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This probably qualifies as a blog post, but since I don`t have a blog going anywhere right now I`m sharing it here. I had kind of a profound thing happen this week & I`m feeling compelled to write about it.

Bit of backstory: last fall, around October or so, I fell into a really weird funk that I haven`t been able to shake... lost all my motivation, couldn`t think clearly, waking up tired & suffering from insomnia, feeling prone to self-pity. I`ve been wondering all this time what the heck is wrong with me. Is it because it`s winter? Am i secretly depressed about turning 40 soon? Is it something in my diet or my environment? I never could figure it out and I`ve been struggling to get on with things in spite of feeling so crappy, with limited success.

Then this past Sunday I bit down on my lunch and sent shockwaves of intense pain up the side of my head and down my neck.... it was so bad I really thought I might faint. Monday I got an emergency dentist appoint, and it turns out I had a badly abscessed tooth; what`s more, it had been like that since last fall. The culprit all this time has been an infection festering just inches from my brain, and I had no idea! How scary is that??

The dentist put me on antiobiotics & painkillers right away, then Tuesday morning I went in for emergency oral surgery to have the tooth extracted & the infection cleaned out. I was under for the whole thing but according to the nurse it was utterly disgusting. (Not sure why but she was intent on me knowing this.)

Incredibly, by Wednesday morning I was feeling better than I had in months in spite of the surgery pain. and all week I`ve been feeling more and more like myself again... sleeping soundly at night for my usual 6-7 hours, waking up refreshed without an alarm clock (god I hate alarm clocks), my head is clear and I feel focused and alert. I`ve gotten more done the past few days, even with a mouth full of gauze, than I have probably in the entire past few weeks.

Then today, I received an email from one of my clients that included this happy little tidbit:

"...got another call from a potential client off the site yesterday. damn you`re good. that`s more calls in two weeks than i`ve gotten in 7 years!"

In my hazy-brained funk I almost forgot that I actually really love what I do. I love kicking ass on behalf of my clients. Man its good to be back!

—paula

And people say there`s nothing to this "holistic" medicine, or the "whole person" approach to medicine. :-)

Ya gotta ask the big quesiton: how come there isn`t in place a simple way to diagnose "funk?" How many people nowadays are on antidepressants, or being told that they`re "just getting old?" How come there isn`t a way to quickly get a diagnosis of something like this when a person goes to the doctor complaining of "not feeling like myself?" It`s a shame.

Bottom line, though, is that you DID solve the problem! For me, it was chronic fatigue that got so bad I nearly couldn`t function. Turned out to be a major hormonal imbalance in cortisol. When that got fixed, I was fixed. But it took around 30 years to get the diagnosis.

Oh my gosh 30 years! I can`t even imagine. How did you finally figure it out after all that time?

As for not being able to get a proper "funk" diagnosis — imagine if all those people feeling "funked out" suddenly felt better: got their motivation, got their energy, started waking up feeling clear-minded & focused...  people would get their lives together, problems would get solved. there`d be no reason anymore for all those government agencies!

—paula

It`s amazing what we can do with the Web, these days, and it`s encouraging how many people are starting to investigate their own health. I was fortunate to find an article about a new diagnosis associated with the thyroid, then a doctor who understood hormones. But it mostly came about due to having the Web as a massive source of information and research.