Friday night and yesterday I had nice holiday time with my family. But...
Wow. It has been an ugly and long week. My apologies for not following through with my plans to post recipes every day, but I got really sick.
Last Saturday I woke up feeling good, my wallet had money and it was time to finally start my Christmas shopping. First things first, a good brunch to stoke the engine. I went the healthy route and got an egg white omelet with fresh spinach (at a restaurant that will go unnamed), it tasted pretty good and I was off to the mall.
I hadn't been in the mall very long when I became soaked in sweat. I thought, well the mall is packed and I am rushing around, no big deal. Even though no one else was soaking their shirt. Anyway, I went about trying to get things done and slowly felt worse as the day wore on. I tried to write it off to a lot of things, but by early evening I knew - I was getting very ill. I let the boss know and then hoped that my fever and chills would pass without much incident. Uh, nope.
I will save you the details, other than to say, it was fever, vomiting, diarrhea, chills, headache - horrible. And it didn't last just 24-48 hours like a nice flu. No, this drug on. It was traced back to the spinach in my omelet. It wasn't fully cooked, but I thought nothing of it until much later. They even briefly thought I had e. coli. By the way, this is a food-borne illness, not food poisoning. The food hadn't gone bad, it was tainted by bacteria.
I finally made it back to work on Thursday, 15 pounds lighter and weak. I was able to eek out some time to Christmas shop so everyone had gifts, but that spent the 'extra' energy I had.
Yesterday I thought I was feeling a bit better, so I ate a regular Christmas dinner. Turns out, I am not fully recovered. As I tried to go to bed last night, my body balked at the amount of food I had enjoyed. It wasn't an insane amount, but compared to the rest of the week, I ate like a queen. So, I spent most of the night writhing in pain and sweating, very little sleep too.
So, I came to work early. I have been drinking some gingerbread tea and it is helping. Going forward for the next week I have a new plan - very small amounts of food and BLAND. Knowing my body, it will find a way to throw a fit anyway, but I have to give it a try.
Yours in Health,
Kate
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label illness. Show all posts
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
An Update on My Health - Stress Can Make You Sick
I work too much, I stress too much, I don't get enough sleep. Sound familiar? You are probably exactly the same. But after weeks of recovering from my time in the hospital, doctors visits and tests, that is the conclusion.
Basically, my body does not navigate stress as well as it once did. So, doctors orders are - "Don't stress as much". Um, how much did I pay for that?
I know, the upside is - they say my heart is healthy, I do not have a brain tumor, I do not have an ulcer, I do not have arterial damage, I do not have leukemia, I do not have high blood pressure, I do not have diabetes, I do not have a lot of things. And I am grateful for all of the above.
The one struggle I have is, how do I deal with this? I mean on any given day I have so much to do for work, that if I wasn't borderline ADD, I would never be able to switch gears and make it all happen.
It's been suggested I workout more, take up meditation and find a hobby outside of work. All very good suggestions. But then I stop and think, how? Where does any of this fit? By the time I get home, I am exhausted. If it doesn't involve a remote control, I don't feel capable.
The problem is, if I don't find a way to bring my life under control, I will end up back in the hospital. In fact, last week, in the middle of a very stressful day at work, I almost passed out again. This time I noted everything that had happened leading up to it and concluded that the doctors are right - I stress on my own and then I feed off of everybody else's stress. I literally empathize my way to illness.
The funny thing is, doctors have been telling me this since I was a teen and I'll be honest, I laughed it off. The first doctor who told me that, I spent years thinking he was a quack. Counselors have been blunt and told me most of my mental pain comes from taking on the issues of others. And now, not one but four doctors, have recently told me the same thing - I feel too much.
That's really hard to hear because I pride myself on helping other people, trying to assuage their pains, having a killer work ethic and basically taking care of the world. I now must seek a way to be myself and yet close off enough to keep my health.
Just writing this helps, at least for the moment. I feel like I am at my first meeting of some sort - "I'm Kate and I am a care-oholic". So, I am open to any ideas you have, 'steps' I might take to stop this spin. For now, I better go home, been here too long again.
Yours in Health,
Kate
Basically, my body does not navigate stress as well as it once did. So, doctors orders are - "Don't stress as much". Um, how much did I pay for that?
I know, the upside is - they say my heart is healthy, I do not have a brain tumor, I do not have an ulcer, I do not have arterial damage, I do not have leukemia, I do not have high blood pressure, I do not have diabetes, I do not have a lot of things. And I am grateful for all of the above.
The one struggle I have is, how do I deal with this? I mean on any given day I have so much to do for work, that if I wasn't borderline ADD, I would never be able to switch gears and make it all happen.
It's been suggested I workout more, take up meditation and find a hobby outside of work. All very good suggestions. But then I stop and think, how? Where does any of this fit? By the time I get home, I am exhausted. If it doesn't involve a remote control, I don't feel capable.
The problem is, if I don't find a way to bring my life under control, I will end up back in the hospital. In fact, last week, in the middle of a very stressful day at work, I almost passed out again. This time I noted everything that had happened leading up to it and concluded that the doctors are right - I stress on my own and then I feed off of everybody else's stress. I literally empathize my way to illness.
The funny thing is, doctors have been telling me this since I was a teen and I'll be honest, I laughed it off. The first doctor who told me that, I spent years thinking he was a quack. Counselors have been blunt and told me most of my mental pain comes from taking on the issues of others. And now, not one but four doctors, have recently told me the same thing - I feel too much.
That's really hard to hear because I pride myself on helping other people, trying to assuage their pains, having a killer work ethic and basically taking care of the world. I now must seek a way to be myself and yet close off enough to keep my health.
Just writing this helps, at least for the moment. I feel like I am at my first meeting of some sort - "I'm Kate and I am a care-oholic". So, I am open to any ideas you have, 'steps' I might take to stop this spin. For now, I better go home, been here too long again.
Yours in Health,
Kate
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