One thing I want to add has come to me slowly over these past years. My mother was 36 when she had me(1st child) and had my sister at 39. I hardly remember my mother when she wasn't being emotional, having bad days, crying, having stomach pain, shoulder pain, fatigue etc. As she got older she had dry eyes and would always be clearing her throat and needing to get a drink when she talked on the phone. She just wasn't able to do much around the house and I did the washing, ironing etc. Sister did things also. Mom was either working at the store or home sick.
Now, interesting thing is that we didn't live near relatives and my folks had a business that sister and I worked in almost every day of our life after age 12 or so. We did not know any better as that is the way it was and we just dealt with it. My mom had a "nervous breakdown" (I now know why she had this breakdown--she was sick) when I was 10 years old and after that I know that she was treated differently by the doctors in the community. Doctors who then became my doctors-- and I now know that the baton was passed onto me and my sister. The docs thought of my mother as that emotional neurotic woman and hence her kids were also.
When I started having "aliments at an early age I just never thought that much about it and worked my way through it or rested etc. As I got older the problems I had became worse and as I doctored I never, ever got a good answer and usually was made to feel like I was a hypochondriac. It took me a long time to get the picture of all this. My medical records were a trickle down through the years and even the really good doctors that I went to still placed the "nut" label on me. This is one of the most hurtful elements of my disease. I really think that if a couple of these doctors had looked outside the box and had not listened to the gossip in our medical center I could have had better intervention.
I have had to work through this over time and it has not been easy. I still have a couple doctors I am going to write letters to and let them know about my health status. One of them was a really good doctor but he could be a royal you know what. I worked with him in the professional setting and when I was a patient he refused to send me for an ENT consult after a prolonged illness which entailed see 3 doctors who treated me for heaven knows what.)I missed 4 months work and started to lose my hearing and had terrible balance issues) Finally my hubby took me to him and he said I had a roaring ear infection(no ear ache til after antibiotic started and dizziness was terrible) plus I had walking pneumonia. He did not like it that I challenged him later and he also treated me like a nut. Turned out the ENT sucked pus out of my ear and put in a tube.
Now, sorry for all the info but you needed to see the "before picture" and now I will give you the "after picture". One day I went to my psych clinic for a med check and who should I have to sit by in the waiting room. THIS DOCTOR. I did not say one word to him and he didn't say one word to me. He was embarrassed beyond belief and I didn't care because I KNEW that depression was a physical disease. I loved the ending on that one!!!!
So, unbeknownst to us our family issues can have a really big impact on us health wise. The thing is if you are brought up in that kind of an environment where life just goes on when there is illness(know illness or unknown illnenss), you just keep working and coping and going on with life no matter what.
I will also tell you that one of worst days of my life with this disease and doing work that had to be done was back in about 1979. We were remodeling our house and the north end of the basement wall was out and a big new basement dug but not closed in. Sand all over the house. The upstairs was all 2x4'x except for the bathroom. My hubby had a couple acres of hay to bale and the boys had to help him with that. Buttt, before the hay was done, we butchered 50 chickens and I ended up finishing up on these after dinner while the boys helped with bailing.Butchering chickens if bloody hard work. I had to cook meals and clean up the kitchen in the midst of this, but I was able to push my way through it. The human spirit is a wondrous thing.
I also had my period and it was a bummer of a month. It ended up that my folks came unexpectedly after supper and then the minister and his wife came unexpectedly a little later. Thankfully, we had all had baths etc by then. But, this was at a time when I was having an escalation in symptoms of undiagnosed myasthenia and sjogrens. I live in the midwest and there is a really strong work ethic here that has tickled down through generations.
Now, I never really told my hubby how I was other than that I was really tired and hurt all over. I didn't know any better. I thought I was really tired and hurt. That is why we can push on so fully through these diseases. We have slowly learned how to cope with pain, weakness, illness, changing our lifestyle and schedules to adapt to our health status, etc and just blame it on being a mother and being tired. I know that I had to change jobs quite a bit when I was younger as I would just plain wear out and get sick and not snap back. I didn't know any better.
I can really see how this Linda was able to do the things she did. If we get an illness slowly and then it sort of goes into remission off and on, we are able to just keep pushing.We just work on the assumption that we had this before and it went away and now we have it again and it hasn't killed us, the doctors tell us nothing is wrong so it just must be something that must be endured and it is. My take on life as I know it from my generation. Irish
