Longest month ever: November illnesses befuddle

It feels like about 90 days since I woke on November 1 with the intention of blogging every day for NaBloPoMo and working on my novel every day for NaNoWriMo. I made it three days for sure (maybe more that I didn’t tag!) had some great and productive mornings, but I have also been sidelined by many days of illness: a lot of it my own, some of bestowed on my kids.

I am trying to get through each day with an open heart and a willingness to learn from whatever is going on with my body. I’ve lost momentum, but I haven’t lost heart.

Being kind to myself is doing whatever feels best during the bursts of energy I have and not making myself wrong for any self-imposed failings.

There is plenty going on behind the scenes as I think about my developing business and about my novel. I have faith that those projects will both be realized one day, at whatever is the right moment for them. True, that’s seeming increasingly further away, and I do worry a little about people who’ve expressed enthusiasm getting a little impatient. But I can only do what I can do.

I cannot work after my kids go to bed, not more than a half-hour, or my health will suffer. I do not have on-call babysitters or an au pair or grandparents I can call on for help, not without a plane reservation, and that’s only one or two out of six. Even the weeks I’m well, whatever those look like, I can’t recall, I usually have some kind of an appointment to try to support my physical improvement. I don’t go out to eat but rarely. Even when my husband takes my kids or gets take-out, I still usually eat at home food I cook myself to avoid stomach upset.

I feel great when I juice but don’t do it as often as I’d like because it just takes too much time to prep and clean. This I would happily outsource if I could. Yesterday I got a green juice at Nourish Market (along with a lot of MTO Kombucha) and another green juice again an hour later at the Merrifield MOMs market. Both delicious, both organic.

Standing tall, standing proud — homemade juice with the last of the homegrown cucumbers and some homegrown kale and lots of farmers market beets.

I imagine a lot of people probably wonder what the heck is up with me, being so preoccupied and recently so sick. Why won’t she just take antibiotics, I bet they think. Because my gut health is so precarious, and such a precursor for everything else, it just is not an option if it’s anything like an option. That card must be pulled out only for some truly emergency scenario. If I use it up on a fever and virus that isn’t all that bad when other remedies can probably take care of it and actually get to the core issue, well then I will be in such a vulnerable position if and when something serious like a car accident does befall me.

I’m trying to take it as a good sign that my body is fighting off these intruders by mounting this fever, day after day. Maybe in the past it just let them in, gave them a tour of my body, and pointed out the weakest areas where they could do the most damage. Here, hang out in this cozy spot for a few years and screw things up in a way she’ll never be able to trace! When I saw Dr. Thomas Cowan speak a few years ago, he spoke of the power of fever and noted a study that showed people who hadn’t had fevers through their lives were more likely to develop cancer than those who had. It’s not normal not to get sick.