Rebuilding My Temple
We’ve all been talking about it for two years. Our respective Covid-19 war stories.
When we had it.
When someone in our family had it.
When someone we knew died from its complications.
Those who have been vaccinated but still go it.
Or, those of us who have never had it.
Each cohort bears their own tales of woe.
I believe I fall into the “had it before it was cool” category. As in, those last few months before the world changed, before Covid-19 had neither a name, face, nor a reputation.
After developing a sinus infection in late December 2019, some strange things started happening to me. Long-dormant asthma symptoms suddenly returned prompting me to restart a daily inhaler.
January, February, and March of 2020 I traveled extensively for work, and in those months, I had an on-again-off-again lower respiratory infection that kept my chest congested, my voice raspy, and my energy level low.
Then the shutdown.
For the remainder of 2020 and well into 2021, my digestive health went down the proverbial tubes. Acid reflux, poor digestion, worsened breathing symptoms, sleepless nights, one trip to Urgent Care, one to the ER, and lots of medicine, and I still never felt quite normal.
Was all of this simply the stressors of pandemic life mixed with a poor diet and a restart of allergies?
Probably.
Or was it Covid-19, long haul edition?
Probably that, too.
The thing is, doctors—though they are society’s new day version of healers—can’t really help with diagnosing, let alone curing, a host of mystery symptoms. They simply play detective and suggest pharmaceuticals.
I love them, but I can’t take their opinion alone. On my journey, I had to listen to my closest health expert—me. I also had to call in holistic health reinforcements such as my chiropractor, my functional medicine doctor, my nutritionist, my acupuncturist, my healer madrina, my therapist, and my Chinese herbalist.
None of this has been cheap. However, the money I’ve spent gaining insights from others outside of the medical establishment have at last put me on the right track. Eliminating gluten, most grains, incorporating a multitude of supplements, staying on the daily inhaler as well as breathing exercises, not to mention yoga and manifestation journaling have all helped. I am, after two years, rebuilding my temple.
I have good days, great days, and then a string of bad ones. Two steps forward. One step back. Another sideways. Another diagonal. Each time learning and listening to my inner shaman.
After all, only we know our bodies, and only we are equipped to heal them. We have to take the advice of the experts and the sages. We have to use their chemicals and their herbs. We have to think and imagine the end result. It all helps. Our healers want to help us, and we need to let them.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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Photo credit: Unsplash
