Tag Archives: Health

Here Comes the Sun

Posted by Jackie in all about me and tagged with , , , , ,

This year has been a tough year, for both personal and professional reasons, and a great part of that is because the health issues I blogged about in September have continued to overshadow my life. I did start treatment for my thyroid disorder, but it took me awhile to get into the routine of taking the medication regularly, and the process can be slow-acting in general. So I swallowed it every morning, and kept my fingers crossed that soon I would be feeling more like myself. But I still felt like I was moving in slow motion, I still felt exhausted no matter how much sleep I got, and my thought processes were still partly cloudy, every day.

When that hadn’t happened, I decided it was time to investigate further. I went back to my endocrinologist, who ran another series of tests, which turned up a vitamin D deficiency. Once I got the test results back, I started taking an over-the-counter supplement, as vitamin D is difficult to augment through diet alone (though I will be adding more fish to my diet, and trying to get out in the sun more often).

And friends, I feel good! I feel more alert and clear-minded than I have in such a long time, and when I wake up, I feel rested, instead of groggy and exhausted. I feel so much more capable and cheerful, so much more able to handle whatever the day may throw at me.Until I started feeling better, I didn’t quite realize how much my weariness, mind and body, had been taking a toll on me.  Between this deficiency and my Hashimoto’s diagnosis, I think my mysterious health issues have been solved, and what a relief that is. I’m so thankful to have some answers, to have health insurance and excellent health care, and to have solutions readily available. I’m also grateful to myself, for listening to my body and taking steps to get back to where I once belonged.

More posts ahead, about recipes, dishwashers, and National Poetry Month; thanks for sticking around, and as always, thanks for listening.

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Literary Soaps

Posted by Jackie in blogging and tagged with , , , , , ,
Title page from the first edition of the first...

Title page from the first edition of the first volume of Pride and Prejudice (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Cotton candy soap inspired by Something Wicked This Way Comes, lilac soap for Amy Lowell, and Sweet Jane for Pride and Prejudice‘s Jane, which begins a series inspired by the book’s 200th anniversary this year: all of these are soaps made by Dana Huff, one of my longtime virtual friends.

One of the first teacher blogs I began following was Dana’s, and now, with her trademark curiosity and enthusiasm, she has plunged into soap-making, with a blog and Etsy shop to showcase her wares and explain her process. Dana’s soap adventures are in addition to her literary blogging, family of five, and her work as a tech coordinator and teacher; amazing, right?

So maybe you’d like to try Marianne’s Passion soap, in honor of Sense and Sensibility , or perhaps you prefer Mrs. Darcy?

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Mind and Body

Posted by Jackie in all about me, writing and tagged with , , , ,

The physical signs were clear for months–the fatigue alternating with periods of insomnia, the joint pain and stiffness, the hoarse throat and much more– and even the emotional seem obvious to me now, the erratic oscillation from anxiety to depression and back again. But it was only when my mind felt threatened, when I started losing some of what I see as crucial abilities that define my identity in meaningful ways–my ability to concentrate on, comprehend and interpret text, to focus on challenging literature for long periods of time, to produce pieces of writing myself, to feel inspired to create and write in response to what’s happening around me and to me, to hear an argument and form a response, to actively participate in intellectual discourse–when these abilities started to weaken, and even disappear, is also when I finally took some action, saw a doctor, and began treatment.

Early on, my husband asked me how I was feeling, and I said, “Sharper.” I meant this as a positive thing, that my mind was seeming capable of catching ideas on its sharp edges again, or able to cut through a dense text or argument and dissect it, perhaps. But I found myself thinking also about the opposite of sharp, of blunted and dull, two words that also describe how I had been feeling mentally. I value that sharpness about myself, even though it is too much of a cutting edge, and I find myself deliberately sheathing it when to wield might also be to injure. But to have lost it forever? Unfathomable.

On one of those early days when I felt myself feeling sharper, I also overextended myself, jumping eagerly into blogging, grading, lesson planning, discussing poetry and then feeling extreme mental fatigue and headachiness. It’s not often in my life that I feel a kinship with pro athletes, but that day I did, so desperate to rebound after an injury to the most central part of myself, the part of me around which I’ve built my sense of self, a weakness that felt so threatening, much more than serious physical injuries I’ve sustained. When I’ve broken a limb or had major surgery, I’m frustrated that I can’t do everything I want to do, but I don’t question whether I’m still myself the way I have recently. It’s an incredible amount of patience that’s required, to let yourself heal enough to be fully yourself again.

I wouldn’t have written or published this post if I weren’t feeling better, but I still have a long way to go. I know I’m learning important lessons about paying close attention to my body, and about understanding when I need to push myself and when I need to step back. I know I’m very lucky that this disorder can be easily treated, and that I have the means to do so. I know it’s good to recognize what small adjustments I can make to my mood and health by being in the sunshine, listening to music I love, writing it all down, and taking long walks.

But even despite everything I know to be true, this feeling of being unsettled, disoriented, continues to linger, to cloud my vision and trouble my heart.

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Emotional Eating (and a poll!)

Posted by Jackie in all about me, conversations, polls and tagged with , , ,
A US Milky Way candy bar, broken in half to sh...

A US Milky Way candy bar, broken in half to show contents. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My daughter Lucy was feeling nervous last week about beginning a new activity, and I heard myself saying, “Well, we could always go to Coldstone afterwards to help make you feel better, if you want.” The more I thought about it later, the more it began to bother me, both how that was my instant response, and how I phrased it to my growing young girl

While I have never really struggled with my weight, I have spent a lot of time over the recent years thinking about my own food and eating habits and how I’d like to do some things differently. I struggled to quit caffeinated soda, and now I’ve tackled trying to eliminate soda altogether. I have struggled with exercising regularly and eating more vegetables, and I have done so many stops-and-starts that I get frustrated and discouraged, but keep trying to start again.

Sure, I’m concerned with my own health, but one of the driving motivations is that I want my daughters to have better health habits than I do. That’s why we bribed them to add vegetables to their diet, and that’s why I drive one to ballet and the other to rock-climbing and insist on semi-regular family hikes and walks. I want them to have better ideas about how to care for themselves than I feel like I often do.

Recently, this has been on my mind in terms of my tendency to eat emotionally, or “feed my feelings,” as I’ve seen other people call it. I know I’m by no means alone in this habit, but it still seems like a good one to be more aware and reflective about, if I can manage it. Some experts see it as a problem if you’re trying to lose weight, while others believe that emotional eating can help you stay slender as long as you choose something you really want and focus deliberately on enjoying it, without overeating or starting with an empty stomach. This last approach makes sense to me: it’s not that I think Coldstone is evil, or that I’m worried about obesity. I’ll never deny my love of classic comfort food or make my girls feel like it’s not okay to go out for a celebratory cone or slice of cheesecake. But when I “feed my feelings,” often what I used to reach for is potato chips, soda or a candy bar,  none of which actually ever made me feel much better. Eating an entire medium-sized bag of chips now makes me feel sick, and wolfing down a candy bar after a stressful day doesn’t relieve much stress. I don’t want my own kids to rely on this pattern regardless of what their weight may or may not be, and I want them to know how to feed their emotional hunger in other ways.

In all honesty, I feel like “feeding my feelings” is a habit I have eroded steadily as I’ve grown older, but there is still enough of it left that I worry about my girls feeling the same way. I ended up taking my girls out for dinner so we could talk and enjoy some pizza before Lucy’s activity instead, and teaching her some deep-breathing patterns she could try to help calm herself down that day, and I think those were the right approaches to take, approaches that I think will be more useful in the future than an instant application of ice cream would have been. For the future, I hope to help them both (as well as myself) keep building their emotional toolbox, and filling it with plenty of strategies–plus a little comfort food along the way.

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Survey Says: Self-Care?

Posted by Jackie in all about me and tagged with , ,
Chicago 08: Rogers Park - Home Health

After a recent bout with a health issue this week that I should have picked up on much earlier than I did, I’ve been thinking a lot about self-care.  Why is it so hard to take good care of ourselves?  Or alternately, why is it so hard for me, when it seems not to be so hard for other people?

I signed up this week for a website called Health Month, as part of my newly renewed determination to get myself into better shape (full disclosure: once I signed up, I realized the site creator was married to a friend of my husband’s, but I have the free membership and have received no preferential treatment or compensation). I have some habits that are good for me– I have never smoked and don’t drink anything alcoholic–but also have some habits that are terrible–I don’t drink enough water or get nearly enough exercise. I’ve had luck giving up unhealthy favorites–I’m two years off caffeinated drinks and have gone about a month without eating potato chips–but still don’t eat enough vegetables. I’m hoping that starting small, with support and motivation through Health Month, that I can start establishing some of the healthier habits that have eluded me for years. If I have success with these, I’m hoping to move onto larger ones. I’m tired of not being in better shape, and I’m tired of feeling guilty and upset about it.

Incidentally, this is one reason I get so frustrated by all the “obesity epidemic rhetoric,” because I have always been at a healthy weight, sometimes even underweight, but my actual health status has fluctuated wildly. I was probably at my unhealthiest and thinnest at the same time, and decoupling weight and health has been part of getting myself to think more seriously about my health, regardless of my dress size.

Do you take good care of yourself? If so, tell me your secret! If not, why do you think that is? Do you neglect yourself unconsciously, or deliberately? What would it take for you to take better care of yourself? What does taking care of yourself mean to you?