If our Cells were like humans We’d All be Dead

 

I watched an interesting episode about Cells inside the human body called Curiosity: Battlefield Cell. It shows - in vivid detail - what happens when a virus enters your body and the process it goes through and how it attacks and infects cells.

The particular virus they showed was one that causes things like congestion in the nose and cold or flu. This virus goes through a very arduous process and it has one objective – to find a cell, clone an army and destroy it. The body has its defenses against viruses and bacteria and it actually goes into battles almost daily to keep viruses away from your cells.

I never knew just how complicated the body is, even before the virus gets to any cells there are many defenses within the body that detect and destroy these viruses. In turn the virus has many defenses and tactics to get past these defenses. When a virus eventually does get into a Cell it makes its way into the center where the virus DNA will kind of “overwrite” and replace the cell DNA with its own DNA. Then the virus will start cloning itself rapidly and create new viruses, thousands within this particular cell. Then it destroys the cell and these thousands of viruses will start the whole infection process with other cells in the body.

While this is all happening – when a cell gets infected and is about to get overrun and killed by the virus it will send out a warning to the other cells nearby and to the body. The white blood cells will come to the cell and start fighting the virus clones by consuming the virus clones. If the cell is beyond repairing the white blood cells will destroy the infected cell. Even nearby healthy cells that are close to the infected cells will actually destroy themselves to stop the spread.

This is simply amazing – all of this happening in the body and all we experience is a runny nose. The body does all it can to protect. All the cells within the body are all working together with the basic understanding that if one cell does not do its part, then it compromises all the other cells and the body as a whole. So a Cell will destroy itself to protect the body as a whole. It will do what is best for all.

Now imagine that these Cells were like humans. Acting in pure self-interest for example one day simply too lazy to fight a virus, or choosing to preserve itself instead of destroying itself to stop a spread of infection. We would be royally screwed. What if your heart decided it will only beat if you give it something in return? Or it is just not in the mood to beat? You will die.

We all need to be more like these Cells. This earth is one big organism and we humans are the cells. As you can see with the state of this organism we are slowly killing it with our greed and self-interest. We should look within ourselves at the effeteness of working together. Currently we are more like the virus, but we must learn to change and be more like OurCELLves.

Day 147 - I Have Graves Disease

 

I did the blood test and went to the doctor for my 6 weekly checkup to see how my body is responding to the medicine and my thyroid. The results came in and showed that the hormone levels are stabilizing, but not yet to where we want it. It also confirmed the cause of my hyperthyroidism - Graves Disease.

So we discussed the next step and goals for the future an d what options i have. The options I have are taking RadioactiveIodine pills. The thyroid is the only organ than absorbs iodine so with the pills being radioactive it kills part of the thyroid. The risks here are that it could completely kill my thyroid and  i would have to be on thyroid pills for the rest of my life - not an option i would want to take.

Another option is surgery - removing the poor thing. Taking out the thyroid/part of it. it leaves you with a sexy scar on your neck and may cause your voice to become hoarse and also has the risk of needing thyroid medication for the rest of your life.

The last option and my personal favorite is continue the medication I have that blocks the thyroid. Initially i had to take quite allot of pills, but now I can take allot less. This continues for 6 weeks then i do another blood test to check what my thyroid is doing and from there adjust the medication until we find a balance. Then after a year or two I go off it and see if my body stopped attacking my thyroid.

Graves Disease is an autoimmune disease where the body starts attacking/fighting itself in this case the thyroid. This causes the thyroid to start overproducing and become overactive. As to why the body suddenly decides to see the thyroid as a threat the medical industry does not know - it happens. I was disappointed and a bit 'gatvol' when i heard the news, but i was not surprised. I have always been unlucky - on the farm there actually a name for it '' the curse of the fidelis''. But instead of being sensitive about this ill am sensible. The results I got means I am improving and that I am getting somewhere. I feel allot better physically than I did 6 weeks ago and im not a skeleton anymore. I also got some of my strength back - I carried a 30 kg bag all by myself, although it felt like I was carrying a 50kg cement bag.

So there the update on what is currently happening in my life and the possible future that lays before me. What i find interesting is that we chose to write about me always fighting myself - lol - and today I hear my body is fighting itself, because of Graves disease.

Day 146 - Fear of Dying of Disease

 

When my body first started giving me problems i did not think it was a disease - i thought it was probably something im eating. I come from a line of bad genetics - bad teeth, cancer, asthma to name a few. It was only when i went to go see doctors about my body that i started to worry that the sins of my fathers will be laid upon  me so to speak - that I actually just might have a disease.

When i told the doctors the symptoms they asked me if there is cancer is the family and i would think to myself "" O shit, I might just have it"". It started to dawn on me that I just might die from some horrible disease. Yeay for me.

The doctors named a few sicknesses that it might be and it was some real scary sh it. That a tiny being in your body that kills you - having death inside of you and nothing you can do about it. You never think or believe that it will happen to you until it does - that you might actually die - this was the worse case scenario anyway.

I have experience death and loss a few times in my life, but never that i might die .The realization hit me and it was a different exp erience of myself - death. Where my body stop functioning and ends, returns to the earth. At first I was a bit shocked and feared it - this is something I have not faced on a personal level yet and I am not ready, then I was a bit angry at myself because if I die and thought what about my responsibilities here? What about all the things i still need to do? i wont be able to tend to them. Then I got sad, because I unfortunately know what loss feels like - to loose someone to death and others around me will experience it if I go, It is sad.

I told myself I would fight it and not give up, that I will not allow myself to die, lol. But then I realized that if it is really my time to go then its my time - everybody will die eventually. And that it is nothing to fear - there is no reason to fear death. I got a bit excited - a new experience. It was not a point of giving up - I would do to the best of my ability, but death is not something you fight, otherwise we go down the road of fighting yourself again. (This is different to each persons process, i am writing about my own here).

On Wednesday I have another appointment with my doctor - a checkup to see what my thyroid is doing is if the medication is working effectively. And on Monday i first need to do another blood test to check my thyroid hormone levels. 

My own Personal Fight Club

 

In my previous blogs The main point was me fighting myself all the time - the polarity between being lazy and being disciplined and how I believed the only way to get disciplined from being lazy is to force it and fight myself - this is not the way to do it, there is no need.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to see how I created a polarity between being lazy and disciplined - and in that reacted to me being lazy and used that to fuel myself to become disciplined

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize how I used energy to fuel my motivation in order to be disciplined in order to be leaser, instead of it being a natural living expression or who I am

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that change is difficult and must be forced and that the only to do so is with energy as thoughts, backchat and reactions from my mind to change who I am - not realizing that doing so I come from the mind. Doing this I only in my mind - from a lazy/negative energy to  discipline/positive energy and within this not really changing who I am.

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize that although change is walked through resistance it does mean I need to fight through it/have a internal revolution -  I used force/energy to try and me what I have done is use energy against energy, raging a war against myself, and internal battle and thus making change  difficult for myself by creating more inner conflict

I forgive myself that I have not accepted and allowed myself to realize and understand how to use physical breath - which is a real physical force that is gentle strong and direct. that it is pointless to fight myself and use energy to fight energy - adding more fire to the fuel and instead  using breath to simply not participate in the energy. By simply continuing in whatever I am doing physically moving myself while breathing and not participate in the mind.

A story about Strength and Powerlessness

 

It has been a while since my last blog. The reason why is, because I allowed how i feel to control and direct me. A story first:

I have problems with my body and have been to doctors who still dont know what is happening to me, I went to have a colonoscopy  at the hospital last week Friday and let me tell you that is not fun. In order to have a colonoscopy done you have to first clear out your sytem - meaning they give you a very strong laxative the day before to get all the shit out. You also cannot eat anything. So that Thursday i was very hungry and shitting most of the day. By Friday morning before the procedure i was feeling like shit.

Unfortunately for me they did not find anything. Fortunately they did not find anything - good and bad news, because I still don't know what it is. last week i had an ear infection and now i have the FLU.

I am now on an diet where i only eat whole foods for a month to see if it might be something that i am eating that is not agreeing with my body and that takes some time. I basically cannot eat most of the foods I usually eat so that is fun as well. If the Diet does not work or i get worse then i would have to go back to a hospital to do more test. 

Through all of this i have leaned that i must stand no matter what, to not allow anything to get to me or influence me in terms of who i am. But that has proven to be easier said than done. i stand and breathe and then something new comes along like an ear infection or the FLU and then i allow myself to get angry at myself and then i fall on that point, Where I should have not allowed it to inFLUence me as who i am and feel powerless. Give myself and realize that i have the strength and power to get through this - and apply it.

More on this tomorrow

Things you Might not know about Horses

 

My whole life I have never had any experience with horses. I only ever had dogs and cats. I have been around horses now the past 4 years. In the beginning when I started working with horses It was a whole new experience. They are amazing and cunning beings, very sneaky sometimes.

One thing I never new was that horses lie. Yes - they lie and manipulate sometimes. When I exercised Grootman (horse name) he would fake being tired or have no energy just to not exercise anymore. I never knew they do that.

It has been a awesome learning curve  - horses can teach you allot about yourself. They are very physical observing beings. They can sum you up - see all of you before you even get close. They are far more aware of you that you are about yourself.

A few days ago we had one of our horses die - Titan. Titan and Grootman were best friends - you would always se those two together in the fields. I did not know horses form close bonds with each other. On Friday we buried Titan And that afternoon when the horses came back to the stables Grootman started showing symptoms of severe colic. He was crying out all the time for his friend Titan, because he cannot see him anywhere. Everybody gathered around as support for Grootman

We got the Vet out when we first saw what was happening to him. He was basically stressing about not seeing Titan around anymore which caused him to have big problems with his digestive system.

Long story short - the vet did everything she could, but Grootman did not respond to the medicine. He was in extreme pain when the pain killers wore off. The Vet was here from about 6 at night till twelve. The only options we had was to wait till he sorts it our himself and if he does not we will have to put him down.

She left  us enough pain killer injections to help him through the night if needed. Rozelle and I stayed up with him at the stables all night and everybody on the farm helped in keeping an eye on him for when he starts feeling pain again. Which was the next morning where he relapsed again. We gave him painkillers again. From that moment on we pulled through and made it. He is fine now again. All of this was triggered, because he missed his friend Titan. Proof that horses also feel for those who did not know.

He went through allot that night and day - he had to make some hard choices in order to pull through.

to be continued.