so here's what happened. everyone at work was getting sick. i just had to go and say it.. "i'm not worried, i never get sick!". and that has been mostly true. i believe that it has a lot to do with the fact that i have been juicing and consuming 3-4 quarts of freshly juiced vegetables and citrus every day for a few weeks. i had started juicing daily at the beginning of the year, but as soon as all the flu bugs started going around, i doubled up. i had made it through my entire team at work [and my boyfriend] getting sick twice so far this year. i thought i had it beat.
til early thursday morning... the power went out. i couldn't make my juice, or my power packed mean green breakfast smoothie. i ate a banana, which is about all the solid food i can stomach that early in the morning, and walked to work in the dark. i did my best not to panic, but i knew i was walking into a battlefield unshielded. i'm positive i had already picked up the bug, but had remained unaffected because of the daily bombardment of pro-healthy goodness.
i made it through my workday somehow, i was tired within the first couple hours. i usually would have had plenty of energy from my daily breakfast smoothie.. and of course, i felt very hungry. my joints were swelling already. i had learned from various sources that fresh celery juice was good for joint pain. i guess i hadn't realized how well it was working until i suddenly didn't have it in me. i was in slow motion all day. i couldn't concentrate, and all i wanted to do was faceplant into my bed.
as soon as i got home [and the power was finally restored] i made an emergency batch of fresh orange and apple juice with a double dose of ginger. i slammed it. i was already horribly exhausted, so in an attempt to beat the bug i went to bed early so that my body might have a fighting chance against it. 1am rolled around, and i was awoken by the heat of my own fever. dang. i tried to go back to sleep, but it was no use. by 4am i was calling work, pounding head, fever, aches and chills... the sick finally got me.
i really, really hate getting sick. and i hate missing work.. but knowing that i was already compromised and now weakened, i felt it best to stay home and deal with it right away rather than prolong the suffering. it's not all bad though, i learned a very important lesson; patience.
what does patience have to do with anything?? well..
everything.
i've been spending the past fifteen months learning everything i can about having an autoimmune disease, and what i should be doing to overcome it. and sometimes it's hard to see any progress, especially when it comes to the weight loss and my overall energy. it wasn't until i suddenly lost access to the abundant nourishment that i've been using to help my body heal, that i realized it was doing anything at all. and having to spend a day without these wonderful nectars of life reminded me that changes don't just happen over night, and that i am doing so much to support my body's healing system. giving up at this point is not an option.
that being said... there is progress.
first of all, i did end up quitting smoking last year, which i believe is helping immensely. for everything overall. overcoming addictions isn't easy for anyone, and i have a history with addiction. i'm still amazed that i no longer have cravings, and am even most usually repulsed at the idea of smoking a cigarette. and then, there's my weight. having hashimoto's has made losing weight pretty well impossible my whole life. it was more subtle when i spent the majority of my time living, wandering and generally being outside, but the weight gain had hastened since becoming a full-time domesticated human. i went from gaining on average two pounds a year at that point in my life, to a whopping ten pounds a year. so in the past five years that i have been living a 'standard north american lifestyle', i'd put on fifty pounds. Fifty. Pounds.
by the time i had finally purchased a scale so that i could keep track of my progress, i was over two hundred. since i started paying exceptional attention to what i put into my body, i have lost ten of those pounds in the past ten weeks. it seems to me like a slow start, and it's hard to stay positive when i'm not seeing the difference so much yet, but it's happening. the numbers on the scale are no longer going in the direction of extreme obesity. yay me!
so about that sick day.. yeah, i'm still sick. but! not to the point of absolute bed ridden horror that Matt seems to go through when he gets sick. not so sick that i can't move for days like i used to get. i have the aches and my chest is on fire for the first couple hours that i'm awake, but i feel much better already than the day it hit me [yesterday]. i'm taming the fever, and i'm still able to get out for fresh air, and as long as i keep up with the juicing and lots of greens i should be ready to go back to work again on monday. but for now... relaxation.
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