My health is a like a yo-yo. That’s what they call a simile. My health is also a yo-yo, which is a metaphor. In both cases it’s a complete pain in the ass.

What do I mean by all this obfuscation? Simply, that no matter what I seem to do my health goes up and down without a health of a lot of rhyme or reason. The only thing I can consistently do that has a positive effect is not eat or eat very little or generally fast and maintain a liquid diet. It almost has me wanting to return to the diet I knew in my twenties, pretty much the only thing I could afford to ensure I had enough calories to get through my days, that is, a Super Big Gulp nursed throughout the day. Liquid diet. It worked.

It gets pretty frustrating. Exercising, exercising, and more exercising, months of it, only to sit down to work and find myself experiencing extreme brain fog on and off, or dizzy spells, or pains in random parts of my body, inflammation here, inflammation there, inflammation everywhere. Sure, as I’ve gotten older it’s only gotten worse, and my age old go to for pain, a few well placed shots of whisky, doesn’t do me a hell of a lot of good anymore.

Yeah, during COVID, I, like so many, turned to drink. I never really did before. Sure, every now and then I’d slam down a few more than I really needed (mostly because it put a blanket over my social anxieties and natural introversion—more on that another time), but I also found that, with no “real” help from doctors over the last fifteen or so years, whiskey was an available alternative that worked. And not just worked. I discovered in the first many months of the pandemic that overall I felt better the entire next day—as long as I didn’t cross the line from getting a good buzz and keeping my diet light to getting half-wasted and feeling so euphoric I’d eat an entire American sized meal followed by munchies of various sorts—which of course meant the next day I’d not only be hung over but experiencing extreme levels of inflammation throughout my body care my guts which, if I’m to believe what the “experts” have been telling me every time they stick a camera up my ass, are just A-Okay.

There are some things I do—or don’t do—which I know are essential to keeping the yo-you from hitting me in the face. First, I don’t eat breakfast. If I eat lunch it’s something light and easy to digest; a fruit or cup of noodles (the latter I usually make with stomach mending ingredients such as bone broth, pepper, cayenne, and Turmeric). If it feels like my stomach isn’t doing anything, I down a fair amount of Miralax and water. If I’m having more inflammation than normal I stay away from coffee. And while it’s been a real change of behavior I no longer eat and hour or two before bed (as an insomniac this was something I did for years as a full stomach generally helps one get drowsy). If it’s nice out I’ll take a break during my work day and go on a thirty to sixty minute walk and every couple of days I hit the gym for an hour or so. Every couple of weeks I’ll order the hottest dish from my favorite local Indian place and the spices will help clear things out and every Friday or Saturday I’ll go out for drinks (one of many things I do on my own for a myriad of reasons which I’m sure to blabber about at some point) which’ll kill any shit bacteria acting up in my gut. And of course water, water, water, throughout the day. And good sleep! Fuck, I won’t ever give up good sleep after spending most of my life fighting for it!

But there’s no way to tell how I’ll feel tomorrow morning. Will I wake up, get out of bed, and suddenly feel like I’m going to have a heart attack and just push through it? Lyme (and other related infections—as well as the lack of a diagnosis/help from our wonderful American health professionals) and a stressful life (as well as abuse towards myself, but that, too, for another time) has really done a job on me. But I just push through. My parents beat that into me. What else can I do? While most people would be headed to the ER—or at least the walk-in clinic—during some of my worse episodes, I’ve realized that tends to be an expensive option where I’m bound to hit heads with incompetent doctors who won’t take the time (once they determine I’m not dying) to do anything besides send me home and tell me to see my doctor (of which I don’t currently have a good one—mine left for Colorado pre-pandemic—another story for another time).

I have, in some respects, been feeling better, though. I’m able, at least, to work for more than eight hours a day if I really want to and hell, I’m sitting here after a ten or so hour work day writing this felgercarb. And that’ll just have to be good enough!

Cheers and goodnight,

Aslynn