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Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 287 and Routines

I haven’t figured out how to incorporate my routines into my busier workdays. I feel like I’ve written this blogpost at least 3-4 times but somehow I never seem to find balance easily when I make big changes to how I spend my time.

All the self care efforts that has become comfortable rhythms go by the wayside as soon as I add in new obligations. And then my body gets pissed that I’m not taking care of it and I get into the same pattern of two steps forward and one step back.

You’d think after experiencing this issue multiple times I’d be better at ramping change slowly but I remain the sort of person that loves to dive into shit head first.

After much enthusiasm and progress I’m writing todays post from a physically mediocre places. My stomach is upset. I am fighting off a migraine. My muscles are tense. I’m anxious about all of these symptoms turning into a messy cascade. So I’m turning to my pharmaceuticals, taking a mess of prescriptions, and going to bed. Maybe tomorrow is another chance to find a better balance.

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Chronicle

Day 253 and Lady Troubles

Occasionally I find myself annoyed that women’s bodies are less studied than male bodies. You’d think we’d want to know more about the vessels that produce the heirs to make fortunes. Grumbling about mishandling property rights aside, I do wish we knew a little more about women’s health.

I get migraines when I menstruate. If that particular tidbit of information is too much for you well sorry but maybe it might be helpful if the basic biology of women’s bodies were a little further to the forefront of cultural consciousness. Women talk about it with each other which is why I’ve got a host of folklore on cramps, bloating, headaches, sore breast, and emotional rollercoasters.

I’m fairly lucky to have migraines. It’s marginally more pleasant than what my friends with heavy flows or bad cramps go through. And I say this just having vomited from the nausea that comes with my migraines.

And on that note I’m signing off as I only went on a tangent about the need for more effective study and treatment of women’s health as it’s the only thing I can think of to write about. And I committed to writing something every single day. So here I am writing through the migraine. I bet tomorrow will be more interesting. And I’d be thrilled if later in life we solve for the interplay between hormones and headaches so I never write about this topic again.

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Chronicle

Day 249 and Vacation

The last vacation I went on was a long weekend to Miami in early February 2020. I had been following the outbreak as it unfurled in Wuhan at the time but it was before covid19 became a pandemic. It didn’t appear as if it had made it to America at that point. Three weeks later and I began locking down.

I remember having a terrible migraine on the second day of that vacation. It has been a question as to whether I was healthy enough to travel. We were still stabilizing my ankylosing spondylitis but we hadn’t been on a vacation for over a year at that point as I had spent the summer and fall in and out of hospitals. So we risked it. It seemed like we should at least try to take a vacation. Even sick folks deserve a break.

I took a picture of the darkened bedroom while I rode out my migraine in Miami

In hindsight obviously I’m glad we took a chance and went to Miami. Even if I spent a day of the trip in a dark room. As much as I was early on the pandemic, I didn’t fully appreciate that it would be so long and so restrictive. Even being able to be in a cold hotel room nursing a migraine was an unimaginable luxury for most of the pandemic. I’m so grateful we took that last trip. Sure it doesn’t look particularly exciting but to me I see it as the last time I felt safe traveling.

Now that I’m in Colorado, which is it’s own vacation destination, I don’t feel as much of an urge to get out of town as I did living in Manhattan. Sometimes you do really need to escape from New York. But no one needs to escape from Boulder.

Yet right now I am craving a vacation. I want to feel a change in routine. Hell a migraine inside a hotel is still more exciting than a migraine in my own bedroom. I’m not likely to get on an airplane as the cases are a mess but maybe its time to go somewhere. I hear Aspen is lovely in the fall.

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Chronic Disease

Day 223 and Actually OOO

I’ve got a nightmare of a migraine. Ironic that I should right at such length about being available or out of office yesterday only to find myself utterly incapable of being pretending today that I am available. If you want a better essay of the day then I’d click out to yesterday’s as the rest is just an exercise in willpower not quality.

If you’ve never had a migraine consider yourself lucky. I’m prone to about one a month and I’ll let you use your imagination as to why they are so regular on a monthly cadence

For this particular migraine the light and noise sensitivity are debilitating but today it’s the nausea that’s the worst. Somehow the pain and tension can be so bad you literally cannot imagine tolerance for food or smells. I’m struggling to drink water.

I can’t really fathom how I’ll have enough to say to qualify for “write every day” but here I am with the CMS open and typing out sentences that appear to be coherent. I suppose three paragraph with a few links, a title and the proper tagging qualify as showing up for the day. Every day I write. Every day some small creation. Even though at the moment I’m trying to work myself up to the idea of eating some rice in the hopes that I’ll be able to take some medication and settle my stomach. Good enough.

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Chronic Disease Chronicle

Day 10 and The Migraine

When I committed to writing a long form piece every day I told myself a lie. I told myself It was no big deal to make a daily commitment. I told myself I’d find a way to put fingers to keyboard no matter what.

I told myself this lie knowing full well that willpower was never issue. My addiction to my willpower was the issue.

You see I’m a workaholic. And I made my physical illnesses significantly worse because I tried to exert willpower over them. I tanked my body into a kind of rock bottom that forced me to stop my whole life.

I told myself I physically couldn’t do it anymore. But that was a lie too. Even at my worst physically I had secret. I could still work through it. I could muster up my resources and be “on” for just long enough to get a job done. And then I would crash. Bed ridden. Pain addled. But I could will myself to action. I only began my recovery when I admitted to myself that I wasn’t willing to pay the price anymore. I knew eventually I wouldn’t just crash. I would force myself to perform when weak and I’d kill myself. I knew deep down my sickness was that I had the willpower to kill myself with work. So I decided to turn that willpower towards recovery. I stopped. And I healed.

So I’m a bit sad to see myself caught in the same lies again. That willpower is what matters. That I can always do what needs to be done. That I lied to myself by saying that it was no big deal to write every day. Because some days I won’t feel well. And I’ll be tempted to use my willpower to overcome it in order to keep my promise that I will write every day.

I bring all this up because I have had a migraine for the past 24 hours. It came on as was writing yesterday’s post. I felt it in my forhead building. I crashed out of an important virtual gathering last night crying on the floor as I dumped my dresser drawer searching for an Imitrax. I’ve been struggling with the migraine all day. So the post I had planned to write (media training for normies part 2) has been at the edge of my addled brain all day. It took till 6pm for me to realize I’d relapsed. I was going to use my willpower to power through the lie that that I could do it.

Except I can’t. Noises make me cringe. Bright lights make me shrink back. I’m sick to my stomach. I couldn’t bring myself to go for a hike in the fresh snow today even though I love stomping through undisturbed powder.

So I’m giving myself a pass. I’m admitting the lie to my teller. I won’t write up some advice on media today. Maybe I won’t write it tomorrow either. I’ll do it when I do it. I won’t try to prove to myself what I already know. Willpower isn’t the issue. Willing myself to recognize my limitations is the challenge. One day at a time right?