Monday night I participated in a meeting to discuss some issues affecting our community. Because of the seriousness of these issues and my tenacious and overly passionate personality, the whole thing was highly stressful for me. Stress is bad for the body – we know this. But it’s particularly bad for people with chronic complex illnesses.

Most of the cells in our bodies contain mitochondrion which are responsible for the energy production in our cells. For those with chronic complex illnesses, the mitochondria tend to burn themselves out and stop producing the energy we need.

My family uses the term “pocket of pennies”. The mitochondria are the pennies. I wake up every day with a pocket of pennies – some days it’s 1000, some days it’s 10. Everything I do takes a penny – breathing, sitting up, walking, talking, showering. Once the pennies are gone, my body crashes.

After a stressful event (like Monday night) my bodies mitochondria stop working altogether (no pennies).

Bartonella, babesia, toxicities, mast cell activity – all of these are pretty active right now, causing head and neck pain, nausea, neuropathy and other symptoms like issues with word finding.

On a normal day, these symptoms are extremely difficult. When I the mitochondria stop producing energy for my cells, the symptoms increase significantly.

I’ve got to get better at reducing the amount of stress I encounter. One of my doctors calls is an “island lifestyle”. Doesn’t that sound awesome? I imagine a cute little hut on a beach in Hawaii. Like a vacation all the time.

But that’s not the life I have – my life is filled with stress – most of our lives are. Managing the stress is critical to our survival.

I’ve been in bed for the last 4 days dwelling on this fact. You would think after all these years, I would be better at managing my pennies. I’m not.

They say awareness is the first step to fixing any problem. Maybe we need a stress addiction support group. Maybe I just need to stop trying to fix the world. I don’t know what my answer is just yet, but my focus right now is figuring out how to have an island lifestyle within the life I have.

I feel ridiculous even talking about it – but if we have to talk about the real issues. And this is a real issue.

If your struggling with keeping enough pennies to get through the day, stay tuned – I’ll share the things I do in future posts.

The first thing I am doing is remembering this motto:

God is still God.

God is still good.

To Him be the glory.