Have fun telling your family this one...

We have entered the land of the sick...again.

And I am pretty certain that we live here now - and just take short vacations to the land of the healthy...very.short.vacations.

All four kids.  And the hubby.

Oh, and my mom who got sick thanks to me (well, really to my children, but I am the one who brings them over there to see her) and landed herself in the hospital because her fever caused her to have a ms attack.

Four sick kids, and the hubby, and my mom.

I'm not sick though.

Yeehaw.

But because I really enjoy stressing out, I do it very well, and have won all the awards due to my wonderful talent of stressing such as the "Nine year old ulcer" award, and the "TMJ only due to stress" award, oh and my favorite was the "Breaking out in hives for a solid two months" award - I have decided to stress out.

Yes, I know - very logical, right?

So, I win the TMJ award...again.

So, 4 sick kids, and the hubby, and my mom...and a mouth that refuses to open without pain.

AWESOME.

Oh, and one of the stressing out awards that I loathe soooooo much is the "Eat like you will never eat again"  award.  That one rocks.  Won that one yesterday.....

And then I realized, well, was reminded of my UNHEALTHY love for food.  Stupid unhealthy love for food.  I mean when you are addicted to alcohol or drugs...the effect lasts for a little bit.  But with food, the enjoyment is gone as soon as you are finished eating.  That sucks.  So, last night I go to bed with a sweet little reminder that I need to break this stupid addiction to food and I seriously need to stop stressing out.

Seriously.

So, then I have a wonderful dream that lasted ALL.NIGHT.LONG.

And just as a precursor to me telling you this dream, please note that I totally understand there is no medical basis for said dream, so please do not inform me that my dream was medically impossible...it was a dream people.

Ok, so in my dream I'm totally out of shape, and just plain fat.  I had been eating (in my usual fashion) but all the junk food made me so sluggish that I decided not to exercise anymore because there was just no point.  So, hence my insane obesity...

I could barely keep up with my kids, my husband found me completely unattractive, I was depressed - am I painting a pretty picture here?  Ya, it was a great night of sleep last night, let me tell ya'.

Despite my grotesque appearance, I was still behaving the same way when it came to stress...the food just wasn't doing it for me anymore.  And my stressing was out of control.  It made me that much more unattractive to my hubby, made me a really mean mommy and all in all I was just totally and completely miserable.

Yes, yes, happy Friday everyone...just bare with me.

So, then I get all numb (thank you Dr. Oz show for talking about strokes yesterday (yes, we are 90 and watch the Dr. Oz show) can you do parenthesis within parenthesis?) and tingly...and my body just goes crazy.  So I go to the doctor who wasn't Dr. Oz and he tells me I have chronic progressive (the kind that just keeps getting worse and worse and worse) Multiple Sclerosis.

I say, in typical Melissa fashion, "Why?"

And the doctor says, "Because you are fat and stressed.  Your body can't maintain the way you live and your behaviors within your life.  Have fun telling your family this one."  (Can I please say, I would not recommend dream doctor to anyone?)

And I went and told my family.

They weren't sad.  They weren't scared.  They weren't surprised.  They were angry - and let down.

Emma said, "You just loved that ice cream more than me..."

Luke said, "Really, you couldn't just go walking more?"

Dave just looked at me with disgust (which is so not like Dave in case you were all worried) which made it that much more nightmare-ish.

So, today I have not yelled.  I have talked quietly, and in the moments when I want to yell because the stress is starting to get to me, I whisper.  I have decided that I do love my family, my marriage, my health, my happiness more than food and definitely more than stress (which is really another psycho form of control - and we all know how much I love control).

God made it perfectly clear in the word that worrying does not add any time to our lives, so what's the point?  And as much as ice cream always sounds wonderful, the deliciousness of it is gone as soon as the ice cream is consumed unlike being healthy is a reward that is long lasting.

I'm still unnerved by my whole dream, and I know I'm not going to get MS because I like ice cream and I stress really easily, but it was a pretty amazing wake up call to what could be if I didn't get myself into check.

Anyway - on that note...happy Friday.  I encourage you to choose your family, your marriage, your health this weekend instead of all the other things that beg for our attention and devotion.

They just aren't worth it.