Waiting for Savasana

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Don’t look at me. I thought I had long covid.

So yeah. Just going to sit in this a second. I have a big story to tell. Way back in August of 2023, we took our youngest to college at a fancy school in New York and the experience was kind of a poop show. See, some genius decided that 5000 freshman and their parents could stand in line together at the Ithaca mall and wait in a huge line that stretched for over a mile and wait 4 or 5 hours together to get a room key for their dorm room. It was ridiculous and just, just, just, unbelievable and out of the 1000’s of people there only about 4 of them were wearing masks. In the whole building. There was a brief point where I went to Target to the Starbuck’s and I told myself to buy a mask but I did not see any so I didn’t.

So we endured the 4 and a half hour line, our kid got what he needed and we got him moved into his dorm. We ate at this amazing dining hall where they daily serve four kinds of Dole Whip cuz that is all I care about. My kid is going to an ivy and I just care about Dole Whip. Can you blame me? I kid. I kid. The reality is that I am incredibly proud of both of my boys. They are now 22 and almost 19 and they have been through it. They been through it! and I adore them and they have worked so hard and they are brilliant, amazing people whom I am fortunate to have loved and known and raised and they are just the best ever. So there is that.

My husband and I did Cornell stuff with the lad and then after awhile, we headed home to MN. We got some good ice cream on the way out. It was lovely and kind of scary leaving our youngest in New York but we did it. Then I began to feel sick and it got bad fast. We stopped in Ohio where I could not find a covid test in a pharmacy which I thought was weird but oh well. Eventually we got to my mom’s house in Indiana and she had a ton of covid tests and I tested negative but then a few days later, I tested again and it was positive and covid was no fun. It just kept going. Eventually, I could mostly function and work and stuff but the fatigue and exhaustion and headaches were just taking over my life. Until November, I thought I was finally feeling better.

In December, a couple days before Christmas, I fell on the stairs. Like my foot just flew out in front of me. I landed on my hip on the edge of a stair and wowza it was crazy painful. It was a low key Christmas. My husband cooked. We played Uno with the kids and watched Paddington Bear 2 which is the weirdest movie ever I think(Paddington in *Spoiler Alert* Prison?). The day after Christmas, I had a doctor appointment and got a covid booster. The next day my arm hurt like an MF right down to my hand. I have had the covid boosters before and my arm has never hurt…at all. The day after that, I felt terrible and basically have ever since. My doctor and I thought I had long covid. What can you do? Take vitamins and sleep? because that is what I was doing. For six months.

April 1st was my eleven year cancerversary. I went to a water fit class. I had a headache. My balance, not great. The last couple weeks leading up to my cancerversary had not been great. Things were getting kinda weird. My entire forehead was constantly inflamed. It just hurt. All the time, but there was this one time that it hurt and then I drank coffee and it didn’t hurt so then we thought I was having caffeine withdrawal so that was ok, right? Then my handwriting changed. It started when my ring finger kept shaking and then It was harder to write but I thought my ring finger was injured so, you guys, I bought pencil grips. Like for elementary students learning to grip a pencil. I thought it helped but it didn’t help and it was weird because I have to write things down for my job and I could no longer read my own handwriting. We actually started throwing Parkinson’s around. I have a family history. It was possible and a little scary.

But there was other stuff too. I’ve had migraines since adolescence and about two years ago, I had what we thought was a visual aura with migraine. Basically I get sparkly stuff in my field of vision which makes it so I can’t see for awhile. I got it at work and my boss thought my retina had detached but it turned out that my retina did not detach and my eye doctor just said probably visual aura with migraine. I don’t know. I didn’t think anything of it.

Then I started slurring my speech. This was the end of March. A lot of things went wrong in March. My personality got…intense. I was highly anxious. We had an easy-help the kid thing- going on with the youngest and it was freaking me out so I told my hubby I needed him to handle it and he just did not understand why it was causing me so much anxiety and I lost it! I kept saying I don’t feel like myself. Long covid was just too much? I was losing it.

The day after my cancerversary, I was working from home and I suddenly could no longer see my computer screen. Visual aura had taken over. I finally picked up the phone called my husband and said, “I need you to come home and take me to the ER.” It was ten in the morning.

We got there and walked in. There were about 3 very upset people in front of us in line who were not behaving very well and I am not sure why they were there. It was bizarre. Like weird stuff was happening with them and the people checking them in were trying unsuccessfully to keep them in line and I don’t know really what was happening. I was standing there, with my work bag on my shoulder and my teddy bear under my arm so who am I to criticize, you know? But I looked around and I thought to myself “I think I am the sickest person in this waiting room.”

I was.


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New Year, New Me

Happy New Year. While I am happy to see 2013. I didn’t mind 2012 either. Last night we had a cozy time at home. Movies and video games. A nice family dinner. I had a final glass of wine before beginning my 2nd Whole30 today.
Yep, you read that right, no booze on Whole30. I was concerned that this would be a problem during my first Whole30 in November but it really wasn’t at all. There were times that I missed a nice glass of red wine in the evening but I didn’t crave it.
I like to stay positive when I talk about Whole30, so I will start by telling you what I CAN eat. You ready?
Meat, fruit and vegetables (except no potatoes, no corn and no legumes-Darn it! I still had to tell you what I can’t eat!).
And that’s it.
30 days. No grains, no added sugar, no dairy-including butter, no weird seed oils (canola, corn, grape) of any kind.
I switched it up and started using coconut oil in everything. Oh coconut oil. How I love you!
Was it hard?
No. Not like you would think. For me, it was more of a mental game. I got a lot of complaining from my subconscious in the beginning.
My first two weeks of Whole30, I craved cupcakes. Every night I dreamed of eating cupcakes. I would be sitting at a table full of cupcakes and just munching away. And then I would feel horribly guilty. “Hey! I’m not supposed to be eating these!”
One night, I decided I must be dreaming, so I tried to pinch myself and it didn’t hurt so I realized I was asleep. It was such a relief! I did not want to go off plan in any way. No way!
See, if you mess up and go off plan, you are supposed to start over at day one.
The prospect of starting over made the cupcake dreams seem like a nightmare until I pinched myself.
So what do I eat on Whole30? A lot of meat, quite a bit of eggs, a lot of vegetables and some fruit. Mid-afternoon munchies switched from a scone or cookie or crackers and cheese to a banana or some nuts (but not peanuts-they’re legumes).
My husband made his amazing salsa and I put it on everything. I dipped my meat in it.
I still drink coffee but I stopped putting sugar in it. If I need to change it up, I add a sprinkle of cinnamon or nutmeg.
It was tough initially but eventually, I got used to it.
I also bought the book “Well Fed” and with it, I learned to make some incredible meals for myself and my family. With sauces and garnishes too! My sons’ favorite is a little recipe called “The Best Chicken You Will Ever Eat”. They call it “The World’s Best Chicken” and I swear, they beg for it. Side dishes are vegetables. My kids haven’t even asked for pasta or rice. They don’t seem to miss it.*
*I need to clarify that my children are not doing Whole30. Their lunches include grains and dairy (cheese glorious cheese!) and even some sugar at times, but they eat dinner with me so they get to eat what I eat.
Whole30 changed the way I think about food. And it has changed my family too.
And yes, I had almost immediate results. I dropped ten pounds in mere weeks. It was pretty amazing in and of itself especially since after that trip to the endocrinologist, I had kind of resigned myself to being the weight I had been fighting for two long years. My hair was shinier. My skin was brighter. My eyes even look clearer than they did before. I’m also sleeping much better than I have in years.
There’s a science to all of this. The creators of Whole30 wrote an excellent book that explains all of our chemical and hormonal reactions to the foods we eat in their book “It Starts With Food”. I bought it for my Nook and read it at the beach in one sitting. Eye opening stuff.
But the most interesting thing happened when I finished my Whole30 and began adding in the foods I had eliminated. I will tell you more about that later. I’ll tell you now it was definitely an eyeopener when my new diet became a crazy science experiment.
And you probably think I ran to the bakery for a cupcake the minute I was done with my Whole30. But I didn’t. I still haven’t had a cupcake, even a month after finishing. Even with the holidays. Cupcake free! And I have a surprisingly good reason for staying away.
So today marks my first day of doing this all over again. So far, so good. Eating right and drinking my bubbly water. I feel pretty good.
I even got a workout today. I had coffee with a friend near my yoga studio. On a whim, I checked their schedule before heading home and there was a Yin class starting in 15 minutes. I’ve never done Yin before. It was ok. It felt like an hour of stretchy shavasana. Meh. I guess I like to work harder than I thought. Who knew? Whatever, it’s New Year’s Day. I decided to begin my year with a meditative whisper. That’s ok.
However, I think tomorrow is a run day. So if you see a chubby teenager running down the street with two kids on scooters and her crazy dog in tow.  Yeah…that’s probably me.  Be kind when you drive by.  We’re all doing the best we can.


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Another Year, Another Blog

Years ago, I was a mommy blogger, but then it got weird.  I realized that in all likelihood, my children would not enjoy reading my musings on their young lives.  And so with a bit of a heavy heart, I shut that blog down and I didn’t look back.  And I’m glad I did it too because now you can’t find a single item in the cache…although I’m sure it’s all out there somewhere.  I was relieved to get away from it all relatively unscathed.

Until this year when I turned forty.  Forty.

Forty.

Who thought I would ever get here?  Certainly not me.

I remember my mom turning forty.  I was ten.  After we sang the song and she blew out the candles, I asked her, “Does this mean you are over the hill, Mom?”

She rolled her eyes at me.  If I were her, I would have smacked me silly.

Forty has been a bit rough on me.  Don’t get me wrong, my husband and I celebrated my actual birthday big time.  We left the kids at home and spent a week in Europe.  We saved every penny, every credit card point and air miles credit we could scrounge to do it too.  And we had a lovely time in the City of Light.  It was glorious.  I even wrote “Forty is FABULOUS” on my Facebook status.

And then the vacation was over and we had to come home, back to reality.

And the reality for me is that forty hurts.  No really, it physically HURTS.

My back hurts, my neck hurts, my head hurts.  I find myself slower at forty, more lethargic and less involved in life.

Besides the white hairs that seem to be multiplying daily, I hurt in places I didn’t know existed before forty.

This year has not been easy for me.  It culminated in me breaking down crying in the endocrinologist’s office when she told me there was nothing she could do for my weird hormonal levels that seemed to be contributing to my weight gain and fatigue, despite my desperate battle to run from the fat monster that has been pursuing me for the last ten years.

I knew, walking out of there that warm July day, that I could not do this anymore.  I needed to change my life.

But there is one problem, I am horribly lazy.  No really.  I hate to exercise.  I hate to eat right.  I hate doing the work I need to do to be where I want to be.

But I hate being fat and slow and in pain even more.  Or at least, I think I do.

I hope I do.

I’ve started to run again and I joined a yoga center and have been practicing yoga at least three times a week since September.  I hate love it.

I have also changed my eating.  I did my first Whole30 in November and…yeah…I rocked it.  More on that, later.

But none of this has come easily for me.  And it is frustrating to see how easy it is to talk myself out of that 3 mile run and into a cupcake with cream cheese frosting.

Running.  Ugh! Running.  I love it and I hate it.  I’ve been running since 2007.  I’ve actually run a couple of full marathons and quite a few half marathons.  I run them very, very slowly.  But I finish, and my times are not humiliating but they are not great or even what you would call “good” either.  But I still do it.  I run.  Mostly.  I like my intervals.

You know what I love about interval running?  The walk breaks.  Mmm…delicious walk breaks.  I get one minute for every four.  Worth it.  So…worth it.

And you know what I love about yoga?  Shavasana.  Otherwise known as “Corpse Pose”. It’s the time you get, usually at the end of the practice, when you just lay there and do nothing.  It is my motivation. Sometimes, Shavasana is the only thing that gets me there and keeps me going.

So that is my intention for this blog.  I don’t want to sound melodramatic  but I feel like I am fighting for my life here because my body is very directly telling me that I have got to get off my tush or face some serious consequences.

I am starting Round 2 of Whole30 tomorrow and I plan to blog every day in January.  But still a big part of my brain is saying, “Ugh!  Really?  Can’t you just eat another cookie, throw in the towel and call it a day?”

We will see.  Bring on Shavasana.