I went for five years suffering from flu-like symptoms that never went away. I didn't know what to do! I had been to the doctor and he only said that it was due to stress. Having nine kids have anything to do with that? I didn't feel like I was stressed out, I just felt tired all the time!

Life continued and I was on the verge of giving up hope for a normal life again. I was exhausted all the time and couldn't enjoy daily activities with the youthful vigor I was so accustomed to!

After one particularly severe argument, I was told I needed to get my posterior to the doctor or risk having non-reparable damage done to it! I began the search for a new doctor.

After paperwork was all filled out, I was called back to be examined. Oh, here we go! Another you are just stressed out, here is your prescription and have a happy life.

The nurse that led me back to the exam room asked me a strange question. She asked if I was taking my thyroid pills. I said I didn't know that I needed to be taking any such pills. She began to ask me questions like: "Do you feel tired all the time?" "Feeling irritable and cranky?" "Do you wake from sleeping and feel like you haven't slept at all?"

Wow! I answered every question with a resounding YES! It took a nurse just looking at me to know that I had a condition that normally affected women! Blood work was done to confirm what the nurse had already known. I had hypothyroidism!

I couldn't believe it! I took the prescription for thyroxin and headed for the pharmacy. Twenty minutes later I took my first pill.

After taking the medication for 5 days, I began to notice that I felt rested when I awoke. I felt more energetic and alive! Taking that little tiny pill did that for me!

Let's just say I go the doctor, get my prescription, and even have the script filled. I then take that bottle of pills and I go home and put them on the shelf in the medicine cabinet. Oh, I might have taken a pill here or there, maybe. Sounds strange doesn't it! After five long years of struggles and I just put the pills that could help me feel better on the shelf? What a crazy notion!

I even paid for the doctor's visits and I paid for the medicine, but what good does it do if I put the pills on the shelf and never take them? Yup, the same exact outcome if I had never been to the doctor in the first place!

Sounds crazy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs doesn't it? And yet it happens all the time.

Let me name a few here and see if they hit home with you.

You want to learn how to speak Spanish, so what do you do? You begin to look for and buy books, cds, and even special programs to help you to learn Spanish. You begin reading, listening, and interacting on the program you bought. But it is short lived.

Soon the tools you bought soon end up on the shelf, never to be used again. Did you learn Spanish? Nope! Now you couldn't even tell me you were thirsty and needed a drink of water in Spanish!

Name a program! It could be that new diet plan, way to make loads of cash on the internet, or any number of other programs out there!

Get my point? It does no good to go to the doctor and get diagnosed, receive the medication and then store it on the shelf and never use it!

If you want to 'you fill in the blank' then you have got to find what works for you. Others cannot do it for you. You may even be told that it is just stress! (wrong diagnosis!) You won't know until you read the book, take the pill, do the exercises, etc.

Now this ole cowboy has done his share of putting that medicine on the shelf to collect dust, but no more! It's time to experiment and have some fun as I do it! Stay tuned! More musings are on the way!