My eyes are pretty much recovered. 90%. I don’t wear my contacts as much anymore, and change them out more often. Drinking more water has gotten more habitual. I add mineral salts to it morning and evening. This is I think the main thing that is improving my health overall. Am back to walking more. I think I can do 2 miles about now without worries. This is a big improvement. Over the weekend I think I walked about 5 miles, and maybe one mile today. Guess I should keep better track. 4 weeks ago

Another horrible eye attack. My doctor says it is zoster but the internet says its simplex. What do I know.

This time I put sunscreen on my arms and a tiny smidge got in my eye. that irritation brought on another bout of light sensitivity and redness and swelling and other less wonderful things to mention. Then I cried because my daughter’s friend died and I haven’t quite stopped crying over that.

I went out in the light with sunshade and dark glasses and moved rocks around and suffered some more. As long as my eyes hurt I feel like a major bitch, but at least I am at home and not trying to get somewhere or do something. I have wedding photos to edit and there they sit until I am better.

And what feels OK to my eyes? watching TV. I think it is because it is a ways away from me and I do not change focus nor does the screen change a whole lot in terms of brightness.

the afternoon has clouded over. I am grateful. 1 month ago

I’ve been using deep sea minerals. First major improvement since turmeric.

Cut back on the rest of the supplements, except B vitamins and turmeric.

Have been taking long walks on rough terrain, digging in the dirt, swimming in the ocean.

Still have the godawful zoster but today I spoke with the Hawaiian healer and thanked him for the ti leaf eye drops that have saved my eyes. Asked about the other, and he showed me a salve. Then he told me if I have aloe vera plant I can simply apply it directly. His salve made the blisters vanish in less than a day. I didn’t buy it because I have aloe growing outside.

Having help with the old folks available pretty much on demand is a huge thing. Also, I have stopped thinking so much about whether they like what I do for them or like me or whatever stray thoughts I was flaying myself with.

More balance lately with the computer as well. Have not been doing much with the sea glass. A dinner party would be a nice thing… 1 month ago

The search for how to remedy my mysterious malady has led me to this place.

My doctor tells me what is wrong with me is post-herpetic neuralgia. The chicken pox I had as a kid lay dormant within me. A vaccine came along that stopped chicken pox from randomly occurring in the population, and the rest of us who have been infected from being periodically exposed to chicken pox and thereby renewing our immune response. The result: varicella zoster, or shingles. I have had several dozen episodes of shingles and the result has been literal frayed nerves. In fact, I have ongoing persistent shingles and the medication I am taking to eradicate it will likely need to be adjusted as it is not quite working.

What does help is a meatless diet. No mammal meat. Limited cheese and butter. Limited fish. I may go to an all vegan diet, depending on how everything unfolds. I am trying to find out what my body needs to operate at optimum.

What is offered to me by the medical profession is a drug that is likely to cause twitching, dizziness, sleepiness, muscle pain (wait, am I not taking this to get rid of pain?) and peculiar thoughts. My FIL takes a version of this drug for nerve pain and he imagines all sorts of awful things, for which his doctor prescribes yet another pill.

When the pain of the neuralgia is awful, I wonder if I would just like to cut off a leg, so maybe it is worth a little dizziness to get rid of it. But I am not ready for the drugs yet. Am upping the minerals along with ditching the meat.

There is hope. 2 months ago

My long long l-o-n-g and nasty cold is apparently in abatement. So, today I took some more ordinary care of myself. And I recognized that the last week I have been doing something apparently very good for myself.

There is a Hawaiian antioxidant I read about some. When I picked up my MIL’s Rx in our tiny little local drugstore last week, there it was on the counter – astaxanthin. I decided to give it a try. The pharmacist was very enthused about it. She takes it for rheumatoid arthritis. My whatever-it-is has been acting like psoriatic arthritis lately, with lots of scaly red patches on my face and an assortment of other maladies that do not need to be listed.

I’ve been taking it twice a day. The red spots are gone, and most of the usual pain as well. Nice! My whatever-it-is is episodic, with flare-ups that fade on their own, so, time will tell. Meanwhile, nice!

Today I finally got it together to do stage one of coloring my hair with henna. Something I used to do regularly. I love the way my hair looks and feels and smells with henna. Thicker, glossier, just plain prettier. Now that it has been chemically altered it needed to be pre-treated so it will not turn some peculiar pink or green with the colored henna on there. Step two tomorrow, but today it is already so very much nicer! Hurray!

Oh, and one other thing. Mr Tiki decided he would plan a getaway for us, and called to arrange for some of his sibs to come out and stay with the old folks while we are gone. When he told his parents, they both were annoyed. They began carrying on in their own language, soemthing I am hearing enough now that the meaning sort of leaks out even though I don’t know the words. Of course their mood was easy enough to read. They tried to tell us we could not go, and Mr Tiki told them it is not their decision. After the old man had harrumphed and carried on for several minutes, saying that his daughters were not welcome here, I told him I was going to treat him with meat tenderizer. He looked at me very puzzled, and I laughed and said he needed to have his heart made more tender. That ended that discussion on a happy note. Crazy days around here! 5 months ago

This is some kind of joke, this goal. Or maybe I need to take it really seriously.

Most days I am doing well if I manage to condition my hair when I shower. I wondered today when I will manage to get my hair cut and styled again. It is not that anyone is stopping me. It just falls so far down the priority list …

Mr Tiki wants to change diets again. Go vegan. Meantime, he comes home today with food for the old folks. His dad oft times rejects what I make. His mom is a sugar fiend. I read an article supposing that some dementia is type 3 diabetes. That rings true. I talked about with her, and she is ready to give up sugar. I talked about it to him. But he is on his own path, and came home with food I would never ever buy. All boxed and so on. Plus a three way slow cooker. I wanted to cry. Non-food food, and a cooker to make real food into non food. I am not a snob. It took all my power of self control to say whatever civil and accepting thing I said that informed him that none of the food he came in with was OK for us and that he would be the one using the three way slow cooker, exclusively.

Clearly I need a whole new paradigm for this goal. So far I can’t even imagine it. Maybe tomorrow. 5 months ago

When I moved to Hawaii I simply assumed that getting away from my desk job and working hard physically would make a vast improvement in my health. My health was not all that bad, just mildly slipping.

Instead it got a whole lot worse. What had been random weird things became regular weird things. I began browsing the internet with the composite list of bodily irregularities, half expecting to see that I had some bizarre tropics related malady, half thinking I would simply get over it.

When I moved out of the rainforest, I thought getting a more regular dose of sun, and swimming daily would help. Also the acupuncture seemed a likely cure. But whatever was dragging me down a path of not so much wellness seemed to be prevailing.

Summer has brought a better all around outlook. I attribute this to two changes, as that is what there have been.

One – I bought Orthoheel flipflops. We do not call them flipflops however, they are slippahs. They look very dressy. And since I have worn them and broken them in, my leg pain (terrible sleep depriving unwavering pain) has gone away.

Two – we are eating from the garden at every meal. Avocado, banana, papaya, lilikoi, pineapple. I thought earlier that maybe the tropical fruits were not good for me. But it seems they are just fine. Better even than just fine. Because except for some skin issues, none of my other bad news symptoms have plagued me either.

Good news, eh? 8 months ago

I am thinking of retiring this goal and coming up with something more on point.

When I started it I wanted to pay attention every day to what I did. I think I still need to do that, but I prefer an offline method.

On another note, lately I have begun to feel burdened by how things are. I am feeling sensitive. I recognize that the rules are it is OK to say what you think on your own thread, and it is not OK to say what you think if someone else started the discussion. Yes, I find this burdensome. It means no discussion of ideas except with those who agree with you. Why should I care. I have no clue. 9 months ago

It helps that today is pretty. The sun has been out all day. Because it is a weekend day I stayed away from the beach and worked outside. Cut away heliconia that blocked the path, and guava and other junk trees that blocked part of the view.

Then I went to the orchard and cut a whole branch of bananas and lugged them back to the house. By the time I got them inside, I was super overheated. They must have weighed about 70 pounds.

Lately when I have done heavy lifting, like for making the rock path, it has taken a huge toll. But not today. Except for getting too hot, I am fine!

Fine romp with the dogs. Hit a ball over the cliff and boy dog started after it but happily gave it up. It was the palm tree ricochet effect. Always scary when it happens. I try to hit the ball low, but boy dog likes to catch it on the fly, so sometimes those balls just want to sail through the air. He is rather talented, as he waits for me to hit the ball, then runs after it and catches it before it touches down, about half the time.

All day I have eaten only the very best food, starting with oatmeal fruit and nuts for breakfast, and on to kale, fruit, yogurt and vitamins for lunch. Tonight will be vegetables and meat.

After the butt dragging in the middle of the week, this feels really good. 13 months ago

Have you ever done that? Overextended yourself I guess is the phrase.

Yesterday was a beautiful, sumptuous day. It was a wedding day, where we performed our second civil union. The brides were so very happy. They had only one day on the east side of the island, so in addition to their ceremony and all the attendant decor, music, and so on, we were fully involved in their entire day, doing their photography in various places on the island, and choreographing a special feast for them at the end of the day.

When I contacted our chef at mid day, it turned out she had a family emergency. Medical emergencies on this island are oft times pretty scary. There are tropical bugs, plants, and other horrible things that can cause sudden grave illness. So any time someone has something mysterious go terribly wrong, it can readily turn into an airlift to Oahu. No way to know.

So I scrambled to find people to fill in, with partial success. Recontacted her, after hearing she was available after all, said so can you come? And she did not respond back until dinner was half over. Not her fault, terrible day for her. Emergency seemed to dwindle away, but I would have been going nuts, as they never did find out what was wrong. That’s the way medicine is here. Getting a diagnosis of anything weird takes way too long, and at first the doctor always wants to give antibiotics. My friends call it third world medicine. From my point of view, at least third world medicine has remedies.

But for me, way more than I can readily take on. What I need to do is find a professional private chef service that will do this so I am not relying on one person to come through. Things happen. And in the wedding business, you cannot screw anything up by getting sick or having some sort of personal thing get in the way. For the wedding, you are all wedding and only wedding. 13 months ago

Just stopping in to say the joint is jumpin’ so I’ve had little time for 43T.

Hope everyone is doing well.

For those who might be interested in such things, it’s been Merrie Monarch week here on the Big Island. Even for those not directly involved, it is a time with lots of extra visitors, lots of questions, and generally amped up everything. Kind of fun for sleepy little Hilo town.

Aloha! 13 months ago

...to sit with the computer, a certain amount of it is exactly what I do, and I will not complain. My computer obeys my commands (usually) and that in itself is gratifying. My friends pop up. And about a month ago or so, I ran into a suggestion that maybe the deodorant stone I was using was causing a lot of my troubles.

I threw it away.

I am much better.

As with the unhappy guest, I am not certain about the cause and effect as yet. I do know that my AI symptoms have diminished markedly, albeit not completely. So I may have been poisoning myself for years. Wow. 14 months ago

Today has been mainly a computer day.

I played with the dogs. that’s all for exertion. Can’t even call it much of exercise. Well some.

My website is now updated. Yay!

Blog received post. Yay!

Had green drink. Yay!

Someone’s gotta cheer for my efforts. Have been on search for the elusive home chef. Connected with someone who might work out.

Searched for a table to keep on hand for celebratory functions. As usual the ones I like are in the four digits. No need for that when I am tying a white tablecloth to the legs. Like this. But I do need something larger. Wait! Why not pick up another just like it? Why not! Join them together? Hmmm. Could. 15 months ago

Saturday is always a fun day on the island. Lots of people off work, goin’ to da beach, da market, getting’ togedda wit’ their frens on da lanai.

So we did that. Pretty day. Good breakfast, lunch a little bit off the diet but not too terrible. Mr Tiki got to pick up a lawnmower he wanted and some blinds. I got to swim in the ocean. Someone got hurt there in a big wave, but not too bad, it seems. Concussion probably. Easy to get a spinal injury when the surf is big if the wave hits you wrong, but he dodged that one.

This particular picture turns out to be one that captures people’s fancy, so I will share it along with my happiness. Life is good. aloha! 16 months ago

I’ve gotten a lot more serious about it, and that means I spend a lot less time on 43T. Between this goal and the novel writing goal, there are only minutes a day for this site. Kind of a surprise…

So, quick update. Carbs from potato, most bread, white rice, and overall starches are pretty much gone from my diet. Green drink in the morning, often made with kale. Eggs and ezekial bread for breakfast. salad for lunch. Trimmed down dinner.

Have been very busy fence building, and getting in some swimming and care taking at volcano.

Results: fat is leaving my body. I am approaching my age 50 leanness. That’s 10 years of accumulated crap falling away. Yay me.

If I get all the way back to 40, that will be a triumph of major proportions. 16 months ago

or I am doing a crap job 17 months ago

Yikes

It is looking like people are moving. And it is the holidays. And someone is coming over tomorrow.

That means now I must work. aloha~ 17 months ago

Beginning yesterday, I am trying something to see if it makes a difference.

For many years I was very careful of my alcohol consumption, limiting myself to a glass of wine a night most nights, two once in awhile. Over time this has crept up, especially with the tropical drinks, to where there will be a drink then wine.

A bottle of wine used to go two or three nights routinely between my husband and me. Lately, it is two nights unless someone is over and then it is two bottles. I don’t mind if it is my friends consuming the wine, but I know I am pouring extra glasses for myself.

After a convivial night of laughter and wine I am not at my best and brightest the next day. In fact I can feel dull.

My plan is to cut it all out for a week or two and assess my feeling. I began this yesterday.

I am hoping that I will slip neatly into this new groove, lose about 20 pounds over the next 3 months from the change in life style, and be able to have a glass of wine once in awhile and go back to none at all the next few days. We’ll see how it goes. I am ready. 18 months ago

Not today, but perhaps at the end of the month.

October was difficult because we were traveling a lot of the month, and the first part of November has taxed me with bucket loads of extra work. Things however are settling down. And despite the interruptions, I still managed to find time to swim and places to swim, and did not spend inordinate amounts of time on my butt, other than the three days where we had hundreds of inquiries at once.

In the next thirty days I intend to give myself one girl’s day on the other side of the island and one girl’s day out at Pohoiki.

My feet have been getting attention (from me, and that’s fine). The diet has been less than the greatest (on the road) but not a total fail.

The acupuncturist has found an herb that is having great effects all the way around, and that is a big deal.

This goal is likely to be replaced with something more slanted toward building friendships in the coming weeks, a change of focus. 18 months ago

It was overcast
The tide was going out
I barked my knees on rocks
and I swam anyway 19 months ago

Proud to say that this has become a habit; so I’ll be marking this as ‘done’. 19 months ago

There was so much on my calendar I missed two days in a row of swimming, and we had the dogs boarded so we could attend events that lasted all day. There was more sitting than usual, and by day 3 I could feel the difference, even though I was still getting the walking and climbing exercise. Yesterday I had a good swim, took the dogs out this morning, and can feel the difference.

Interesting – it takes at least an hour and a half of exercise, broken into hour and half hour segments during the day, a half hour swim, plus additional lots of up and down, to feel good. I have added a leaping to my feet set to my routine, where I go from prone to upright several times in a row. This also is very helpful – the reps are an important part of it.

Acupuncture every two weeks. Drinking several glasses of water during the day. Tending my feet.

This is close to the end of the second set of thirty days. As I read over the progress, I note the swim goggles were a good addition. 20 months ago

This morning when I woke up the sky was still dark but dawn was minutes away. The dogs would be ready for their sunrise walk as soon as my feet touched the floor.

To catch the sunrise start to finish at the end of the street, this is the time to get up. But I lay in bed, and noticed something. My general health no longer feels as if it is slowly degenerating. Instead, I feel as if the life force in me is gaining strength.

As I sit here on the lanai and type, there is a panorama of laughter out there. Between the effects of cars, buses, and motorcycles, there is the rhythm of the ocean, the scent of salt seawater and suntan oil, faint whiff of plumeria. Now and again a high spray of white wave. At certain times of the day, long curling blue green waves rising feet and feet above the top of the water.

It is wonderful to be out there in the lagoon and watch them from the water, eye level a few inches above the water surface. Some days I swim twice now.

The future looks like whatever is on the other side of the horizon, and I am grateful that eating green and purple, drinking lots of water, involving myself in walking and swimming four times or so a day, keeping on with the acupuncture & all that involves, and religiously taking an array of antioxidants is having such a profoundly good effect 20 months ago

That’s ho, not ho. There is a distinction.

Yesterday I had another amazing acupuncture session. I am going to keep writing about this here in case anyone out there has considered acupuncture but thinks it is voodoo medicine.

My cold was about gone. I had a sore shoulder that had been wrenched dog walking, but I didn’t mention it. My main goal this time was to address my angst with my daughter who has shut me out.

Acupuncture as practiced by my healer person is treatment of the whole person. I perceived the ache in my heart as being something worthy of her healing touch.

She identified my kidney pulse as weakest this time. She talked to me about the energy of my sorrow, and I talked about the judgmental quality of it. I recognized in the wake of the session that whether we call our children wonderful or some kind of horrible it is all a judgment. The point is not to judge, but to accept. Always where I stub my toes.

I now have an overlay to use when I think of that daughter. Instead of arguing with her in my mind, or begging or whatever imaginary dialogue/monologue is going on, I think of her smiling and laughing. I think of her living in the sweetness of life, as I wish for her. I think finally of her smiling at me. And I move on.

I predict this: She will be more accepting of me within the next 30 day cycle on this goal, as I am now so much more accepting of her.

My shoulder no longer hurts.

I am swimming daily.

My posture is more upright after acupuncture. I am trying to be conscious of it as I walk and move and sit. 20 months ago

These are the things I think I’m going to work on for the next 30 days:

Daily:
- Take my meds. (lately I’ve gotten terrible at remembering the mid-day dose.)
- In bed no later than midnight on week days, 1am on the weekends
- Take a multivitamin (something I’ve gotten out of the habit of since my surgery.)
- Drink all the water that I need to
- Read for at least half an hour
- No more than 1.5 hours on the computer per day. (Nice and easy for now at least; while my laptop is out of commission.)
_{It seems like a lot of time still, but I bet if I added up all of the minutes I check messages and stuff, it’s more than that}

Weekly:
- Exercise (yoga, or walking both of my dogs) 2-3 times per week
This is on top of working 2+ days per week. We’ll see how this one goes.
- Refill my pill containers
- Clean the house and my room
- Wear compression stockings 2-3x

I’ve actually made myself an Excel spreadsheet so I can check them off when I do them. 20 months ago

I did such a hot shot job of this that I sit here with my first head cold in about 2 years. I got it from a friend. I wish she had not shared, although at the time I was happy to see her.

I wonder if I will swim today. There is quite a bit of rain, and the ocean is in something of a frenzy. Across the street women are arriving dressed in warm jackets and carrying bundles of flowers. They leave the flowers and slip into their cars and leave. Possibly a Labor Day weekend drowning another year not so very long ago.

For the next 30 days I am adding twice daily flossing.

The walking has been good – up about 30% I think from the month before. I do not measure as I once did, but at least three times, maybe four times a week I am getting in 10,000 steps. Yay dogs.

Swimming also good. Probably five – six days a week. It is becoming habitual.

It’s Labor Day weekend – much work to be done! 20 months ago

These days are fairly hectic for me. I am very glad to have help with the business as I could not have managed the last week without it.

The troublesome eye infection came back just in time to plague me during a wedding photo shoot. Rather than getting antibiotics, I am working with the acupuncturist, and that is going very well. It is mostly gone, in 24 hours of treatment.

I am swimming more, more often and longer. And I had another acupuncture session.

Tomorrow is take care of the house day, as it has been neglected while I’ve worked on other things. 21 months ago

I am liking this goal but can certainly do more on it.

Still and all, I am following my rhythms here. Swimming more, more regularly and longer. I got some swim goggles, so can put my face in the water and watch the fishes and turtles in the water while I move about.

We have a wedding coming up in the near future, and the closer it gets the more of my focus goes there, until it is over. Still I am much better about drinking the water and getting my supplements into me in the morning.

This morning I set out at sunrise with one of the dogs hoping to get some photos. Before I was out the gate the clouds rushed in and a slight drizzle became a substantial downpour. After the rains quieted, we had a shortened walk.

I am still feeling the benefits of the acupuncture and massage I had last week. Second session is on calendar. 21 months ago

right away I got mango rash. If I wanted augmented lips I would have used lip plumper. I’m careful with mango but my sensitivity seems to have increased. so I had to be safe and lay off the fruit a couple days. Bananas do it a little sometimes too.

It’s getting better, but still…

The water and supplements part is good. Swimming happening part of the days but not all. It’s been rainy, and the mango rash came with hives and lots of mosquito bites so I’ve felt quite itchy…

Also had much to do up the mountain…

I’m feeling full of excuses… 21 months ago