Being Sick

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I used to get sick all the time. Between the years of 2007 and 2009 I was very sick. I acquired mono in 2007 and was off of work for nearly six months. Following that were bouts of colds, flus, body aches, and strep throat. In 2009, after going to see Nine Inch Nails in Chicago and Noblesville I contracted a very terrible flu virus. I refer to it now as NINflu, but I’m unsure of whether it was the normal flu or swine flu. It lasted two terrible weeks. Then something magical happened, I never got sick again. From the period of May of 2009 to now, I never got a single cold. It’s like my immune system said, “I’ve had enough, there will be no more pushing me around.”

Around the same time I started getting into the whole, “alternative medicine” philosophy. It is interesting to me that it is called alternative medicine, because it is indeed original medicine. How taking care of the body the way it was originally intended to be is alternative, is beyond me. There are many people who have embraced self care as their medicine and they rarely catch everyday sicknesses. From all of the things I’ve read, and many of the things I have myself done, it seems like doing the following will really keep a person from getting sick:

Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables (Organic preferably for added nutritional value)


Taking vitamins and supplements to aid with the lack of nutrients in our food supply.

Limited amount of junk food, processed food, and foods high in salts, and refined sugar,

Limited alcohol intake

Sleeping 7-9 hours during the night

Low stress level, and managing stress properly when it is high

Doing cardio exercise at least 30 minutes a day

Not over-sanitizing  (Sometimes we really need to put the hand sanitizer away!!!)

Taking antibiotics only when necessary (Too many antibiotics make our immune systems sad)

Having a positive attitude about life

Disregarding sickness (This doesn’t mean ignoring it when its present in your own body. It means ignoring it when you don’t have it and everyone else does. I am a big believer that what we focus our attention on comes to us. To me the statement, “Stay away from me, don’t get me sick” really mean, “Please, bring sickness my way. It is clearly important to me, otherwise I would be focusing on something else.”)

I have done most of these things within the past two years. There are some things that I haven’t done, that I need to start doing. Here is my personal list:

The things crossed out are the things that I do on a regular basis.

Eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables (Organic preferably for added nutritional value)

Taking vitamins and supplements to aid with the lack of nutrients in our food supply.

Limited amount of junk food, processed food, and foods high in salts, and refined sugar,

Limited alcohol intake

Sleeping 7-9 hours during the night

Low stress level, and managing stress properly when it is high

Doing cardio exercise at least 30 minutes a day (Waitressing really helps with this one)

*Not over-sanatizing

*Taking antibiotics only when necessary

Having a positive attitude about life

*Disregarding sickness

I would say of the above, the most important is the 7-9 hours of sleep. It is something I rarely budge on and I think it does wonders for making a better life. I know how I feel on the days where I don’t get enough sleep. It is simply awful. Doing that on a regular basis would be hell. It definitely seems like the fastest route to chronic illness.

All of that said, I currently have 1.) a chronic sinus infection, and 2.) an acute sinus infection. I have had a sinus infection for six months. I did nothing about it. I really didn’t want to taken an antibiotic. After enough pleading from those around me, I was finally convinced that taking an antibiotic after not having taken one in two and a half years would probably be okay. Because I believe the things I wrote above are true, I’ve been struggling to figure out how I contracted this sinus infection. For six months, I kept pretending it wasn’t a real sickness. My sinus infection really only consisted of three main symptoms for the six month period: throat drainage,  an occasional light morning cough, and intensely painful sinus headaches. The sinus headaches were simply intolerable. I couldn’t and can’t function with them, without taking a pseudoephedrine medicine. I started to weigh the pros and cons of taking an antibiotic vs. taking pseudoephedrine many times a week. I’ve just come to terms with the fact that it would be better to use the antibiotic.

I know one thing is for sure, I do not get enough vitamin C in my diet. I’m definitely going to up my intake of that starting today, to try to prevent this from occurring again. I’m also going to start taking all of my vitamins everyday. I bought a pill box yesterday to aid my memory.


I originally titled this blog, Going to the Doctor and Being Sick, but I decided to wait for another post to rant about going to the doctor.

Zen Brain

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t’s going from strange to stranger
Every year

I take it back
You’re panicking
I take it back
I just don’t know
I really thought I wanted to go
But when you’re close
You look through me just like a ghost
I like sleeping
I’m only safe when I’m dreaming
I need a new heart
This one’s hollow always scheming
You wait for summer
And then you wait for winter
But there’s a total lack of splendor

Zen brain
Throw away your crushes
All your childhood crutches away
Super brain
Never scared of nothing
Violence or loving my way

 

 

nada surf

my counselor to me

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“You have only child characteristics on steroids…” She wasn’t being mean of course. She was telling the truth. The question is, do I want to relinquish these characteristics to enable myself to carry on a meaningful relationship; or, do I want to push myself into the sea of loneliness in the name of independence and control? God love him for loving me enough to allow me to learn all this stuff about myself…. Maybe I should let Trent scream me into shape :) .

Marianne Williamson on Love

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“People ask, “Why can’t I find a deep, intimate romance?” The question is understandable, because people are lonely. An intimate romantic love, however, is like taking graduate work toward a Ph.D. in the ways of love, and many of us are hardly out of elementary school. When we’re not in a relationship, the ego makes it seem as though all the pain would go away if we were. If the relationship lasts, however, it will actually bring up much of our existential pain to the surface. That’s part of its purpose. It will demand all of our skills at compassion, acceptance, release, forgiveness, and selflessness. We might tend to forget the challenges involved in a relationship when we’re not in one, but we remember them clearly enough once we are.

Relationships don’t necessarily take the pain away. The only thing that takes the pain away is a healing of the things that cause the pain. It isn’t the absence of other people in our lives that causes us the pain, but rather what we do with them when they’re there. Pure love asks for nothing but peace for a brother, knowing that only in that can we be at peace ourselves. How many times have I had to ask myself, “Do I want to be at peace, or do I want him to call?” Pure love of another person is a restoration of our heart line. The ego, therefore, is marshaled against it. It will do everything it can to block the experience of love in any form. When two people come together in Love, the walls that appear to separate us disappear… When we fall in love, we have an instant when we see the total truth about someone. They are perfect. That’s not just our imagination.

But the craziness sets in quickly. As soon as the light appears, the ego begins its powerful drive to shut it out. All of a sudden, the perfection we glanced on the spiritual planes becomes projected onto the physical. Instead of realizing that spiritual perfection and physical, material imperfection exist simultaneously, we start looking for material, physical perfection. We think someone’s spiritual perfection isn’t enough. They have to have the perfect clothes as well. They have to be hip. They have to dazzle. And so no one gets to be a human anymore. We idealize on another, and when someone doesn’t live up to the ideal, we’re disappointed.

Rejecting someone because they are human has become a collective neurosis. People ask, “When will my soul mate get here?” But praying for the right person is useless if we are not ready to receive him or her. Our soul mates are human beings just like we are, going through the normal processes of growth. No one is ever “finished.” The top of one mountain is always the bottom of another, and even if someone meets us when we feel, “on top” of things, the chances are good that very soon we’ll be going through something that challenges us. It is our commitment to growth that makes it inevitable. But the ego doesn’t like the look of people when they’re “going through things.” Its unattractive. As in every other area, the problem in relationships is rarely that we haven’t had wonderful opportunities or met wonderful people. The problem is, we haven’t known how to take the greatest advantage of the opportunities we’ve had. Sometimes we didn’t recognize at the time how wonderful those people were. Love is all around us. The ego is the block to our awareness of love’s presence. The idea that there is a perfect person who just hasn’t arrived yet is a major block.”

Excerpt from A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson.

I bought this book almost two years ago and it completely revolutionized my mindset. Every time I read it, I gain more and more!!! GET IT—-> http://www.amazon.com/Return-Love-Reflections-Principles-Miracles/dp/0060927488/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1313635512&sr=8-3