Tag: healing

‘Tis the Season to Be Sick

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Every year around the holidays, I seem to be one of the “lucky” individuals who gets sick. Last year, I caught bronchitis which started off as a head cold. Due to my crappy immune system, this nasty bronchitis refused to leave my poor lungs for several weeks which ultimately lead to an inflamed trachea. On top of that, I spent last Christmas in the ER. Thanks Santa! How thoughtful of you!

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Despite receiving the flu shot on Saturday, December 7, 2019, I wasn’t prepared for what was to come. From what I discovered over the years, the flu shot seems to work against me for some reason. However, the faculty insists that students receive their flu shots each year so that they can attend clinical practice. And this is kinda a big deal. If you don’t attend clinical practice, you automatically forfeit the entire semester. And anyone who has been following me knows why I cannot allow for this to happen.

On Sunday evening, I spent my waking hours in the bathroom puking my guts out. At one point, I didn’t make it to the bathroom on time and my poor husband volunteered to clean up the mess. I was in so much physical pain that I thought I was dying, similar to the memories from Christmas 2018. I didn’t see a magical light leading to heaven or anything, but if projectile vomiting is similar to what dying feels like, then yes, it was a near death experience for me.

Last night as I was lying in bed, I thought to myself, “This is it. I’m going to die. Pneumonia finally got me.”☠️ —Memories from Christmas 2018 

It wasn’t just me who was sick this past weekend. My husband was the first one to get sick, so I spent the weekend nursing him back to health. Hey, I want to take some of the credit for making him feel better. It’s possible that I may have caught this stomach bug from him. However, he didn’t experience any vomiting whatsoever, so could it really be the same sickness? Yesterday evening, my toddler had a fever, but she displayed no signs or symptoms of being sick. Instead, she was full of energy and bouncing off the walls like any healthy kid. This morning, she asked us to take her to the playground so she could play on the slides. Not today, Rebecca. You still have a fever. You’re supposed to be sick. Silly girl. 

The Mystery Continues

Perhaps I had food poisoning, which is a possibility. Some of the food I ate last weekend was questionable, such as a bag of stale BBQ potato chips. Dollarama, get it together! 😑 Add 3 chocolate bars to my day’s worth of calories, and that binge could have been enough to cause a puking fest. We usually don’t eat junk food at home, but I thought it would be nice to surprise my husband with some of his favourite treats. He refused to eat any of it, so I ended up stuffing my face with chips, candy, and chocolate. Now, I am swearing off junk food for good, which could just be a temporary food aversion. Yesterday, I had a long conversation with Steve in the comments section over at Steve’s Country. He is super friendly and I highly recommend checking out his blog! 😀😺

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Always find something to laugh about every day. And if you can’t find anything, you can always laugh at yourself!

I am grateful that I am able to breathe through both nostrils. Thankfully, I didn’t end up with clogged sinuses or a stuffy nose. Try to stay healthy my friends, especially since there are sickly people everywhere this time of year.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Sickly People Everywhere

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I initially wanted to write about paying it forward, because I have been blessed with little acts of kindness by people lately. This post ended up being completely different than what I had initially planned to write about. I do not post often because I am in school right now while trying to juggle family and school life. I am aware that I focus most of my attention on other areas of my life, and consequently, this blog suffers because of it.  And I am genuinely sorry for my absence. Unfortunately I will be MIA until April 18, 2019.

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Here is the dilemma that I am dealing with. If you are a student, you may have seen this before.

I want to update you on how I have been doing. In December, if you had read my cookie post, you would have known I was really ill. I ended up getting bronchitis which took additional time to recover. By the time I started feeling human again, the winter semester had started so I needed to focus my attention on school. FOCUS is important to me and school is my top priority. I get criticized for saying this my daughter should be my top priority, right? Right. I devote time to both school AND my daughter but it’s really hard to balance things. I cannot be present 100% of the time for my daughter and I admit I am probably not the best mother in the world right now. But if you are going to judge me, try going to nursing school yourself while trying to devote all of your time to your toddler without encountering these problems:

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She looks proud of herself

In February, I was hit with the flu and ended up with recurrent bronchitis. Bronchitis seems to linger in sickly Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (Alpha-1) carriers like me. It is an inherited condition which presents itself similar to asthma. I noticed that my lungs are worse in my late 20’s than they were in my teenage and childhood years.  For this reason, I cannot participate in activities that require running or any strenuous physical activity or I’ll have air hunger. Believe me, it’s awful.

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Sometimes I escape to this place to get work done. Let nature heal you 😊

I thought I was over being sickly and that my body had enough antibodies to fight off whatever sickness lingers on doorknobs and cursed sneezes. The university is full of sickly people. Students feel the need to attend class despite being ill, which I am guilty of myself. Nursing students cannot afford to skip school. I caught something a few days ago which presented itself as a persistent, uncomfortable sore throat and horse cough. I already know how this is going to end which is likely a head cold and sleepless nights. Fun. Now pair this with conjunctivitis (pink eye) and you really have something going for you. I’ve had conjunctivitis for a few days now and saw a doctor yesterday. The doctor advised me to stay home today so that the medication can work its magic. Hopefully my eyes will be less swollen and red by tomorrow!

How do you find balance in your life? How do you balance personal life with school? Please leave a comment below↓

Thanks for stopping by!

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Pandora’s Box

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It has finally happened. All of the sleepless nights I spent wondering whatever happened to Jenna* became very clear but only for a millisecond. I had forgotten that I buried Pandora’s Box under a pile of 0’s and 1’s, hidden in a place where boredom and curiosity finally revealed it for all its worth. In other words, I didn’t realize that I had access to her gossip and haterade. I had completely forgotten that we were still “friends” in that realm which meant I would be able to see her entire profile. However, whether or not it was my Guardian Angels or God, they protected me at that very moment. Reflexively, I deleted Pandora’s Box, where it will ultimately remain out of my reach forever, and I did this without thinking, without comprehending what had just happened. I only realized what I had done seconds later. Without reading all of the FOMO that I could have feasted my eyes upon tonight, everything vanished before curiosity could even kill the cat. In the end, I didn’t get to see or read anything, which is the irony of it all.

Spoiler alert: the cat is very much alive. Here I was, so close to getting what I wanted, and when I finally had the chance to read her latest gossip like a kid in a candy shop, I had banished it before my eyes like a parent to my inner child.

Did I do this subconsciously out of anger and loathing?

Or did I do this because, at that very moment, a spirit much larger than humankind decided to protect me? But what does this even mean?

Was there something in Pandora’s Box that would have deeply hurt me had I read it? I mean, JD hurt me terribly, and I am still trying to move on in order live a life free of drama.

But what exactly was in her box that I needed to be protected from?

Perhaps, if I am being protected for my own good, then this realization makes me even more curious about what was in Pandora’s Box. At the same time, this eye-opening experience is a reminder that I must remove my washed-up digital footprint from the universe so that another rendezvous like this one won’t happen again. People say that whatever you share online lasts forever, so if that statement is true, I will finally remove my past by locking it up for good and throwing away the key so that nobody, including myself, will have access to it.

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Jenna* is no her real name. The name has been changed because of #confidentiality

 

Why I left Multi-Level Marketing

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As I am sitting here popping my supplements like prescription pills, I know that there must be an easier way to heal my sensitive teeth and skin. After doing intensive research over the last few months, most of my findings suggest a diet high in unpasteurized dairy and organ meats, ranging from raw milk to liver. My initial thoughts were….Yuck! You may consume these foods and that’s cool. These foods, I admit, are nutritionally dense and I wish they were readily available to me. But for the typical North American like me, raw milk, liver, grass-fed butter and meats are not easily sourced, or very pricey $$$. Part of my lifestyle includes living as minimally as I can, coming from a former (still broke) university student mindset. Also, there is no guarantee that I will heal my issues with these specific supplements or expensive products. I want to believe that a miracle butter oil and fermented cod liver oil will work, but with the steep price and life-long commitment requirements, I have decided not to settle with this point of view.

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Reconnecting with nature is nature’s medicine.

I know that there must be a better way to heal my body, and I am very determined to find an answer before it’s too late. I have a lot of tooth sensitivity, discoloring, chipping, abnormal enamel erosion which may be linked to gluten intolerance (possibly some degree of Celiac disease???) or Bruxism, along with iron deficiency anemia and vitamin D deficiency. I am only 25 years old and live a healthier lifestyle than most people so my health issues confuse me. I have always had cavities since I was a little kid, and was told by dentists that my problems were due to genetics. Right now, I am extremely frustrated by the lack of improvements when I adopted a low-sugar, low-carbohydrate diet for several months. Deep down, I know that a ketogenic diet is not the answer for me and I don’t want to rely heavily on animal products to be healthy. I am in no way vegan or vegetarian but over the years, I have tried these lifestyles as well, especially during my university years. Personally, I dislike the word “diet” since these life choices are realistically  lifestyles.

glass-1404593_960_720Also, I don’t want to rely on supplements forever. I used to be a part of a very expensive supplement company but I disagree with their true intentions and couldn’t afford to be part of their “team” long term. I was losing money or barely breaking even plus I hate chasing people/pitching my products to them. Call it what you want, but in the end their true intentions of connecting with people and recruiting is to make commission. I have always been an introvert and approaching strangers for the sole purpose of recruiting isn’t for me, especially when I do not know them on a personal level or their health backgrounds. When recruiting people is more important than selling the products in order to make a living, this is a big red flag that the company only wants the movers and shakers. It’s the little guys like me, who genuinely want to help people live healthier lives, by raising awareness of the health benefits that these supplements can offer for specific cases, but with that leads to burnout. Recruiting was never my intention – I just wanted to help people live healthier lifestyles with the nutritional knowledge that I have. I minored in Nutrition and Neutraceutical Sciences so I am not an idiot when it comes to diet and lifestyle.

Thousands of dollars later, my husband gave me a reality check and told me to think for myself. I was tired of being told what to do, how to sell product, how to cold-call people, promised results with over-inflated hype, and yelled at whenever I “failed” my upline time again. Meanwhile, I was working my hardest to succeed and now realize that my success cannot be measured in sales or the number of people recruited. Since leaving the company 4 years later and ditching the authorship fees for good, I have had several people approach me and try to recruit me to their companies, but this approach isn’t going to work unless the company has good ethics and you can convince me that it’s different than the other competitive multi-level marketing companies in the health and wellness industry. I will never join another multi-level marketing company again.

Healing starts from within and the only way I will be able to truly heal is through proper nutrition and sunshine. There are plenty of resources online along with some books that I am looking forward to reading such as The China Study and Holistic Dental Care. I have a bad habit of being lazy, sleeping in and procrastinating on important tasks. But these poor life choices need to stop if I am ever going to make a positive impact on people’s lives. I am going to  find a solution or a better formula for healing which I know, starts from within. I want to help people who are struggling with their weight or blood sugar fluctuations (yes, you can lose weight with my tips and tricks), learn to live with less stuff, save money, and live a more fulfilling life through proper nourishment. Who knows, maybe I will start another YouTube channel specifically for this blog. I love being able to think for myself without having to hound people and ruin relationships in the meantime. There are several influencers who I follow online and they have unknowingly helped me get started on my personal journey, and I am grateful for their knowledge. The internet is a wonderful tool for research and a place to heal.

You can check out my personal YouTube hobby channel, which isn’t associated with the sereneluna blog:  hellokitty8404

Wading Through Murky Waters

Hello, everyone! Sorry I have not posted in a while. I have been very busy and dealing with personal and family life. Some things are just not meant to be shared on the internet and I have no problem taking a hiatus offline from time to time. My goal for this blog is to connect with real people in a more sincere, personal way, and in order to do that I need to be at my best, mentally.

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As some of you know, I have taken a break from Facebook and recently ended a couple friendships with some long-time “friends.” Not only that, but my daughter required some critical medical attention and is still undergoing these appointments and surgeries out of province. I rather not get into this, but in case anyone is wondering how I am doing, there is a complicated answer to that question.

Now that I am back with my husband in our small town aka “city” dwelling, life is slowly returning to normal again. My regimen has become more strict though, due to the frustrations I had living off of a SAD diet (Standard American Diet) with the in-laws during the last few months. Luckily, the 3-month pregnant appearance that took over my body was the only bloating, which I managed to lose through a strict eating plan. I unintentionally stumbled upon the paleo lifestyle while I was looking for a solution to my toothache and “cure” to weak tooth enamel. My years of abuse to my teeth due to a strong sugar addiction and conventional toothpaste that was doing more harm than good, is slapping me in the face now (quite hard, as a matter of fact). Honestly, I am terrified of the dentist and had a very bad experience last time I was there getting a cavity filled. In the meantime, I am researching approaches to this problem, which were pointing to a paleo lifestyle.

I know that I won’t be able to maintain this lifestyle long-term but I am hoping that some life changes stick with me this time around. There are some benefits to the paleo diet which I agree with 100%, except for the low carbohydrate reasoning here:

1. It is highly focused on eating a lot of vegetables, which is vital to good health.
2. It eliminates dairy products and instead, is heavily based on animal fats and ketosis metabolism (aka low carb diet). The only reason I am consuming animal fats now is that I was very deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. I also supplement now with vitamin A, D and K, calcium, and magnesium. 
3. It avoids processed foods. I am a huge advocate for this one. I used to be a slave to processed food and MCD’s Jr. Chickens, but ever since I eliminated processed food, the candy had to go and so did all of those Dollarama sketchy chocolate bar and cookie purchases. 

There are also some reasons where I don’t agree with paleo, so this isn’t exactly the breakthrough solution I was hoping for. It’s certainly not sustainable long-term, living on a high-fat, low-carb diet. We do not need high amounts of animal fat to live and I don’t have access to “grass-fed meat” and “butter oil.” Our bodies need carbohydrates too, so really, the trick is whole foods here. DUH. By eliminating white sugar and white flour, packaged crackers, and cookies, candy, ice-cream, cereal, microwave-meals etc., my options became limited. I am currently researching the Mediterranean lifestyle and planning on incorporating these home-cooked meals as well. The vegan lifestyle isn’t for me due to the high sugar consumption and the fact that I already have weak teeth that need extra love right now. I don’t think an 80-10-10 diet is going to help with my problem, sadly. I want to believe in 80-10-10 but first, I need to work on getting my vitamins and minerals up to normal levels. It’s pretty evident that the majority of people living in the western world aren’t healthy, and are likely eating a SAD diet full of processed garbage food. I am not participating in that lifestyle anymore nor am I a human dumpster. Goodbye, sugar cravings! Hopefully, for good this time! 

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“Happiness is not out there, it’s in you.” -unknown