Getting My Energy Back

So how many of you out there use Timehop? That fun app that lets you see what you were doing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram 1 year, 2 years, 3 years ago, etc.... It's kinda fun - like the ultimate Throwback Thursday.

But something that has struck me lately when I peruse back through what my posts were years ago - especially the posts that are 5 years or greater - were how much energy I had. I look at the posts I had on the weekends and I'm like "So productive today! Video duty for 5 hours and then made lunch for the fam before putting dinner in the crockpot and going for a 5 mile run. Did homework with the kids and then conquered mount laundry before making sure all 3 kids got their baths before I put them to bed." At first I was like - that must have been a fluke. But then I started seeing them all the time. How could I feel so differently? It wasn't THAT long ago was it?

Unfortunately over the past 3 years my streak of needing surgeries and running into random health issues did not let up or get any better. I proceeded to shed un-needed organs at a rapid pace.  I no longer have my stomach  (didn't even realize that was un-needed did you?), as well as one of my ovaries, and a small section of my small intestine has now evacuated as well. This in addition to only having one kidney, no gallbladder, and no uterus. I am now severely anemic - so much so that I have to have iron infusions every 4 months or so because my body just can't keep my iron levels up. In conjunction with keeping iron levels up I also have to give myself B12 injections once a week in the thigh.

I have just recently felt like my energy levels are coming back from a few of these surgeries. It's so hard when they hit you just one right after the other.  And some of the organs I have said goodbye to are more major than I would care to admit. Whenever I had my kidney out the doctor's were all like "Oh - it's all good - God gave you 2 of them and your body will adjust."  Isn't that fantastic?  And it does - from what I have read Liza (my remaining kidney) has now grown in size - probably double - to compensate for the work that it has taken on for Elvira.

But I still don't feel like my energy is anywhere near being able to keep up with what I used to be able to do before I had cancer. How much of that is age? How much of that is all the surgeries I have had? How much of it is the anemia? How much of this is just my new normal?