Live Slowly: A Command Hard to Follow

This short sentence is a command.  Live slowly. It tells us to take one thing at a time as we live our lives. It's easier said than done because we usually get unsettled by any event that clashes into our lives with no notice.  I heard these two words about seven years ago, when I was still was undiagnosed for Myasthenia Gravis.

Even though I wasn't feeling to great, it seemed my life was better than okay.  I had turned forty in March (wasn't precisely crazy about that), was back at school to complete my masters in Literature, had been granted with the blessing of a T.A. (that meant free tuition), was working,  everything at home was fine, so I brushed off my symptoms all together.  As the semester was closing in I began to feel so sick it wasn't funny, and still I thought that it was stress and possibly I was pushing myself to hard, or it was simply in my head.  To make the VERY LONG STORY short I ended up in the Intensive Care Unit of a nearby hospital at the end of October. Myasthenic patients can go very easily in cardiac arrest if we're not on our meds.  The doctor's didn't know what was happening with me, so the only thing each and everyone one of them told me that I needed to take things slower.

Actually what does it mean, to live your life slower?  It's so easy to write or say and so hard to live up to. People who live their lives slowly have way to much time on their hands and heads.  You begin thinking and rethinking your life over and over again.  The sad part is that usually your thoughts aren't pleasant, all you think about are the treacherous "what ifs".

When someone is facing an illness, they shouldn't have to face those two dreadful words.  Live slowly. They should be able to just shake it off, regain their health (even if you have a chronic disease) and continue to live your life as always.  There are many things you can do to become pro-active in regaining your health.  For starters, you can begin by eating healthier and continue to adjust other tiny things that at the end are going to make a huge difference. I'm not a country music fan, but I love a song by Tim McGraw  where he sings that if he would be told he was dying he would go sky diving, rocky mountain hiking and he would ride a bull who's name was Fumanchu...  In other words, he would live his life without regret and that's what precisely we need to do.  Just keep on going and live our lives as we please, slow or fast, not forgetting that we are the ones in control not any medical term used to chain us down to a life we don't want for ourselves.