This is a guest post from my cousin Stephanie who was recently hospitalized on Long Island. The only changes I made were to add the pictures. It is re-printed with the authors permission.
Recently, I started to not feel well, had a low grade fever. I spoke with my Dr. and because I am immunocompromised, I was given an appointment to be tested for COVID19. I was told to go home and self isolate in my bedroom. I had a horrible night, fever, chills, body aches , severe stomach pain. About 5 am I sent Gerry a picture of the thermometer reading 102.
When I was younger, I looked at health as the composite of two things. Eating a healthy diet and getting plenty of exercise. If you did these two things, you would be healthy. Mother Fran and Papa Jack took care of the healthy diet for everyone in my household so all I had to do was get plenty of exercise. Wait, they helped ensure that as well. My parents were always kicking us out of the house to go and play, go weed the garden, go shovel the dirt around the pond. Plus my siblings and I loved to shoot hoops, ride bikes, climb trees and play catch. Getting exercise as a kid growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s was easy.
Now that I have Embraced the Gray, I know that living a healthy lifestyle is about so much more than food and movement. These two things are absolutely critical but they are only two pieces of a larger puzzle. I have done a ton of reading on this topic and listened to many podcasts and audiobooks that it is time I summarize for myself (and for anyone else interested) what a more complete health puzzle looks like. This is important to me because energizing others to choose health is part of how I live my life strategically!
I use this blog as my therapy. There, I said it – my secret is out. I don’t write for you or for my friends or family. I write this blog for me. I write to keep myself sane. I write to figure out how to solve big and small problems. I write to make better decisions day in and day out. If you follow this blog at all, you know that I have been slacking lately. One of my goals for 2018 was to average six posts per month. I am currently averaging less than four. Oops – time to get back on track.
People spend a lot of time talking about trying to get healthy and the need to take better care of themselves. Is health something that can be obtained and maintained? Are people in general healthy or unhealthy? Is it simply an illusion? I mean most of us spend our lives thinking about and attempting to obtain it, maintain it and don’t want to lose it.
When I talk about health, I don’t mean just the absence of illness or injury. When I talk about health, I mean the whole shebang! I mean eating nutritious food, getting enough sleep, being physically active, having positive relationships and taking care of oneself. Taking care of oneself includes those little daily habits we engage in and decisions we make in the quest to optimize health.
The other morning, I was heading out to walk the dog and stopped to check out the handy, dandy weather app on my iPhone. It had one of those red banners across the top warning me of icy conditions. Score 1 for being prepared. Instead of my hiking boots, I pulled on my winter boots for improved traction, leashed up the pup and headed out the front door. I stepped off the porch, onto the first step and proceeded to slide, feet first down the 4 steps onto the cement landing.
I laid on the ground for a minute cursing and trying to move all of my limbs to see what was hurt. My left wrist and shoulder seemed to haven taken the brunt of the fall and both felt sore. Other than that and my tuckus being wet from laying on the ground I seemed to be fine. My honey heard the fall and opened the door to check on me (I figured she really heard me cursing)! I got up and proceeded to take the poor dog for her walk. Everything was slippery and it was one of those really short walks where my sole focus was not to fall again.
As a nation, we spend over $3 Trillion (Trillion with a capital T) annually on healthcare. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 75% of this goes toward the treatment of chronic disease. Medicare spends 93 cents of every dollar and Medicaid 83 cents of every dollar to treat chronic disease. Chronic disease is responsible for 7/10 deaths in this country. Sobering right?
With the exception of eating out on occasion, we cook and eat pretty much all meals from scratch. Needless to say, there is a lot of chopping, dicing, peeling, and mixing going on in my kitchen. Once the prep work is done I am sauteing, roasting, baking and frying my food until it is ready to devour. I read plenty of articles that say that it is expensive to eat real food. That one reason people eat prepared foods, fast food and junk food is because it is cheaper than healthy food.
I can’t quite wrap my head around that argument.
Prepared food, fast food and junk food are not in the same category as real food. They contain copious amounts of sugar, salt, hydrogenated oils and refined flour. Folks who subsist on this “food” are often overfed but undernourished. They take in too many calories but don’t get adequate nutrition. Did you know you can be morbidly obese and malnourished at the same time? When we eat like this we are gaining weight but starving for the vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients that our bodies require for health. Over 60% of us are considered overweight in this country.
The holidays are over and winter stretches ahead like a long, dark, daunting tunnel with only 1 exit. I can choose to keep my head low, plod along muttering about the arctic cold and wind or I can sit back and enjoy the warmth of the fireplace and the good company I keep. I remind myself frequently that my perspective on any given situation makes all of the difference. If my perspective does not keep me on the path I have chosen then it is time to change it!
Work has been slow for the last week which is no big deal, however I have to stop myself from getting anxious about an upcoming tiny paycheck. When I don’t work a typical 9-5 gig it is easy to lose focus, forget why I work per diem instead of harnessing the security of a full-time job.
Oh my goodness it is COLD outside. Not just a little cold. Not zip up your jacket and grab a hat cold. Nope, old man winter has taken up residence in Central New York. Going outdoors, unprepared can take your breath away.
I beg to differ!
I bundled up the other day to walk Fenway. I had long johns, jeans, a long sleeve shirt, my heaviest sweater, a winter vest and a heavy jacket. I had a neck warmer with a hat attached and another hat plus my hood. I had winter gloves on my hands and 2 pairs of socks under my winter boots. The weather app on my phone said it was 1 degree with a real feel of -13. I was so bundled, I could hardly move.
