“The patient should be made to understand that he or she must take charge of his own life. Don’t take your body to the doctor as if he were a repair shop. ” ~Quentin Regestein
I woke up with this morning with the intention of finding a nice prayer for health as a quote. I thought it would be a simple process searching for one online that’s not tied to a specific religion. It wasn’t so easy so I stuck with the quote above. I chose the quote as it seemed to have stood out the most from the other health related quotes. I probably chose it because I was just at my family doctor with my father who is suffering from a long term illness and is physically wasting away before my eyes. He’s had the illness for years now but within the last six months, his body has degenerated rapidly and now he is in need of a surgery that might just improve the quality of his life and extend it just a little longer. What’s interesting about all of this is that I’ve always gone about my daily life and I had been able to safely tuck away the fact that he is suffering and perhaps, which is even harder for me to admit until now, dying.
For the first time, in many years, I’ve let his illness affect me. I’m only human, right? Isn’t it strange though that in my prayers for his health and my focus on his pain that I myself have taken pains. My sleep for the past several days have been fitful and I find myself wide awake in the middle of the night. When I do sleep, my dreams are vivid and are of his family. My own body has deep knots in my shoulder as if I had whiplash and my ability to concentrate at work has become comprimised.
So, what am I to do? Well, for starters, I bowed out of the trading early on Friday and decided to take the rest of the year of off with a plan to come back fresh on January 5. I was going to take a vacation anyway so in essence I’m only taking a couple extra days off. The trading desk is highly competitive and it’s no different than showing up to a play a game. If my head is not in the game, then why play. I am not a bench warmer so I don’t want to show up unless I’m playing.
My goal during this time off is to get back on track with some sort of consistent workout. I don’t care what it is as long as I’m doing something every single day. I discovered several years ago that because of the high level of stress of what I do, that if I don’t have some sort of outlet at least five days a week my body begins to break down. When I first started in the business my “medicine” came in the form of booze, food, and cigarettes. They all work really well but there is no quality in life in those things. After several years of doing that, I decided to take the opposite end of the spectrum by giving up the booze and cigarettes, eating healthy and running like Forrest Gump. The results from making that shift have paid off in so many positive ways that it requires a whole other journal entry.
I guess my point of bringing my dad’s health, my health and all of this up is because I have not worked out in a week and my body is paying the cost. Of course, I have a woderful excuse that comes in the form of my father’s physical problems but doesnt’ it seem insane that I have to aquire my own actual, physical pain just to deal with his? Certainly there is the deep emotional, human element that must not be ignored or contained (thus the cause of the neck stress). This can be handled other ways like talking about what I’m feeling openly with my family, seeing my shrink (everybody should see one), and saying my prayers.
For now, I’m going to Bikram Yoga this morning. I’m going to eat healthy foods all day and tomorrow I’m going to do physical activity again.
