Category Archives: Health

NaNoWriMo: Race Time

This has been The Year of Running. Though I’ve spent a goodly portion of my life running, 2013 has included two half marathons, a Ragnar and countless 5Ks, not to mention a dedication to getting up and getting out there, regardless if I had something to train for or not. (Admittedly competing in two half-marathons…

NaNoWriMo: A Meditation on Sadness

So I started meditating this year. This summer, in fact. I’m admittedly the sort of person who is drawn to hippie things like a moth to a flame. I attribute much of this to the fact that what feels like my true calling in life – service, personal growth, health – is not anything I’m…

New moms owe us nothing

There are two times in life in which parents later regret a great deal many things: Most of the experiences they had in their younger days The first year after having their first child The common thread between the two, of course, is that both are littered with an exorbitant amount of hubris, the kind…

Snerf snort

Life with a toddler has translated into a week’s worth of some sort of illness a month. I’d love to say I’ve cracked the code in dealing with it, but I haven’t. I don’t even know if that’s possible. Or is it? I mean, she’s gonna get sick. I get that, and I’m not one…

The Difference A Year Makes

Just about this time last year I was recovering from sinus surgery, a surgery I was long overdue to have and that allowed me to breathe better than I ever had. As a result, I was able to run faster and work out harder. For the first time in my adult life I my actual…

A loaf of bread, a gallon of milk, a stick of butter, a box of wine and some peace

Abigail has been in the throes of a nasty virus. There have been catheters, late nights, no eating, blood work and lots and lots of screaming and crying. From everyone. Just kidding. There is nothing so simultaneously nerve-fraying and heart-breaking as a sick child. There’s nothing they can do, little you can do, and to…

No one sucks at meditation

Admittedly of the habits I’ve been working to break, along with stepping on the scale, daily meditation has been one where I have struggled. Of the 18 days I’ve been at it, I think I’ve done it about 10 times. But I’m committed to not giving up. Of the many mantras I’ve had coursing through…

Resetting things

So my hair isn’t falling out. I think. Upon further reflection – also known as “Obsessively examining every strand when I’m doing my hair” – it looks as though it’s breaking off, which lends credence to my doctor’s theory that this is stress-related and it’s a somewhat-delayed reaction to the stress I was feeling/absorbing/name-your-term in…

Back to the drawing board

So it’s not my thyroid. It’s not a particular iron or folate deficiency. It’s not another autoimmune disease. Why my hair has been falling out remains a mystery. That said, my doctor suspects stress, and mentioned that sometimes losing your hair is a delayed reaction to stress. An “after-the-fact” if you will. Which I suppose…

Hair today, gone for the past month

Since sometime around mid-June, I started losing a lot of hair. I mean, A LOT. “A lot” meaning that every day I shed what amounted to a pile of hair the size of a small field mouse. “A lot” that by month’s end we needed to get a plumber out to the house to unclog…

Week’s End of Operation Remove the Stick Out of My Rear

Thanks for all the great comments this week. I really appreciate them. Here’s the thing: I’m too old to apologize for how I am, you know? I was sitting on my back porch with my sister last night and somehow started talking about the family chores list we had when we were growing up and…

Easing Up

The best advice I’ve received on dealing with being in a funk is to practice radical self-care, whatever that looks like. For me in the past (and sometimes still in the present if it really calls for it), that’s usually translated into mainlining a bag of chips. The more potato-y, the better. Oftentimes it’s been…

New body, old body

I want to talk about the weight loss but it feels disingenuous. As we all know, there are rules – oh God, RULES – when it comes to how women can talk about their bodies, especially as it pertains to weight. 1) You can talk about the weight you’ve lost, but you have to be…