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| With my sisters and dad at the airport! What a great homecoming! |
A couple of years ago as I was working more than 40 hours per week in a stressful, fast paced job while going to graduate school and also trying to keep up with a house, family, and friends, I remember thinking how wonderful it would be to be retired. I envisioned the endless possibilities that would stretch before me with each unscheduled, unplanned day, one right after the other. I could sleep in or get up early, go for a walk, or just curl up and read all morning. I dreamed of spending my afternoons volunteering somewhere, shopping, visiting friends and family, or cooking up a storm in my kitchen. What bliss!
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| Family Christmas |
In some ways, this period of time since returning from Honduras and before going back, has been a little bit like a mini-retirement period. No job, no school, no schedule, and lots of time to relax with family and friends! Sounds great, right? Well, what never occurred to me in my ideal vision of retirement, however, is how my body would be feeling at that stage in life. Unfortunately and unexpectedly I have had a taste of what that may be like, too! This is thanks to the fact that a little mosquito decided to oh-so-generously share with me a virus called Chikungunya.
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| Family Christmas |
Chikungunya is similar to Dengue fever and is transmitted by the Aedes mosquito. I was bitten just before I flew home to Michigan and within a few days after arrival, I became sick. I had all of the classic symptoms: painful, stiff, sore, swollen, and achey joints, weakness, a fever, and an all-over body rash. Thankfully the fever, rash, and swollen joints were pretty much gone after a week, but, as is typical with Chikungunya, the painful, stiff, sore, and achey joints and weakness have lingered. I have read that this part of the virus can continue to rear its ugly head for anywhere from two months to a year with the aches coming and going and attacking different joints at different times.
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| At the Jubilee Celebration Event with friends! |
This experience has certainly given me a whole new appreciation for raised toilet seats, grab bars, and stair railings! I am also very thankful for my background in therapy since, depending on what’s hurting me at any given time, I have to modify how I get dressed or get back up from the floor! My therapy background also has helped me to keep things in perspective and remind me that what I’m dealing with is so very minor compared to what so many other people face. Nevertheless, it has been a bit frustrating to not be able to move around as I am accustomed to doing!
Besides growing in empathy, perhaps having a stiff, painful body has also forced me to slow down and rest more than I might have done otherwise during this season. I am so grateful for the quality time I’ve shared with family and friends, the freedom to go for walks and to go shopping, and for the stretches of unplanned time that have been filled with cooking, reading, and crocheting! This early “retirement” has been a gift, but I am looking forward to getting back to work…and to sunshine and warmth! See you in a couple weeks, Honduras!
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| A little crochet project |
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| My walking partner, Tora |
