more grateful than one might expect me to be.
The first thing I'm thankful for is the most obvious external thing: graduating college. Even in the spring, my body wasn't normal and I was having nights where I wasn't falling asleep until 7:30 AM. Yet, God still gave me the strength and energy I needed to work through the year and accomplish my goal of attaining a four-year degree. It was miraculous, and it wasn't always pretty, but God carried me through my senior year.
Perhaps far more important than the external things are the internal things that could only come out of this situation; I don't think I would have seen them had I not been going through what I am currently going through.
Ever since I was a teenager, I have dealt with mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. One of the biggest parts of anxiety is having fear over the unknown. Instead of looking at what's currently on the highway, I get caught staring into my rear-view mirror, or continuously glancing at the map that's going to tell me where to turn in five miles.
I've always liked being organized and having my own plan. But recently being tired and sick all the time, I haven't been able to make long-term commitments, because I don't know how my body is going to be feeling on any given day. Instead, most of the time I list myself as a game-time decision, and as a result, I've found myself living day-to-day. And that has been very freeing. It's taken away a lot of my anxiety.
Matthew 6:34 reads, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Instead of being overwhelmed, being sick has allowed me to delight in the little blessings that God offers to me each day. I've been able to see God's beauty in all of the little things, which has aided me in staying positive throughout a tiring process, and helped me create new patterns of thinking that will better me for when I do start to feel better.
Ultimately, being on the DL (Disabled List) has been a blessing in disguise, as it has allowed me to focus on growing my relationship with Christ. There isn't a whole lot that I can do outside of resting, so what better time to feast on God's word and spend time in prayer? It's easy when I'm busy to feel like I don't have time to pray. Well, God has removed that excuse.
The illness causes a great deal of pain in my eyes, so it's recommended that each day I lay a cold, wet towel over my eyelids for a half hour. Immediately I knew that this was God's way of carving out 30 minutes of each day for me to be in prayer. What else would I do in that time?
When I'm not doing anything externally productive, it's easy for me to feel like my time's been wasted. And though my first six months in the real world haven't gone the way I would have planned them to, they most certainly have not been wasted.
I may not know how much I have left of this process, but I know that I'll be able to look back on it and say, 'That wasn't so bad.' God is still good.
"Many are the plans in a person’s heart,
but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails."
-Proverbs 19:21
