Thankful Thursday - Sickness

You may have noticed in my last post that yes, again, I have a cold.

Yes, I am one of the most sickly persons EVER.

But I can tell exactly when I'm GOING to get sick, soooo.... it's never a surprise. Well, I guess there's the odd time I'm all, wait, what? But usually, there's a I'm-going-to-be-sick formula:

lack of sleep + close vicinity to a sick person = one out-of-commissioned me

If I meet up with a sick person and I'm NOT run-down tired from not sleeping, I won't get sick. If I'm run-down tired and manage to not run into any sick people, I won't get sick. 

I went to the doctor about it once - WHY the heck am I SICK all the time? But there's nothing weird about me, I just come up against something I haven't the immunity for for whatever reason - exhaustion, ex-mono-patient, or because it's H1N1 or something intense - and then I'm downed. 

LATELY, I've really NOT been sick much.  I mean, I was sick for about three days last month, and then, obviously, this month have been felled (I babysat a little girl with the vestiges of a cold last week because Little Miss was in need of a playmate and the little girl's mother was in need of a serious break due to a little brother not sleeping through the previous night - follow it up with a sleep-lacking night for me and here I am). BUT in previous months I've NOT GOTTEN SICK.  Which...was weird.  There were a couple of times, even, when both Mr. Man and Little Miss were sick and I nursed them back to health without getting ill myself.... I know. FREAKY. 

Anyway, so I'm a sick person. Whatever. I'm over it. 

WHAT does this have to do with Thankful Thursday? Well, I hope more than last week's ode-to-V tangent! 

Thankful Thursday

the illness edition

yes, that's right.

1) TISSUES

(from: http://scottdesignworks.com/portfolio_toro.html which is NEAT! Take two seconds and read about this guy's 'tissue ring' - I'd buy that!)

Okay, so. I'm sick. And, as goes with being sick, full of.....gunk.  Which is pretty gross. 

Imagine life BEFORE tissues? I mean, how many times is too many to REALLY blow your nose in a handkerchief? Catching the odd dribble or whatever in it and shoving it back in your pocket, fine. But ohmigosh, if I had to do that repeatedly with my I'm-sick-and-in-the-process-of-EMPTYING nose-blows? shudder And then HAND-WASH it on a washboard? All the dried crusties? Ew, no THANK-you! I'd probably go through hankies like they were disposables....

THANKS FOR TISSUES!

2) SICK DAYS

(from: http://health.slides.kaboose.com/133-top-ten-sick-day-movies-for-grown-ups)

Okay, so I'm a stay-at-home Mom at the moment, so I don't have a boss to call in to or a desk full of paperwork that I'm leaving undone (actually.....) BUT occasionally, I get to take a sick day anyway.  Sometimes Mr. Man is home (i.e. a weekend) and sometimes I'll send Little Miss to the (uber-fantastical, can't-live-without-her) neighbour for the day.  Which is brilliant, because, even though I'm SICK, which isn't ideal, I have the ENTIRE DAY to do ANYTHING I WANT.

Of course, being sick, the only thing I want to do is nothing. But honestly, who doesn't NEED a day of nothing every now and then?? When I'm sick I hunker down in bed or on the couch with a giant drink, a remote, a box of tissue, a phone (so I don't have to get up to see it's a telemarketer I don't want to talk to), a book (sometimes I'm so sick I'm not up to reading - ever had that? Oy)...... you get everything you might possibly need within arms' reach of you, dive under a snuggly blanket, and spend your ENTIRE DAY there. 

Because is there really a better remedy for anything other than rest?

Sick days I get to watch favourite movies, movies I've been wanting to watch but haven't had a chance before. Or this week, I organized my many many partially-started/finished scrapbooks and worked in Studio J to fill in the blanks (did 10 two-page layouts of Little Miss' un-scrapped baby pictures the other day. FROM MY COUCH while watching episode after episode of Angel on Netflix).  Sometimes I read books when I'm sick...you may recall I love to read.  I nap on sick days.  

Sick days rock my socks. 

You know, except the being sick part. 

Thanks for sick days, Mr. Man & awesome neighbour! And whoever else has ever given me a day off to just be sick. 

3) MEDDLESOME GET-BETTER SUGGESTIONS

(from: http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2008/02/natural-cold-remedies-for-children.html)

Soooooo you MAY remember that I don't ALWAYS feel grateful for this... AND, depending on how close we are and how out-of-it-ill you were the day you gave me a suggestion on how to get better, you may have EXPERIENCED the the non-grateful side of me - SORRY!

My body does NOT respond to home remedies for the common cold.  Not herbs, spices, blends, vapours, whatever.  Generally a cold takes about 14 days to fully come and go, aaaaaand it will take my body 14 days with or without all the poking, prodding, and trying. So that's fine.

But you know what? As much as it drives me absolutely bonkers and I, in my sick-not-thinking-straight-gross-induced haze of thought can sometimes be OFFENDED by the obvious assumption that I'm a moron....

...I'm GRATEFUL.

No, really!

I mean, to be THAT annoyed by near CONSTANT suggestion of oh-do-this-oh-try-that-oh-this-gag-inducing-crazy-upside-down-dangling-witch-voodoo-remedy-WORKS...

...I MUST be surrounded by people who love me and care about me and want me to get better quickly. 

And THAT is not an annoying thought. It's ridiculously humbling, really.  Securing, really. With the bombardment of unsolicited advice that comes my way when I'm ill it seems highly unlikely that I'll be able to fly under the radar if anything really serious ever came my way.  Did you ever see that video of a guy in NYC saving a woman from a mugging and being stabbed in the process, and then he was just left there to bleed out and die? People walked by, some even stopped and looked at him, but no one helped HIM. No one who passed him stopped long enough to assess that hey, this dude is DYING.  (Not going to go looking for it to post because it SUCKS)

I hope it's obvious that I'm not naive enough to think that something horrific could happen to me at any moment of any day.  But being barraged by well wishes and well-meaning advisers sure makes me confident that there is a MASS of people who WOULD stop for me. And that in itself is comforting.

Though I don't think it will speed up my cold... ;)

4) DRUGS

(from: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/cold-and-cough-medicine-dangerous-for-children/)

So, this is along the vein of the tissue thinking. Even though I RARELY use them there are times when I really need to be functional even though I'm sick, and I pop an Advil cold & sinus or a Tylenol flu to get me through.  They usually clear me up just enough to do what I gotta' do without passing out aaaaaand then I can go back to wallowing in my sickness.

And really, as often-sick as I get, I hardly ever ever use these.  USUALLY don't feel it necessary.

But man oh man.... ever read your history books about way-back-in-the-days-of-only-hankies when one nasty cold was the end of a person?  A cold just escalated and escalated until it became life-threatening pneumonia or something? And how many people DIED from that??

Thank GOODNESS for medicine.

5) HEALTH

(from: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/c/chronic_disease.asp)

YES, health. Yes, I am one of the sickest people you know. I know I know.

But it's JUST A COLD!

I DO NOT currently have really anything 'wrong' with me.  You know?  I don't have any compromising condition that I have to monitor or deal with day in and day out - unless you count marriage? BOOM! JUST KIDDING, Mr. Man! LOVE you! O:-) - I don't have to stick myself with needles or test my blood or have specific, restrictive diet requirements like my diabetic, factor-5 lyden (spelling? Anyone?), GD, or another-thing-I-can't-remember friends do.  I'm not confined to a wheelchair or scooter like my friend CP from class, or that little boy with MD is going to deteriorate to.  My coughing fits are either tied to my head colds or the fact that I sometimes scarf up my food too fast and choke on it, unlike that new little baby with CF is going to experience in her life as her parents are taught how to POUND on her back to loosen the mucous in her chest so she can breathe again.  I'm not even asthmatic like the neighbour-boy for whom common colds quickly become bronchitis and who has to have puffers to open a constricting airway.  I haven't been hospitalized for gallstones like two girlfriends of mine.  I'm not currently battling crippling mental illness like depression (been there, done that. Won that fight...for now, anyway), anxiety, ADHD, or the unbelievably horrific schizophrenia (ohmigoodness, have some time? Read this - Jani's Journey - ShopGirl shared it about a week ago aaaaaand it's unbelievable).

I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm not.  Sure, I have a cold and I get sick sometimes.  But I'm healthy.

And what a blessing.

The Game Plan

I have a confession to make.

Which is okay, right? Since this IS "Confessions of a Kin Major" I'm SUPPOSED to have deep dark secrets to share with the world here, right?

Obviously, if I were perfect, as I know you all like to think (haaaaaaahahahahaha) I'd never have anything wrong about myself to report.... but then I would have named the blog something else.  Booyah, chalk one up for logic!

Okay, ready? Here it goes:

I haven't been running. 

(from: http://hyunjunra.glogster.com/)

And you know what, when I HAVE fit running into my day, or week, or whatever lately.... I suck at it.  Like, REALLY bad.

I'm looking back on the last few years in my head and trying to figure out how I got into running in the first place, and how I managed to get "good" at it - I've never been good, but for ME I've been awesome.  But lately, the last few months lately, I just....can't get INTO it.  I just can't! It's SO WEIRD. So yes, I ran further the other week than I ever had before in a week, but that was an anomaly week. Which, you know, stop-and-start type regular-exercise-behaviour is exactly what we're looking for.

The first time I ever ever ran 5K without stopping I was just trudging along trying to see if I COULD do it, paying no attention to speed.  It took me 38 minutes.  Last week I ran 5K on my treadmill trying to give it my all.....and it took me 38 minutes. Which is MORE than 10 minutes slower than my personal best, at LEAST 8 minutes longer than it 'should' take me even on an 'off' day aaaaaaaand.... yeah.  It's just not good.

I can't break through my mental block when I'm running lately.  And it's driving me nuts. And it's not FUN.

So I haven't been running.

So I haven't been losing any of the oodles-of-weight I packed on last year.  Which is unfortunate because it's slowly getting warmer aaaand all my warm clothes are currently size 8 and I'm pretty sure I SHOULD be wearing at least a 12 or 14 at the moment.

Brilliant.

But I have an idea, I'm actually excited about... I just got a chest cold like, the day after we mapped out the idea (we - the Food Addict, Mr. Man and I had an actual sit-down meeting last week with note-taking and commitment making and blah blah blah.... it was silly, fun, and hopefully helpful.  All three of us made our plans, and having the others there - at least FA and I - have someone to keep accountable to. Anyway) aaaaand have been doing oodles of RESTING trying to get rid of all signs of this cold before the play starts next weekend - SO glad I'm sick BEFORE the play and not DURING it this year, BY the by.

Anyway, after my brief stint of waking up at 6 for daycare we KNOW that I CAN get up in the mornings. So now it's just making our nighttime habits and realigning my own thought-patterns such that they encourage earlier mornings.  Mr. Man and I have instituted a bedtime, whereas previously we were staying up too late watching tv we just make sure to get our together-time in earlier and get to bed!  And now, when I wake up at 7 (or before) I'm AWAKE.

It's weird.

(Except the days since I've been sick - I sleep a lot more when I'm sick).

With getting up at NORMAL morning times there's enough time for me to exercise before the day gets going, which is AWESOME! So during the week I'm going to sort of play it by ear and "rotate" through a bunch of things, so I don't get BORED, get my cardio & resistance in, and keep my body guessing.  Here's the current list:

• P90X Plyometrics - my FAVE of the P90X workouts, and it will be AWESOME in prepping for soccer season.
• Biggest Loser "Cardio Max" dvd that I've had for ages - has options on it so workout can be anywhere from 30 - 50 minutes long, which is great.  Aaaand Bob used to kick my butt like crazy when I tried this before. 
• a NEW (to me, anyway) Biggest Loser dvd I found in a three-pack at Costco with Jillian called "Last Chance Workout" which is a circuit training workout - 35-55minutes long depending on the options I pick
• Running - NO I don't want to run all the time, but getting in one or two runs a week to keep me mobile will be essential for soccer, as well.
• Yoga/yogilates - I NEED to get back to this. My posture is so bad lately it's painful, and that's always in the past been the first thing I've noticed gets better when I do yoga.  But trying to figure out how to fit this in regularly AND get in my cardio etc was making my head hurt - my yogilates videos are 45min and 60min respectively.  BUT my new BL 3-pack has a yoga dvd in it with 2 different 30min yoga workouts, so YAY for variation in the yoga options, too! This excites me. hahaha
• Oh yeah, and P90X chest & back. This workout is intense, especially for an upper-body weakling like myself, but I LIKE it!  Aaand while it specifically targets, obviously, the chest and back, by virtue of those being key, core muscle groups, everything else is hit while doing it - can YOU do a pushup/pullup without engaging your triceps and biceps? How about those abs for stabilization (excellent practice for runners, by the by)? 

So, to the Food Addict, who has taken our meeting and run with it (no pun intended) and has been making some awesome strides in the last few days with HER plans, I'm SORRY I haven't joined you yet and have been derailed by this cold, but I'm still on board.

Maybe one day I'll get my 5K back down to -30 minutes where it belongs, but in the meantime, I'm just going to play around and do whatever feels like what I want to get done that day.  But SOMETHING. :-)  If I remember I'll have to finish posts with a short report on the day's activities.