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Chapter Five At this point, again, health issues moved to the forefront. All my life, it seemed when I recovered by sheer force of will from one assault, another would arrive seemingly out of nowhere. My ability to keep going was rapidly falling short of the challenges presented. I was able to walk limited distances no longer than five minutes. Standing soon became excruciatingly painful. Meanwhile, the numbness, tingling, and bone-deep aching in my left arm nearly drove me crazy. The doctor diagnosed it as angina, related to heart damage I had suffered during an illness in 1981. He suggested that I lose weight Well, how do you get exercise when you can neither stand nor walk for more than a few minutes? Thyroid medication I had taken for years seemed to have no effect on my weight and only exacerbated the heart problem. I truly could eat very little and still gain weight. I joked that I could just look at a glass of water and get fat. I was seeing three or four hypnotherapy clients a week. This was so draining that the entire day following a session was employed in recovery. Each day I had to make a choice on how to engage my limited ability to function. Each choice meant a whole list of other things I couldn’t do. therapeutically was a stressful 30 minute drive away, and my legs swelled terribly after just ten or fifteen minutes of riding in the car. I began to think about how helpful it would be to have a swimming pool in the back yard. I spent some time visualizing a pool and myself in a healthy condition splashing in the water. I realized that there was just simply no way that we could manage such a project. It was a hopeless fantasy in terms of our present situation. I would have to think of another way; perhaps the beach or the public pool. But, just in case, I said out loud to the empty room: “God, a swimming pool would help!” One night, my number two daughter asked her father if she could pick the numbers as he was going out the door to buy his lottery tickets. He laughed and said “Sure!” and get exercise. But it wasn’t a joke. I needed to be able to work for the sake of the children. At this point, The obvious solution was swimming. The only place to swim She picked them, and we won. Fifteen grand. We had the pool.