Out with the old and in with the new.  That was one of my first thoughts as we were approaching the new year.  2013 was a very challenging year for me.  I struggled in almost every aspect of my life, but watching the October General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helped me to remember that challenges are there to help us to become stronger and grow spiritually.

I learned a few very important things this year.  I am going to highlight the first of several of them.  The first one is about self.  I have many things that I want to accomplish in this world, but I cannot truly do them if I do not take care of myself.  I have to become a priority in my own life.  I am always so busy with other things that I forget to take time for me.  I am always the last person that I do anything for.  It took the emergence of some serious health issues to get me to stop and reflect on my life and the direction that I was going.  These medical issues brought everything except the necessities to a screeching halt in the latter half of 2013.  I spent the last 4 1/2 months of the year sick and it affected everything in my life.

I have been overweight since I can remember, but for the most part, I have always been pretty active.  I was proud of the fact that I could say that I was overweight, but I did not have any of the typical diseases that overweight people have.  I didn’t fall into that statistic that most overweight people did.  I was an anomaly. I can look back now and see how prideful those thoughts were.  I didn’t see reality because I chose not to see it, but my body had another plan of action that would definitely open my eyes.   My body essentially said the following:  “I have been taking care of you and your foolishness all of these years, and I am through!  I am tired of this nonsense and I cannot handle it any more! ”  That statement was made at the end of August, and I have been struggling since that very moment.  My body gave me many warning signs before this event happened, but  I chose not to listen then.  My ears are wide open now.

I am now living with the silent killer called high blood pressure.  It was floating on the high side at the beginning of 2013.  My doctor warned me that if I didn’t get my health under control by the next visit, that she was going to put me on blood pressure medication.  I told her that I was going to handle it, but you know me.  I continued on doing exactly what I have always done.  So, I went back to my next appointment, and my pressure was a little higher.  So, I said…”Ok, ok, ok….I am going to get this under control.  I will do better,”  Well, I have a very smart doctor.  She looked at me and said:  “Nope.  You are going on medication!”  When those words came out of her mouth, it stabbed me like a knife.  I have become that statistic that I abhorred.  My world had just come crashing down on me.  I couldn’t believe it.  This could not be happening to me.  After I picked my jaw up off of the ground, I started to negotiate with my doctor.  I said to her:  “I haven’t been serious, but I am going to do it this time.  I can’t go on blood pressure medication.  Just give me three more months.”  I was passionate and sincere, and she said:  “No!  This is dangerous!  When your blood pressure is high, it damages the inside of your blood vessels.  You are going on medication.”  ( I can sit back now and laugh at her response because she had me pegged so well.  I had only been with her for a short time, but she could read right through my foolishness.  I didn’t pick her.  She was assigned to me because my old doctor left.  I can see now that her assignment was by divine design.)

I didn’t see it then, but this was her form of tough love in all of its glory.  She new that I was not going to take charge of my life, so she did what she could and had to do in order to save my life.  Surprisingly, I did not heed her warning.  I went and picked up the medication, and I even took the first couple of doses, but I eventually stopped.  I told myself that I was Super Rechel, and I didn’t need medication to control my blood pressure.  I could do it on my own.  I went for months without taking any meds.  Back in February, my pressure was just floating on the high side.  It was around the borderline, low stage I area, so she gave me a small pill to help regulate it.  I went back to see her in September, and my blood pressure was 156/102.  That is stage 2 high blood pressure.  She asked me: “Have you been having any headaches?”   I said:  “A few here and there.”  She said:  “Is that normal for you?”  I said:  “No. Not really.”  She said:  “That is from your blood pressure.”  She gave me some medication for the headaches and told me to continue taking the medication.

After that visit, I started to really get sick.  I wasn’t in any pain.  It is hard to describe, but I just didn’t feel well.  I felt drained.  I was tired all of the time.  I was sluggish.  I just didn’t have any energy.  I generally don’t get sick, so this is a whole different territory for me.  I had to start taking sick leave from work.  This situation forced me to put everything on hold except for the things that I absolutely had to do.  I had to start saying no to people and I had to back out of some non-essential things that I had agreed to do.  That was so hard for me to do, but the Lord was teaching me a very profound lesson that I needed to learn immediately.

Even at this point, I wasn’t taking my meds directly as prescribed.  (Go figure.  I have issues.)  I went back in to the doctor  and my blood pressure was 160/106 and my weight had gone up about 18 pounds.  I was almost back up the my highest weight ever.  At this point, I was spiraling out of control.  The doctor told me that she had to give me an additional pill to get the pressure down because one was not enough.  She started to counsel me about the level of stress in my life and my eating habits.  She then said the following words:  ” I don’t want you to think that I am being mean to you because I am not.  I am worried about you!  This can cause you to have a heart attack or a stroke.”  When she said those words, she was looking directly into my eyes, and I felt as if she was looking past the physical me and speaking directly to my spirit.  At that moment, I felt like I had veered off of the path and I was in total darkness.  I was lost, but my Heavenly Father was flashing a light for me through this doctor.  He was using her to guide me back.  I looked back at her, and I told her that I had been blessed in many ways in my life, but one of the blessings that I was most grateful for was her.  I was grateful that she had the courage to speak frankly to me, but in a loving way.  I told her that I feel like she actually cared about me, and she said that she did and that she was glad that I felt that way.

This encounter with my doctor has given me cause to pause, and it has helped me to see that our Heavenly Father uses many tools to help us.  That moment has been a turning point for me.  I still continue to have challenges.  I have been referred to a cardiologist because an EKG that they took on my heart came back a little abnormal. This could be because of the high blood pressure, but they need to check it out to make sure.  I injured my knee and have be grounded for about three weeks, and some other trying things have occurred, but this time, I am embracing the challenges and I am asking myself:  “What am I to learn from this trial?”  This time, instead of running the wrong direction, I am facing these trials head on.

Through these trials, I have learned how important my body is in accomplishing the things that I want to do in this life.  I have more respect for my body than I ever have.  These trials that I am going through are a direct result of the choices that I have made in my life.  I accept what has happened, but now I am choosing a different direction to go.  I hope to reverse the damage that I have done to body.  I will continue to take the medication until such time as I can get my health in order and eventually wean myself off of the meds (with my doctor’s assistance of course).  They are a means to an end, and I will use them as a tool to help me accomplish my goals.

This year will be a year of change for me.  It will be about me becoming the person that I really want to be.  One of my goals is to go ahead and start the process for changing my name legally.  Kyeni Rechel Bryant Matee, here I come.

Kyeni