Once a Weakness, Now a Strength

My sister was always the athletic one in the family. She could look at a set of weights and suddenly she had a six pack. Life is so unfair. She was jumping on the trampoline before she could walk. She spent her mornings, days and afternoons in the irrigation gutters of our Provo home, and rarely left the house in anything more than a diaper. She has always been so naturally fit. She can gain muscle and stay so lean and it's just unreal! People like that exist, I tell you! I'm related to her!

I, although I loved being active as well, was never quite like her. I loved to sing, loved to dance and dress up and play with barbies (even though I would play barbies and GI Joes with my brother). I loved to be outside and play with the dog, run, climb trees, jump on the trampoline, and do all the things she liked to do, but I was never the same as she was. I never liked getting dirty. She loved it. I taught myself the piano when I was little and took singing lessons while she would rather play in the mud (literally). I can work out for months and do nothing but get skinnier, and putting on muscle is like asking an elephant to play hide and go seek in a dollhouse. Just ain't gon' happen.

My whole life I was jealous of her, and she was jealous of me. It's a viscous cycle. I always wished I could have defined abs and ripped calves and still look super gorgeous and feminine. In time, I learned to realize that I'm just not built that way.

Allow me to explain a little. I have had health problems my whole life. When I was little, I got strep throat like a fiend every year, without fail. Chocolate gave me migranes. I would get hives at the most random moments with no apparent explanation. Then, the summer after 6th grade, I hit the lowest point healthwise that I'd ever hit. Everything I ate started making me sick. I couldn't find anything that made me feel good. On a 90 degree day, I was shivering; I could never get warm. My hair stopped growing. My nails stopped growing. I slept a ton. I had had mononucleosis the previous year, so I was already weak from that, but I had zero energy.

That summer I took orchestra at the Jr. High. I only lived a block away, so I would try to walk, even though it exhausted me. When it became too exhausting to walk, my mom would drive me. Then the walk into the Jr. High became too hard, and it soon became too hard to hold my viola underneath my chin. My left knee felt so stiff and it made me cry to try to bend it. I remember walking back to the car one day after orchestra was over and just crying because I was in so much pain. Needless to stay, that was my last day at summer Orchestra.

The summer didn't get better. I stopped walking completely, I couldn't even stand or let my feet go below my heart for very long, and soon the stiffness moved into my left arm, and my right leg. I hardly ate a thing, and I whittled down to 75 or 80 lbs at my lowest point. My hair didn't grow, my nails didn't grow, and I basically looked (and felt) like I was dying. I don't even remember much of that year of my life, because, to be honest, most of it was spent sleeping. My parents told me that they would check on me every night just to make sure I was still breathing.

I was homeschooled my 7th grade year, because I couldn't walk. I went to countless doctors, who all told me I was either anorexic or crazy. Specialists helped with nothing, every medication made me worse, and I wasn't getting any better on my own. After countless priesthood blessings and promises of a full life, and utilizing the atonement to it's fullest, we found an alternative medical doctor, who is also a chiropractor, who actually cared and listened and helped me. I started getting treatments from him I think around March of 2003, but I could be wrong (like I said, I don't remember much from that year). Thanks to him and his accupuncture, adjustments, probiotics and the Asyra machine, I started getting better.

By the summer of 2003, I was walking again, but I could only go very short distances (like walking to the car), because my muscles had atrophied so badly. I tired out really easily, I was still really skinny and I was still unsure about what I could and couldn't eat. For another two years after I started walking, I still tired out really easily, when I did finally put on weight, it was mostly fat weight (although I needed it) because I put it on so quickly. I was still very thin, and all through high school I was made fun of because I was skinny and I ate "like a rabbit." People didn't understand what I went through, and I wasn't about to explain my life's story to them.

I still struggle with my stamina and being able to eat things, and I still get sick sometimes, and my toes are still always red because of my poor circulation. When I get "sick" it's usually not anything contagious. In my family we fondly refer to it as the Mik's sickness, because that's what it is. I honest to goodness feel super crappy, but it's not from a virus or a bug, it's just me.

After going through an experience like that, when for a while people thought you would never walk again, let alone run, it makes me that much more grateful to my Heavenly Father for not only preserving my life, but preserving my limbs! I have a working body that, though it may get tired too quickly, still runs, and still eats, and has hair and nails that grow! What felt like a weakness to me for so long, is starting now to become a strength, all because of the Lord! With Him, anything is possible.  It never ceases to amaze me that I am able to run and even eat a milkshake every once in a while. I always had faith that I would be healed, but everyday I'm grateful for legs and arms that let me run and dance and pick things up! It's amazing the things that we often take for granted, because everything, literally everything, that we have is such a blessing!!

I thought about this today because I just got home from a bike ride with a friend of mine. I could tell that he wasn't as tired as I was, but I knew he was an avid bike rider, and I'm not. Since I've been trying to become a better runner as of late, I knew that my stamina was very slowly getting better, but I was just happy that I could keep up with him, not only that, but keep up a conversation while we were riding! I'm so grateful everyday that Heavenly Father blessed me with that experience and that I have a body that works!