My Health!

Coming to Kenya, one of my greatest concerns was my health. I know some of you have probably been worrying about that as well. It hasn’t been stellar in the past couple of years, and incredible medical attention is not something I could get quickly here if I needed it. If I had an arthritis flare up, if I had a crippling migraine, if something went wrong, I would likely have to tough it out. There are, of course, hospitals here. If it was bad enough, I could see someone.

I could definitely get tested for malaria.

Anyways, my health has been a bit of a miracle. Despite many of the things trigger my arthritis being present (cold weather, rain, walking more than normal, stress, etc.), I haven’t had any problems with it. A couple of mornings I’ve woken up with my fingers a little swollen, but 10 minutes later that was gone. My knees, which gave me trouble even when I was in remission, haven’t hurt in the slightest. The last time I was at my rheumatologist, he suggested I try cutting back on the medicine—take a pill every other day if I could, rather than every day. I tried that while at school, but I pretty quickly had to go back to every day. For the past 3 weeks I have been taking my pills every other day, and it is still gone. I don’t know if the food makes a difference, or what it is, but it doesn’t even feel like it is lurking just under the surface, as I used to feel. I feel good.

Migraines are pretty much the same. I do get the occasional headache, but I attribute that to spending 3 hours a day on a school bus and the rest of it with second graders. I don’t think getting a headache after that is worrisome. I would actually be more concerned if I wasn’t getting headaches sometimes.

I really feel all around good.

There is one thing that I’ve discovered since coming to Kenya, and it’s that milk doesn’t settle very well with my stomach. I don’t have much dairy when at school besides lattes and ice cream, but here tea and coffee are both milk based, and they drink a lot of tea. When my stomach first began acting up, I assumed it was something I had eaten. I let a couple days pass, but it was getting worse. See, when I’m stressed or not feeling well, I tend to drink more tea. The more I drank, the worse I felt. The worse I felt, the more I drank. You see the problem. The day I realized it was the dairy I was both hugely relieved and super upset. Fortunately, now that I know, I can avoid dairy. OOPS, no, no I can’t. See, it’s winter here, and it’s kinda cold, so we drink tea ALL THE TIME. Most days I can get away with only drinking 1 or 2 mugs, which my stomach can usually handle. Some days it’s really hard to say no, but my body doesn’t really like when I drink 4 mugs of milk tea, so I pardon myself and hope I’m not being too rude. I also just really love tea, so having it limited for me makes me really sad. 

The food, other than that, really agrees with me. I enjoy having organic foods and not very much processed. I also have a Cadbury chocolate bar, which I usually enjoy a piece or two of after a day at school.

Really, I am amazed at my health here. God has been gracious to me, and has given me more than I could ask for. It might only last as long as I am here, but that’s ok. He is faithful in my sickness and faithful to give me health. He gives me breath each day, and that’s more than I have any right to ask for.