On Wednesday I was at the library, as I like to be, this time picking up the books Sinus Survival and Prescription for Nutritional Healing, which I found from Now Norma Knits. I had to wait for my mom to pick me up and suddenly I thought I needed to leave to find her, and as I flew by the aisles this title jumped out at me.

Of course I had to stop for it.

I think and act as if I’m a completely normal, healthy 20-year-old who can do anything, because, even though I’ve had asthma for as long as I can remember, few people take me seriously when I tell them that I have a disease and therefore can’t perform at the same level as actual normal, healthy people my age. So instead of fighting misguided P.E. teachers I ignored my body and my health and let my mother and my doctor worry about it, just following their directions and getting frustrated whenever things didn’t work right.

Now, however, this approach isn’t working for me. I keep getting sicker and sicker: each semester since I started college I’ve gotten really sick, and being stuck in a dorm room many miles from home and trying to breathe is not my idea of fun. This past April I alluded to being sick, but I didn’t really tell you much it: I could hardly breathe at all, I was taking a lot of medications and a doctor decided I had bronchitis combined with the asthma. Luckily I started to feel better after I got medications for that, but I don’t think I ever really recovered.

Which brings me to now. Last week I was supposed to be on vacation: rafting, hiking, enjoying the fresh air and exercise. Instead I was stuck inside, or shopping, or doing “less taxing” things that weren’t really fun, because my asthma was again flaring up, and I had no idea why (usually it’s because of a cold, which I didn’t really have). That’s when I requested the two books I mentioned earlier from the library. I decided that I am finally done of being the victim and I am now going to take care of myself. Especially with the rise of things like novel H1N1 flu: I get flu shots every year, and I’ll be the first in line for this one, but I need to get on the offensive so that I do not get sick.

After talking to my doctor on Monday that determination became even more clear, and I had all these words swirling around in my head: chronic disease, getting well, managing my health. On Wednesday I saw this title, and it simply clicked to me: I need to practice the art of getting well. It will help me to respect myself if I treat it as art, and I can always use the reminder to respect myself.

The thing is, though this book is marked as having been received in July 2003 by my library, when I got up to the counter to check it out, it wasn’t in the system. The woman at the counter let me go with the book as long as I made a note of when it is due and take it back on time. To me, it feels like it was placed there by a deity. As if a divine signal is trying to say to me: Yes. Take care of yourself. You’re worth it. We’ll make sure the resources are there for you.

So I guess I do have a bit of faith in the universe providing what you need, especially if it’s affirming the decisions you make, like taking care of your health. I’m not sure what I think of the book itself yet, though I would like a copy of it for myself, just to remind me of the title whenever I look at it: it’s an art of getting well, and it requires dedication and practice. And like other arts, it will certainly be rewarding.

Posting is going to be sporadic the next couple of weeks: I finally photographed the witchy socks, but free time is currently practically nonexistent. I’m trying to give myself time to relax before going to bed, and so when I finally finish with my day’s work at 11p.m. I have to decide between a myriad of things to do: should I answer e-mails? Should I read blogs from Google Reader? Should I finally check up on Scribble Society or that RPG I haven’t looked at in, uh… weeks?

Or should I give my eyes a rest at 11p.m. and turn off the computer and write a letter? Or write in my journal? Or turn on some music, close my eyes and work on a stockinette project (toast)? (Now I completely understand by what people mean when they say they like stockinette projects when their brain is mush. What will I do when I’m done?!) Maybe I could go for a walk?! My muscles could use some exercise (after an entire day of sitting and reading, because you know… it’s 11p.m.)

Really, today I wanted to get done at 10p.m., but… somehow that didn’t work. I’ve got quite a pattern going now of working until 11p.m. My only problem is not quite enough sleep: I could concentrate fairly well in the afternoon and evening, but in the morning I still wasted a couple of hours because I was too tired to concentrate.

Still working on that “balance” thing.

So I think I’m going to go wash some dishes, hang up my laundry, and drink some calming tea made for bedtime. Because I could use the help falling asleep with all the tension in my shoulders. And class comes fairly early tomorrow, and I have to be on this time around. I think tonight I’ll write in the journal for a little bit and knit until I fall asleep, which hopefully will be soon.

So for Becky, who is also having a frustrating stressful time and asked that I post this, I decided to post a few lists that I’ve had in my head while trying to Get Things Done.

Things I wasn’t allowing myself to do while this paper was unfinished:

• Update blog.
• Respond to non-urgent e-mails, comments on LJ, Facebook posts.
• Read Google Reader posts, unless I have decided it’s time for a Break.

Things, however, that I am most definitely allowing myself to do to help de-stress during the day:

• Go on long walks. (Okay, I wasn’t able to do this because of my sickness until YESTERDAY, when I took a lovely hour long walk instead of got work done. But seriously. After sitting in bed for two weeks? I need to get OUT!)
• Paint my nails during study breaks.
• Watch movies and knit late in the evening (why am I suddenly a night owl that can’t fall asleep before midnight?)

And things that were SUPPOSED to be my rewards for finishing this paper, but now I’m not sure if I can do them because I have such a headache and I feel so stressed out about all the things coming up in the next two weeks:

• Watch RENT! Which I rented from iTunes.
• Paint a picture!
• Play with my new Tarot cards!
• Party all weekend!
• Go to Prater, the amusement park and have lots of fun on the roller coasters. (This also means I need to feel completely healthy.)
• Answer e-mails and check up on sites I’ve been neglecting.

Now what do I do though? All I can feel is stress, stress, stress, and disappointment in how awful my paper is (it sucks. I really didn’t know what I was writing, but hey, it’s 5 pages). And headache. So yeah. I’m not really in the celebratory mood, but I am gonna go watch Wolverine tonight because I love Wolverine and that is definitely a way to celebrate.

So I thought I was managing my stress. Maybe not. But this still is a helpful list, don’t you think?

Hello again. I just got back from a refreshing, high-energy trip to Munich. Unfortunately, the whole time I was there I had a sore throat, cough, and a bit of a headache. Now I’m trying to get back to work and NOT get sick. I’m writing this while working on cooking a vegetable stew, which will both stretch out my food budget for a week and probably help my body fight whatever it is it’s fighting (though I hope it’s not pollen).

So my question is, what do you do when you’re feeling sick? Do you take cough suppressants and cold medicine and all that jazz? I really really hate medicine, so I have resisted all my life, but recently I’ve developed a fondness for (real) sudafed. Which I don’t have much of and the pharmacies are closed. I did give in and buy some throat lozenges/cough suppressant with menthol for my cough and sore throat. However, I’m trying to find things around the apartment to use to see if they help me feel better.

Things I’m doing/taking:

• Echinacea 3x/day
• Cold care tea with honey
• Putting honey in everything I can think of that it won’t taste weird in
• I learned that there are people who drink apple cider vinegar, so I decided I might as well try it. (some vinegar in a glass of water before eating.)
• And of course gargling salt water and snorting it up my nose as often as possible. Just to keep things moving in them thar nasal passages. I really want a neti pot, which are SO easy to find here, but I don’t want to buy things here that I can easily get in the U.S.
• Drinking lots of water and tea and eating soup!

What else is there to do from things I might have around the house?

EDIT: I also added a comment notification plugin… I’m planning on starting to reply to comments on the blog itself. The follow-up comments should ONLY be replies to the comment you made, so I’m making it checked by default. Hope you don’t mind.

I should mention right here and now that I’ve done a whole lot of going to restaurants lately just so I don’t have to deal with cooking food.

So! In the interest of trying to scatter up some interest in cooking, what are you favorite meals? Do you have any favorite vegetarian meals? How about recipes? What would you do if you were vegetarian, hate cooking but had a fast metabolism and tended toward hypoglycemia? I’m all ears. And stomach.

So I noticed that yes, when I don’t sleep at least 8 hours my acne is worse. On Monday, however, I went a step further and wondered whether this caffeine claim was correct, even the smaller amount of caffeine in black tea. Therefore, I decided on Tuesday I would not drink any black tea in the morning and see what happens.

As it worked out, I got about the same amount of sleep both nights—six hours. When I drank my black tea Monday morning I wasn’t thinking about doing an experiment on the effects of caffeine; rather, I was thinking more that everyone says that caffeine keeps you awake during the day, so hopefully it would help me stay awake after my mere six hours of sleep.

The rest of the day, quite frankly, sucked. I could hardly keep my eyes open during class. My brain felt like it was being sucked out of the back of my skull. I felt like I was radiating the aftertaste of black tea, like when I eat too much garlic and it comes out of my pores. And my skin—yeah. Definitely not spared the awful feeling. Very red and irritated. Definitely NOT a good health day.

You know what really sucked, though? I decided I felt this lack of sleep so badly I tried to take a nap in the afternoon, something I do rarely because I never fall asleep during the day (unless I’m sick) and I hardly am able to relax enough to just lay down for 20 minutes. Monday I wanted to try however, and I set my alarm for 20 minutes and climbed into bed. Four minutes later, I climbed out, too jittery to calm down and relax for twenty minutes. This was 4pm—I had had the tea at 7:30am!

It was probably around this time that I put two and two together and decided the next day I would go without tea in the morning to see what happened.

As it turns out, I couldn’t fall asleep again until later, so I probably slept the same amount Monday night (not enough). But no black tea for me. Instead I had some hot water sweetened with honey, since I wanted something hot to drink with breakfast and didn’t have herbal tea. I went to class. I felt a bit tired, but not crushingly weary. I was surprised at how good I felt.

And the rest of the day went like that. I could feel in the back of my mind some tiredness, but it was easy to push away to focus on what I was doing. I even attempted a nap in the afternoon—and it worked! I didn’t fall asleep but I laid down for twenty minutes, enough to calm down and feel refreshed afterward. Then I went out and played pool for a few hours and hung out with friends, always a bit tired but not so much that living was really hard.

So, the verdict? No more caffeine when I’m tired. I’ll drink black tea when I am fully awake and just want the taste, as I haven’t had such bad reactions when I do so. But I am done with drinking tea to “stay awake” when I haven’t had a full 7-8 hours of sleep. My body isn’t so weak as to need caffeine to stay awake on less sometimes.