It is said to be the cause of every illness. What is it? It's stress, and it's a killer. In nursing school they showed us a flowchart with the stages of stress, starting with sleep, and ending with death. We were all so shocked when the teacher told us that. It was the first day of nursing school and they had a psychologist come in and talk to us about stress and how we were going to be under tons of it in the nursing program. I was shocked when they brought the psychologist in to talk to us. I'd majored in Computer Science and Electronics and none of these had a psychologist. Three years later I understood. By then I had high blood pressure, acid reflux, insomia, headaches, iratabilty, muscle spasms. All of these are stress related. Finally, I was diagnosed with an eye disease(that got worse because of the blood pressure) and knew I couldn't go any further in the nursing program.

It's called fight or flight, the reaction to stress. Our ancestors had a choice, they could stay and fight or run away. In modern times, we don't have that choice, so the stress eat at us and eventually, left unmanaged, kills us.

So, everyone on this group has got to work with getting the stress out of our lives. Yet, how can we? That would require bringing our mates back. Not possible, so we've got to do the best we can.

Last night stress sent me to the emergency room with stroke or heart attack like symptoms. But I didn't have either of these. What I had was extremely high blood pressure and a troublesome personal life. It's killing me and it's a hard way to go. I can't change my life. I can't quit my job or get rid of my father. So that leaves me with working on this. I'm on blood pressure meds now and will take a yoga class. I'll also start getting massages and lose weight. I'll exercise and pray more. And I'll learn to live with life stressors without them killing me.

Take care,
Tru