Spring is so good for the body and soul. Every day I wake up with gratitude and awe of this life. For those of you lucky enough to live in Chicago in springtime you know what I'm talking about.
At the beginning of April I met with the director of the Infectious Disease department at my hospital. He felt very strongly that the inflammation in my bone & muscle is not an infection. This is very good news and has given me some peace of mind. Of course, this is not as definitive as a negative biopsy or MRI, but I've decided to embrace it.
This month I also started reading a book entitled "The Last Best Cure" by Donna Jackson Nakazawa. It is about the new science behind "psychoneuroimmunology" or PNI for short. This is an exciting discovery about the connection between the nervous system and immune system. Basically, emotional stress triggers chronic disease. I will be posting a review of this book and my (extensive) thoughts surrounding this topic as soon as I'm finished.
Another learning experience was my gluten binge on the last day of our trip when we were in Austria. I'm telling you people I ate it all: 3 pretzels, 2 strudels (I had to try both apple and cheese), and 2 mugs of Austrian beer. I loved every minute of it, but I paid for it the entire week after we got back. This has made it a lot easier for me to stay away from gluten going forward.
I've been thinking a lot about this healing journey and how I will know when I'm "better," because I feel so much better, but I know my body still needs me to be patient. Reading the quote at the bottom of this post helps me to understand that there may be no precise ending point to this journey, but maybe I will know I'm better when I have a new way of looking at my health.
If I had to name a percentage of how much better I feel today here at the end of April, than I did in December I would say 70% better, with intermittent days where it feels more like 50%. Here's to the next few renewing months of spring and summer inching me even closer to that 100% (and beyond).
This month I also started reading a book entitled "The Last Best Cure" by Donna Jackson Nakazawa. It is about the new science behind "psychoneuroimmunology" or PNI for short. This is an exciting discovery about the connection between the nervous system and immune system. Basically, emotional stress triggers chronic disease. I will be posting a review of this book and my (extensive) thoughts surrounding this topic as soon as I'm finished.
Another learning experience was my gluten binge on the last day of our trip when we were in Austria. I'm telling you people I ate it all: 3 pretzels, 2 strudels (I had to try both apple and cheese), and 2 mugs of Austrian beer. I loved every minute of it, but I paid for it the entire week after we got back. This has made it a lot easier for me to stay away from gluten going forward.
I've been thinking a lot about this healing journey and how I will know when I'm "better," because I feel so much better, but I know my body still needs me to be patient. Reading the quote at the bottom of this post helps me to understand that there may be no precise ending point to this journey, but maybe I will know I'm better when I have a new way of looking at my health.
If I had to name a percentage of how much better I feel today here at the end of April, than I did in December I would say 70% better, with intermittent days where it feels more like 50%. Here's to the next few renewing months of spring and summer inching me even closer to that 100% (and beyond).
No comments:
Post a Comment