I have blogged to commemorate the completion of 100, 200, 300, and 400 days from the official start of shelter-in-place in California in March, 2020. So it is only fitting that I complete the series with a blog post on the 500th day too, which is just round the corner--July 29 to be precise. But that is a weekday and I am in the mood to write now. Just me and my laptop enjoying the sun in the late-ish part of Sunday--with the dog taking a siesta next to me--before another work week starts.
A lot has happened since my last blog in late May. At that point I was barely coming out of the worst health scare of my life, being diagnosed with autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis). The rheumatologist got me started on Methotrexate, a low dose chemo treatment, commonly used as an immunosuppressant. He told me that it would take 4-5 weeks before the medicine starts showing its effect, and that proved to be true. I have been feeling much better since the beginning of July. In fact, though there were some trepidations, I felt like I was fit enough to take a long-ish family road trip to Santa Barbara to enjoy the July 4th fireworks on the beach! And it was totally worth it! It became the slightly-belated but perfect celebration of our 25th wedding anniversary.
The improvement in health can be attributed to a combination of factors. Of course the medicine has a huge role. But I have also incorporated some variations in lifestyle, including cutting down on tennis significantly and introducing yoga to my regimen. But the most significant lifestyle change is enrolling in a 10-week-long nutritional bootcamp and switching to an anti-inflammatory diet. There are lots and lots of restrictions in the diet, but nothing motivates me like results. Though the bootcamp is targeted to reversing diabetes, I was told it would help me with my arthritis too, and that is exactly what has happened. I am half-way done with the program and have been off of the diabetes medication for a whole week now. The joint pain is much less, to the extent that I can now sleep through the night without getting up in the middle of the night because of leg cramps, play tennis (doubles) for 2 hours in the weekend, and spend regular hours at work without crashing down in the middle of the day due to fatigue.
Speaking of work, I have to say I feel for the management. Our firm management put so much effort to encourage the employees to come back to work under a hybrid model, where you are "encouraged" work from the office two or more days each week if you are vaccinated and not otherwise "immuno-compromised". Though I am now technically an immuno-compromised employee, I am doing well enough to go to office two days a week. There was gourmet catered food, that could be customized to suit your food restrictions. For the first time in my life, I became a "fancy" eater and selected gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan entrees, and they were still delicious! It was really nice to spend time in person with our summer mentees. But then with the emergence of the delta variant of the coronavirus, the management had to backtrack a little, and had to grant the employees the option to work fully remotely all five days a week. So from tomorrow onwards, I will work fully remotely again, at least most of the weeks until the policy changes.
One of the perks of working from home is to be able to watch how your son spends his time throughout the day. It has been thrilling to observe a responsible young man emerging out of my little boy, who is going to turn sixteen in a few weeks. He has utilized the flexibility of summer to get done with the prerequisites of getting a driver's license. Now I am enjoying being chauffeured around, as he fulfills his 50-hours of supervised driving requirement. He is also vaccinated now, and has been hanging out with other vaccinated friends in the local playground. I don't have to worry about his social isolation any longer.
All in all, I have to say--and my family totally agrees--that I seem to have mostly got my mojo back. I badly needed that, because I was not sure what to do with the person that I was two and a half months back, who was not only physically suffering, but was also scared to the core thinking that the life that she knew before the autoimmune diagnosis would never come back. Well, I can say it has not come back 100%, but I am OK with that. I still think this was the universe's conspiracy to make me take a closer look at myself and re-prioritize things, including being more careful about what I eat. The journey of self-discovery continues.
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