I’ve been ill for several weeks. There is some sort of sickness going around the area, and mine started as a headache and a sore throat. Then it moved to a cough and runny nose and headache with the sore throat only in the mornings. I took tow non-consecutive days off from work that week. This is day 20 and I’m still sick. But other symptoms began popping up that made it time to go to the doctor. I could tell based on the feeling of my skin that my shingles were back. I also had an odd rash that was not part of shingles on my skin. To top that off, when I would exercise (by the way, I’m a personal trainer), I would wheeze and have trouble breathing.

I met with my doctor for almost an hour. I love her. She speaks plainly, anticipates questions, and knows how to use laymen’s terms. It was the longest visit I’d had to the doctor’s in a long time. When it was all said and done, I had shingles, some sort of dermatitis from coming into contact with something I am allergic to, illness with inflamed nasal passages, and newly developed allergy-induced asthma that affects me when it’s allergy season and I’m doing physical activity that will cause me to breathe heavy. Whoa!

I called my mother after this to have a good laugh. If you’ve read other posts, you’ll know that lately there is always something wrong. The latest one is that I’ve been trying to find a part-time job since the middle of June. (The lowered immune system and the stress of the job hunt is what brought back the shingles.) I couldn’t be upset about any of this. My mother and I had a good laugh over the fact that every time I call her, there is absolutely no good news to report. Obviously, everyone is doing well in my family. She’s just hoping to hear something good such as a new job or no bad health news. We are to the point now where all we can do is giggle over the craziness of my life. I would certainly rather have all of these oddities happen to me than to my husband or son. And I’m certainly grateful that the illnesses are these small things and not something huge such as cancer.

For the last few of weeks, I’ve been thinking about going back to my plant-based diet. The only reason I went back to animal products was because I knew I was doing it all wrong during the six months before I switched. My schedule was crazy and I became lazy. Of course my body was going to feel bad. But I can’t help but think that part of the reason all of these things are happening is because of my diet. Processed foods make me feel like crap. I have to be careful with red meat because it also makes me feel horrible. Chicken had no flavor for me. It’s time to make the switch. Over the last few weeks I had been scaling back on the animal products and processed foods, but it’s time to go full-time with it. My body is telling me that it’s in trouble, and I need to treat it better.

I was having such a hard time going completely back to non-processed, non-animal products. Yesterday, I had no trouble at all. All I had to do was think about all of the medications on my kitchen table and those chocolate covered almonds for the movie didn’t seem all that great. I see this as a blessing in disguise. At least these illnesses came in curable forms. What would I have done if there had been an illness that was too late to take care of? It’s a blessing in disguise in the form of new willpower and motivation.