The New Normal (Part 2)

Nine months ago I promised a prompt follow-up to the first part of a two part post. Here I am; slightly less prompt then I thought I would be. So much has happened since the last time I wrote but the funny thing is the more things change, the more they stay the same. Even though me writing about a vacation that took place over half a year ago complete with reference to my traveling pharmacy, digestion and thyroid issues and Julie-friendly snacks may sound familiar, I promise the content of part 2 is different from part 1. Where should I begin? Part 1 of this post I started off telling you about a panic attack I had while watching Independence Day during a nuerofeedback section while hooked up to electrodes. I don’t have another story like that, so maybe I should begin at the end… 

And things were going very well for a while. In addition to being extremely social I was swimming and slowly getting back in to strength training while still gaining minimal flexibility in the fifth year of my yoga practice. In fact, I was doing so well that if it wasn’t for my annoying food limitations and the fact I always carry around my thyroid meds and digestive enzymes just in case my day doesn’t go as planned, I probably would have forgotten the life changing health issues I've experienced over the last five and a half years.

Q: So Julie, how well were you really doing?

A: I was doing so well that I put my name in the lottery for the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim at the end of last year, and found out I “won the lottery” in mid-January.

Q: And what did you win?

A: I am glad you asked. I won the chance to swim a 4.4 mile race that took place on June 11^th (yes, that was two days ago) between the two spans of the bay bridge.  

Around the time I won the lottery, work also got very stressful. The stress eventually caught up with me and in early April I experienced a Hashimoto’s flare up, and with that came a whole new host of digestion issues. To add insult to injury I experienced a Lyme flare up about a month later. Suddenly I was not doing so well anymore. And that brings me to the present. Two days ago, I jumped in to the bay and swam 4.4 miles after having barely worked out during the past two months. That was definitely not how I had envisioned my training plan. While I feel better than I did in April and May, I still don’t feel that great. For those of you who knew me prior to this health roller coaster, you already know that it is perfectly normal for me to roll up to the start of a race woefully under trained with a smile on face ready to get it done. Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same. A full race report is in the works and will be delivered soon. I promise! 

In November of 2016 I traveled to Baja, Mexico with a group of wonderful friends for some fun in the sun. This was not the type of trip where we sat on the beach sipping adult beverages adorned with mini umbrellas while watching the locals play volley ball. We went on a swim trek. Over the course of 7 days we swam 21 kilometers in the Sea of Cortez in different areas accessible by boat from the beautiful remote island of Espiritu Santo where our campsite was located. We booked this trip in February 2016 through a company called Swim Trek. Immediately after I made the down payment I told myself I needed to start swimming again. It had been quite a while since I had been in a pool. And then I didn’t really start training for vacation until May when the outdoor pools opened in DC. The first couple of swims were rough and I began to second guess my vacation plans, but soon enough I slipped back in to my swimming groove and began to get really excited. 

Throughout the summer nothing out of the ordinary happened in terms of my health. I continued to adapt to working through my digestion issues while trying to have a social life. I attempted to swim twice a week but occasionally my inflammation was real bad, and I was too uncomfortable to work out, so I would swim once or zero times a week. By the time November rolled around I wasn’t sure I had trained enough but was ready to go to Mexico to swim or possibly spend a lot of time on the boat with the trip guides watching everyone else swim. I was so excited to be traveling that either scenario seemed alright with me. I was most concerned about fitting my traveling pharmacy and all of my Julie-friendly snacks along with all of my clothes and swimming gear in one suitcase so I wouldn’t have to pay for extra baggage fees.

The Swim Trek: Every morning on the island we would be served two breakfasts by the island chefs;

cold breakfast and then less than an hour later, warm breakfast. One would think that eating that much food before hopping in the ocean to swim would be counterproductive, but it didn’t seem to cause any problems. After second breakfast the trip guides would show us a map of the morning swim, give us a brief history of the area and then help grease us up, before we all hopped in to the boats. Before you even ask, let me explain. When swimming long distances, repetitive motions can cause unfortunate rubbing in certain places from your bathing suit and produce a rash, which stings in the salt water. Gobs of Vaseline under your suit straps, around your armpits and other areas help prevent that issue. After the morning swim we would return to the island during the peak heat of the day for siesta’s and lunch. Later in the day we would return to the ocean for the afternoon swim. Then before we knew it, it was happy hour time, then dinner, star gazing, card games, more drinking for some, and then bed.

The Sea of Cortez was dazzling and the visibility was high. We saw gorgeous marine life everywhere we looked. We swam with whale sharks, sea lion pups, various fish species, sea turtles, sting rays… the list goes on and on. The island was beautiful too; great trails to explore, amazing star gazing at night and vibrant colors for sunrise and sunset. I could go on and on about the beauty, but I rather highlight some of the less than ideal aspects of this trip because life and vacation aren’t always as perfect as the highlights that make it to our social media accounts. 

Let’s talk about the camping. Those of you who know me are probably a little surprised to hear I willingly went camping. Hey guys, it was on a beach. No deer ticks. I was open to it. It was billed as “glamping” on their website since the tents are big enough to stand up in, and each tent comes equipped with two cots to sleep on. So far, so good. Right? In my head I think of “glamping” as more of an experience with portable air conditioners that keep one cool when the temperatures soar in to the triple digits on the remote desert island you are calling home for a week while on holiday. If you have ever tried to take a siesta in these conditions, you will understand why I believe that portable air conditioning should be a part of glamping. Also, if you have ever tried to apply sunscreen to your damp, sweaty body after taking a siesta in the conditions I just described, you know it can be a very trying experience. To be honest despite the uncomfortable heat, I was so exhausted from all of the swimming that I was able to nap in the afternoon and sleep just fine at night even though it was a little hard to breathe on occasion. As for the rest of the swimmer’s on the island, I can’t speak for them, but I did hear some complaints. 

Now I want to turn my attention to sea lice. Sea lice are microscopic baby jellyfish. A common misconception when I bring up sea lice is that they are like body lice or head lice. The water was warm, and the sea lice abundant. All of us got repeatedly stung on just about every swim we did. If you have never had the pleasure of being stung by sea lice allow me to tell you what it feels like. It hurts. One minute you are swimming along and the next minute it feels like you are getting an electric shock. Some of the shocks are mild and others feel super charged. It is unpleasant and the stings leave red itchy welts. A few people in our group even had painful allergic reactions. The unfortunate part about glamping on an island with no electricity is that there is no good way to really shower and clean your skin before rubbing Benadryl all over your sea lice sting welts. Salt water does nothing to help soothe the stings so while we could soap up in the water near the camp site, it didn’t really help much. There were two solar showers with foot pedals and thin narrow hoses that spit water at you but it was not really an effective shower for full body scrubbing. While the sea lice may be impossible to see in the water, they do form a gelatinous blob in the lining of your bathing suit. Gelatinous sea lice blobs are a delightful bonus to freak out about while pumping the foot pedal of the solar shower. 

Can you guess what the next topic is going to be? Yes! The “bathrooms”. There were two wooden outhouses off to the side of the tents. Within each wooden structure was the top of a toilet seat set on a wooden box with a plastic bucket beneath the box. We were encouraged to pee in the water along the shore of the island, and for everything else we would do our business in the outhouses and then throw sawdust into the toilet opening, and close the seat lid, so the bathroom didn’t get too smelly. The resident chefs of the island would switch the buckets out each morning. No questions were asked as to where they were dumping it, but we all knew. 

To be honest, while it makes for good reading, it wasn’t the heat, the camping, the sea lice, the showers or the bathrooms that made this trip less than optimal for me. It was me. I am exhausting. I have made a lot of progress over the past five plus years in terms of health and healing, because I made taking care of me my number one priority. When I think of vacation, I think of just dropping everything and getting away to relax from the day-to-day stresses of life (you guys may think a swim trek is the opposite of relaxing, but let’s set that aside for now). Unlike my job that pays the bills, taking care of me is not a job that I can take a vacation from. I must be meticulous about my treatment on a daily basis. I have to pay constant attention to the timing of my thyroid medication throughout the day in relation to other supplements and food, and I have to be careful about what I eat due to on-going thyroid/digestion issues. Coupled with the swim trek activity schedule, it was exhausting and a little stressful. The last thing I wanted to do was end up with gastrointestinal issues on an island with two community outhouses and/or while swimming. Luckily I didn’t. On the other hand, this was the second overseas trip I was able to take since my Lyme journey began and I was grateful to be able to take it. In fact I loved (most of) it. I had so much fun exploring, hanging out with great friends and making some new ones. I would have loved it just a little bit more if I could have left my second full time job at home. But this is unfortunately the new normal. I can't get away from it. Without it, I would have never been able to swim my way through a vacation in the first place.

I returned home from my trip feeling itchy and elated. Itchy from the sea lice bites. Elated that I was able to swim the whole time coupled with the fact that I felt pretty good while doing it. I jumped back in to working out and set the bay swim in my sights. [On a side note this is the second swim trek I have been a part of and I cannot say enough good things about this company and the amazing trips that they plan for their customers. Also the food that was freshly prepared each day for us on the island was out of this world]. 

At the beginning of March I reviewed my latest round of blood work with my doctor and things were looking up. He was thrilled with my progress. My thyroid numbers were the best they have been in years and my Hashimoto’s antibodies were the lowest they have been since I was diagnosed almost three years ago. My inflammation markers were low and there was no sign of candida. We actually discussed lowering my thyroid medication if I could hold the numbers through the next round of blood work. But as I mentioned above, by April things had taken a sharp turn in the wrong direction. I am hard at work trying to get back to those numbers from the beginning of March. 

And now we have come full circle. Before I go I need to tell you one more thing. I kind of lied before when I told you I didn’t have a similar type story to share in regards to the Independence Day panic attack fiasco I led off with last time. A month or so ago finally got around to watching Stranger Things. Many of my friends had told what a great show it was when it first came out. What nobody bothered to tell me is that it was probably going to scare the pants off of me and cause me to have nightmares and to have to sleep with the lights on. 

Q: Can I blame that on anxiety from my health issues?

A: Probably not. One might say I am easily startled. One also might say Stranger Things was not meant to be scary. All I can say is that I was happy I wasn't hooked up to electrodes for this series.