About three weeks ago my body was screaming at me to slow down and take care of it.  Did I listen to the complaints that it was sending out to me?  No, not at all.  Instead I continued to do what I had been doing and ignored the clues and ran full force at my day job, school studies, family obligations, and working with clients.  I was not going to let a few minor complaints from the body interfere with what I felt I had to do.  I gave my body no choice but to send me an ultimatum in the form of a major sickness.

At first it all started as a head cold that lasted for about a week.  Being the stubborn man that I can be, I just lived with the cold and pumped myself full of over-the-counter remedies so that I could continue to burn my candle at both ends.  This seemed to have worked because the cold was gone after a week.  Having slowed down a bit because of the cold, I felt I had to catch up so I increased the amount of things I was doing.  This false belief of having to achieve more due to the cold allowed me to ignore more of the signs that my body was sending.

The more I ignored what my body was telling me, the louder and stronger the signals became.  This is when the second sickness came on in the form of nocturnal fevers and swelling of the lymph nodes.  I allowed it to go on for another two or three days thinking, “This is minor and it will go away if I don’t acknowledge it.”  Well the lymph nodes finally got to the point where it felt like a knife was being jammed into my groin anytime I stood up.  Add to that the amount of heat coming off of them signaled something was really wrong.  Being my first time with swollen lymph nodes, I started worrying and quickly assumed the worst. It was time, way past time, for me to schedule an appointment with my doctor.

I have to say it was good to know that the doctor was as stumped as I was about what was happening with my lymph nodes. She felt that more tests were needed before they could be sure what was happening. In the mean time she gave me a full once over and in the process she found the start of an ear infection.  She used this excuse to prescribed a powerful antibiotic to wipe any infection that could be messing with my systems.  She also made the statement that I needed to slow down and listen to my body.  I must have given her a look of, “What?” or a blank stare because she repeated herself saying something along the lines of, “Let me repeat this slower so you can understand.  You need to take some Time Off and slow down so that your body can heal!” So now I had my body and my doctor telling me to get rest!

Long story short,  I finally stopped and listened to the messages that my body was sending me.  I did what the doctor said and what my body was asking me to do.  I slowed down, got some rest, took my meds, and spent some time reflecting on what I had just learned the hard way.  In the end the lymph nodes reduced in size, the night fevers went away, and the other possible issues or causes finally checked out as false hits.  The biggest takeaway from my story is that you need to listen to your body otherwise it will make you pay attention by ways that may not be pleasant.  Be good to yourself, respect your body, and listen to what it has to say.