Feeling Fine by Barbara Quinn

I’m feeling good as I write this. I’m never going to be twenty or thirty or forty again, and I need to drop a fair number of pounds, but I’m definitely feeling healthy. That feeling of well-being is priceless. I know what it is to be seriously ill, know what it is to care for the seriously ill. Health is a gift I accept with joy.

Like everyone else, I’ve had health issues over the course of my life. I only have half the vision in one eye. I broke various limbs in my youth and and nearly drowned when I fell through ice on a bay as a toddler. A horse threw and trampled me, and I fell off my motorcycle in college. I tore my meniscus and lost my ACL playing basketball and tennis. My thyroid went hyperactive for over a year which meant I woke with racing heart most nights. I’ve had positive pap tests, conical biopsies of the cervix, and suspicious mammograms. MRI's and CAT scans. I had a healthy son, and then had four miscarriages. For a time I lost the use of my right hand till they figured out there was dead tissue obstructing the use of my thumb. I’ve had a bout of Lyme disease. And so on.

I'm lucky that most of the things I’ve suffered were treatable or disappeared on their own. I have friends and relatives who were not so fortunate and I hate that they had to suffer. My illnesses were not life threatening. I had my melodramatic moments where I was sure I wouldn’t make it, but those were short-lived. So in living this normal life, stuff happened. That’s all there is to it. I appreciate my good fortune to be healthy and alive, and I’m thankful for each day that I don't need to visit a doctor or have another test or be painfully prodded in horrid places.

If I can get through the rest of this winter without getting the horrid flu bug that’s circulating, I’ll have even more reason to be grateful!