February Update

This update is shorter than last month’s. 😉

MS:

I’m not sure how significant this is, but Lhermitte’s sign (when I move my neck a certain way, my leg feels like it’s asleep and/or gets tingly) seems to be almost gone. (When I say “almost”, I mean that sometimes it seems to be gone, but other times it’s still there, but so faint that I’m not sure I would notice it if I wasn’t trying.) This is a pretty big deal to me, because it seems to mean that my body is healing, but again, I don’t know if that would have happened anyway.

Other health related things:

Most importantly, any health issues I’m experiencing that could be autoimmune or at least affected by inflammation in my body, are important as markers, because if these things are getting better it could be a sign that the MS is getting better.

Eczema & TMJ disorder are about the same. I wanted to say that I’d had NO migraines since my last post, but I did have one over the weekend. Before that my last one was January 14/15 and it was pretty mild: I only used two doses of my medication. This one was a bit worse and I think I used 3-4 doses. Still, that’s only 1 migraine per month which is an improvement. 🙂

Added 2/17/21: I realized that one possibility for my migraines getting less frequent/severe might be the magnesium supplement I’ve been taking.

What I am eating/cooking:

I rediscovered chicken & apple sausages, so that’s added a bit of variety.

I’ve also been eating too many batches of these Pumpkin Spice Pancakes. I put a generous amount of almond butter on them, so that helps nutritionally. 😉

Mom discovered this recipe for Southern Fried Cabbage, and although I was skeptical at first, it’s really grown on me (that link is to a video, but the ingredients are listed in the video description). Mom makes it with turkey bacon, beef sausage, and purple cabbage. 🙂

I’m up to 69 types of edible plants eaten since 12/12/20 (up from 56 last month). Some interesting ones this month were Kabocha squash (it’s a Japanese squash that people eat in Okinawa (one of the Blue Zones)), and Dragonfruit (if you’ve had the Starbucks drink, it’s the same thing 😉 You can buy it frozen at QFC and PCC). Neither of them are favorites, but we tried them! (And they were good, just not favorites) Oh, and we tried a Mandarinquat which was very yummy. 🙂

How I’m doing emotionally:

I had a tough couple of weeks this month, although nothing directly related to MS. I was feeling sorry for myself about food, and I’m not sleeping well for various reasons so I’ve been really tired.

Things I’m proud of:

Trying things! Tennis lessons this month, and I’m probably the worst tennis player in the class. But, I’m learning to be okay with it. 🙂 I don’t have to be good at everything. 🙂 (But if any of you are interested in a very casual session of hitting the ball back and forth (and you live close by) let me know!)

I was reading (in Stress-Proof: The Scientific Solution to Protect Your Brain and Body–And Be More Resilient Every Day by Mithu Storoni) about having a growth mindset (you can Google it), and I think that’s sort of what I’ve been trying to have, but I’m going to work on it more now. 🙂 It has to do with realizing that you can change and grow, and you aren’t stuck. So, to use the tennis example, I’m not someone who’s bad at tennis (stuck), I’m someone who’s getting better at tennis (growth). This is obviously applicable to a wide variety of situations in your life, not just sports.

I’ve been making some changes for the sake of stress management. A big thing (for me), was that I gave up keeping track of my receipts on Mint.com. Not sure how much I’ve talked about that (not here, but in person I might have), but I was almost ALWAYS behind, and that was a stressor to me. Plus the fact that I wasn’t staying caught up sort of indicated that it must not be that high of a priority to me. 😉 But the big thing was that we’re not really budgeting. We spend what we spend, and it seems to work out. I have “budgets” for things, but it’s more of just a general expectation based on what we’ve been spending. If we go over on gas, or groceries, and we need/want to spend more, we just do. So I just decided that since we’re NOT budgeting anyway, WHY am I doing this and spending all this time?!?!? It was hard. 😉 But not as hard as I expected. I’ve tried to simplify the system before, but this time I just went cold turkey.

I’ve been more open minded to mindfulness exercises. I’ve been skeptical of mindfulness activities for two main reasons: as a Christian, it seemed a little too “new age” to me, and also, I just didn’t have the patience for it. 😉 But I keep reading about the benefits, and I know that since I don’t want to slow down and do it, I probably need to. 😉 I discovered the Lumosity Mind app and I’ve been using it almost every day. It’s just a woman talking to you and telling you to focus on your breathing and stuff like that. But I like it. I’m not sure it’s *doing* anything, 😉 but it seems like something I can stick with long enough to give it an honest try.

Lastly, there were 2 or 3 days of inclement weather when I walked on the treadmill (there were way more when I didn’t 😉 ). It wasn’t a lot, but it felt good to know I was getting more activity in, even if I was watching TV or something while I did it. I need to walk more. I don’t think my stats for *this* month are going to be very good.

Random:

I was wanting/planning to put this under “Things I’m proud of” but I can’t yet. 😉 I decided that it would be a big help to my stress level to not ever be running late places, but instead to be one of those people who’s always early. One of the first days I tried that, I left early, but for a variety of reasons was still late (I made stops on the way). 😛 So, like I said, I’m not counting this as a success yet. 😉 Although, I have been early to my tennis lessons, so that’s something. 🙂

Fitness Goals:

I continue to strive for that first pull-up. 😉 I’ve been kind of embarrassed about not being able to do a pull-up, especially since I’ve told so many people that I’m working towards one. But you know what, I *am* getting stronger. I’m trying to celebrate that and not be so hard on myself.

Quick Summary of the Month (January):

In January I averaged (per day):

18 minutes of walking (up from 17 in December. I thought it would have increased more, but at least it increased!)
1.2 servings of dark leafy greens (the *same* as in December, which surprised me: I thought it’d be higher. I think it might be that in December I accidentally counted each cup as a serving for a few days until I learned better, (each serving is supposed to be 2 cups for leafy greens) so maybe my December was lower actually)
1.9 servings of sulfur-rich veggies (up from 1.7)
5.1 servings of colorful fruits/veggies (up from 3.6)

So I’m averaging 8.2 servings of fruits/vegetables each day! If you convert to cups (remembering that a serving of leafy greens is 2 cups) that’s 9.4 cups/day!

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