I have hope ...

I was waiting for a good time to tell this particular story. We do that a lot, don't we? Wait for a "good time" to do things? Then I realize (if I am lucky this realization comes sooner than later for most things), that this is a good time. Right now. While my little one watches Daniel Tiger and eats strawberries, while my other little one is at school, while Aksel works in his office at home. While I have countless things on my mind. While I am sleepy.

A year ago around this time, I was standing at the kitchen counter doing dishes and I thought I was going to collapse. My heart was racing, then very slow, I was sweating and I felt as if I would just fall down. I stopped and went to lie down. This scenario was now a familiar one to me. For the last three weeks, I had been taking care of my family who were all sick. One little one had had a fever, then a cough, my other little one had a cough non-stop, my husband coughing and coughing ... I remember thinking if I never hear another cough in my life, it would be good. While they were sick, I was terrified. Scared of COVID, without help. We went to the hospital twice with my littlest one during this time because she was on puffers every hour at one point. Each time, they said we were doing the right thing and just to monitor her. The second time they gave her dexamethasone to help her lungs recover faster. It worked.

All this time I was trying not to get what they had, so that I could take care of them. I had no cough, no fever, nothing. I had a different version of COVID. One that is not being spoken about enough. One that I did not realize I had until months later, when I drove myself to the Jewish General hospital, barely being able to stand. This is why I decided to share my story. To raise awareness and to advocate. This is what happened to me, this is the version that I got. 

While caring for my family during the last three weeks of March, 2020, I lost 25 pounds in three weeks. I had no appetite. My heart would race to 170 beats a minute without warning. I had squeezing in my chest. Sour taste in my mouth. I would start sweating. I couldn't sleep at night and would be up for three, four hours at a time in the middle of the night. When I did sleep, I would be woken up out of sleep with a racing heart and sweating. I was so scared I was unable to go back to sleep. Then after a while, my heart rate slowed down enormously. At one point it was below 45 beats per minute. All of these things happened every single day and every single night. For six months.

Around month three, after numerous telehealth and one in person doctor visit, continuing weight loss and complete exhaustion, the likes of which I have never felt before, I got in my car and drove myself to the Jewish General Hospital. I could barely walk from fatigue. They saw me and took me in right away. At this point, one of the doctors there had seen this type of COVID presentation and had me tested immediately. They did abdominal ultrasounds, EKG, echocardiogram, every blood test available, an x-ray of my heart and lungs. All the tests came back normal, the COVID test, negative. I remember the doctor coming in and he said "I have good news and bad news. The good news is that everything is normal and the bad news is that everything is normal. We don't know what is causing this." 

We now know what is causing this. It is post-viral syndrome. Also known as Long Covid or Long Haul Covid. In my case (and tens of thousands of others in Canada that we now know of) it presented as post viral Dysautonomia. Dysautonomia does not show up on the tests. It shows up as the debilitating symptoms that I was experiencing every single day. Post-viral syndrome is not new, nor is it exclusive to COVID. It becomes a problem now though because of the sheer amount of people being infected by COVID and the amount that will go on to develop post-viral syndrome and the demographic that it is affecting. So far, the estimate is that up to 1 in 3 people will have some form of post-viral syndrome, or long covid after COVID infection. It is presenting very much like Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The demographic for post-viral syndrome seems to be mostly women, between the ages of 25-45, in good health prior to infection, with initial COVID presentation being usually mild in nature. 

I my case, I have experienced good health and never had a digestive issue in my life. Through two pregnancies, I never had a day of nausea or indigestion. My whole life, I have thankfully been able to eat and drink anything and everything I have ever wanted. We eat small farm organic foods only and have done so for over 15 years. I have a garden and grow things. Since last March, I have only been able to eat salad and meat. Anything else gives me bad acid reflux. At one point at the beginning, even water was difficult to drink because of the reflux. For someone who had never experienced this before, I can't tell you how hard it is to experience pain and discomfort with every single bite of food or sip of water, all day, every day, day in day out. After months of this, I would often cry after eating. 

One night in particular stands out in my memory. It was about three months in. I had just been woken up from sleep by a racing heart and sweating. By this time I was afraid to fall asleep at night because of how scary it was to wake up like that and because it happened every single night. I was not eating because I couldn't. I was still nursing. I was exhausted to the core. I remember being on the couch (I slept, and still sleep on the couch now, because I could not lay flat on the bed anymore without acid coming up) and being thirsty. We have a Berkey water filter in the kitchen within view of our couch. I remember looking at the Berkey and bursting into tears because I was so tired, I did not know how I would gather the energy to get up and walk to the kitchen to get myself a glass of water. I cannot describe this level of fatigue to you. I could not have imagined it myself. Not even being an older mom to a new baby and young children comes close. 

I can tell you many stories of young people I know, who are going through similar things right now. 

It is over a year now and I am starting to feel better. A few months ago, the heart racing and sweating stopped and I am able to sleep again. I cannot tell you how relieved I feel. In the last month and a half, my energy has improved beyond words, my appetite has increased, I am still experiencing reflux but not as badly as before. I HAVE HOPE. I have joy. I have enormous gratitude.

I write this, and share my story, because I don't know what I would have done if I was a single parent, or had to work, or had a different family situation, or had a spouse that lost a job, or a business, or if I did not come from a family with a medical background and was able to advocate for and help myself, or in countless other situations. 

I am home raising my children by choice. I have an extraordinary husband who has been working full time, taking care of our children before and after work and all of his lunch periods and free time, taking and picking up our little one from school, and cooking for us every single day, every single meal, for a year, because I just could not. This is the kind of dedication and care he has given our family. This is what has allowed me the rest required to recover. 

Most people do not have this situation. People need help. People are having to sell their homes because they cannot work and they cannot get financial help. They are being misdiagnosed. They are trying to push through it only to have debilitating symptoms return from their exertion. The thing with this is that the only way through is rest and time. It can take anywhere from a few months to five years to recover from post-viral syndrome. What do you do if you cannot work because you literally cannot get up and Long-Covid is not an officially available diagnosis for any government aid or benefits. Where do you get help? How do you pay your bills? How do you keep your hope alive? Where do you go for rehabilitation? These are just some of the questions we need to answer.

What I wish to see first and foremost is an information campaign directed at the medical community regarding post-viral syndrome after COVID infection. They need to know what to look for and how to use existing protocols and best practices to advise, treat and follow people through to recovery. This for me is the fastest, easiest and least expensive way to help people through this, from a health standpoint. At this point, I do not expect Long Covid clinics to materialize in time here. At last count, the UK is up to 85 clinics specifically dedicated to treating people with post-viral syndrome after COVID infection. If we cannot go that centralized route, it is imperative that the medical community be informed of the most current and accurate protocols in treatment and that these be recognized and applied immediately.

Well, I think that is about it for now and I have come to the end of this story on this post. I will end it by saying this to you, the people you think are recovered, so many of them, are not as recovered as you think.

Sunrise. Every day. There is always hope. Never forget that.

To save ourselves ...

To get right to the point, as those of you who know me, know I love to do, I want to talk to you today about disposable masks and hand sanitizers.

These items are in our world right now in, and here it is again, unprecedented (I imagine you have been hearing this word a lot lately) amounts. The plastic pollution was already an enormous problem before Covid-19. The world was on a path to ban single use plastics, plastic water bottles and the such. Many of you were outspoken advocates for this and it was and is necessary.

What I am not hearing now, is any conversation about the enormous amount of plastic waste, that disposable face masks, plastic hand sanitizer bottles and the like, will add to an environment already burdened by so much human generated pollution. The masks have an environmental lifespan of 450 years, as do the plastic bottles.

United Nations Trade And Development projects that disposable face masks are set to go from $800 MILLION in 2019 to $166 BILLION in 2020 and even higher after that. Please, let that sink in. 

Image - 'The Guardian'

How can we talk about protecting our elders and most vulnerable in society from Covid-19 and not talk about environmental responsibility in ensuring that there will be a healthy planet for us to live in after Covid-19. It is myopic, at best, to worry about the current pandemic and associated behaviours if the environmental responsibility of keeping surgical masks, plastic gloves, plastic hand sanitizer bottles, medical PPE's and sanitizing chemicals out of our land, rivers, lakes and oceans is neglected. 

Where are the people asking questions like 'Is there anyone monitoring the sanitization product levels in our drinking water?' 'In our lakes?' The amount of sanitizer going into our water systems when we wash our hands, clean etc is .. yes, you guessed it, unprecedented. And incredibly toxic. Is anyone testing hospital effluents with this extraordinary increase in sanitization? Is anyone looking at the effects of constant sanitizer use on the skin of very young children and even babies? Is there a similarity with all this sanitization and the overuse of antibiotics? Will it create 'superbugs'?

Since staying home, products being delivered at home are at a historical high (I didn't want to use unprecedented again ...) between online shopping and takeout services, the accumulating plastic waste is enormous ...

We cannot separate ourselves from responsibility of the whole. It is a web, of which we are one part. We must not and cannot take a myopic view when it comes to life and we must address and find solutions for the rapidly accumulating Covid-19 waste in the same way we became advocates for the banning of other plastics and chemicals. We must rapidly make disposable masks that are biodegradable or truly recyclable or something else. I don't know what. I don't have the answer but I know collectively, we do, and we must start looking for it. Fast. We can perhaps fill those hand sanitizer bottles with environmentally sound liquid soap and carry another one of water, so we can wash our hands anywhere, which is the best thing anyway. Or something else. Something other that billions of people dumping sanitizer into our waterways ...

We must ask the questions, investigate and come up with solutions.

To save ourselves. Not the environment, not the planet. The planet will be fine. We must save ourselves. 

I lift up my face ...

This misty moment.

Filled with bird chirpings. Great bird noises. Busy bird noises. Bickering bird noises. Everyone going about their bird business of the day, gathering bugs, worms and other things of bird life.

The bright green, dark green, in between green ... trees standing perfectly still. Being. Witnessing.

The noise, the silence, simultaneously.

The countless tiny droplets of mist coats all souls. Filling every available surface with gentle life.
I lift up my face.

The magic in our hands ...

These are my hands. Well, hand ...

I am wearing the gloves because my skin is cracked and bleeding from all the hand washing and dishwashing. My knuckle bled, there is a little paper cut like opening on my pinkie and red dry skin over much of my hands. They sting and hurt when I don't have the gloves on for washing, so, I have been wearing them almost all day today.

The day wound down, as they do, and we put our little ones to bed. I had my gloves on for story time, for countless requests for this and that, for medicine giving and tea bringing and finally, I had my gloves on for snuggling.

As I lay my hand to caress hair and then gently rest on the blanket that covered my little one, I was struck by a remembering of the magic of our skin. The magic in our hands. This thin layer of nitrile, reminded me that every time we touch, when our skin comes into contact with something, especially our loved ones, something incredible happens. A communication you have to be very present for to feel, or have the choice removed from you to miss.

It is an extraordinary thing, all the experiences we take for granted.

I imagined myself not being to remove the gloves, not being able to have my hands, my skin, feel again. It is then that the remembering came. I sit here now and type and periodically stop and look at my hands. Place them together and feel this magic. Then I type again, feel my fingertips on the keyboard and imagine if I could not feel them with my skin. I am so glad I can.

There are so many blessings among the fear. Countless. This is one I wanted to share with you tonight.


Friday, March 20th, 2020 - Quarantine day 7

A promise of light ...

Have you felt the descent into darkness? Human life mirrors nature, mirrors human life. Each season lives within every moment of our lives. We have only to look. The turns of the wheel are sacred. Are teachers to those willimg to learn. 

This time, feel into this. The darkest dark, given time, given grace, given love, given friendship, given all the broken pieces to be held most tenderly while awaiting a new form, is always followed by the return of the light. 

Always. 

Just as the seasons cycle, we cycle, life cycles, boundless in the micro and macrocosm. Over and over. What do we do with all this? What do we do as we enter the darkest night? We enter, my darlings. We enter the deepest and darkest parts of ourselves. Away from the countless facades and distractions, away from the manufactured busyness, away from the roles we play, away from speaking, away from seeing with our eyes... We enter into the slow. We seek our way back to the lessons of the dark.

We are surrounded by artificial light at all times, literally and figuratively. All to get away from the dark, literally and figuratively. But we cannot escape the dark because it always comes... We must learn to be with darkness again. That we can be. We must learn again how to help ourselves and that we need the help of others in the darkest time. 

Sit with this. See where it finds you. Hold space for the you that exists beyond the doing.

Because here we are. The longest night, brings the return of the light.
As above, so below, as within, so without.

The Winter Solstice is a promise of light, a promise of new beginnings.

Alchemy always.

Happy Winter Solstice my darlings.

The harvest always comes ...

Autumn is almost here my dears. Did it feel like time went faster this year? The solstice will be upon us soon. It is a funny time, isn't it? Everything is so lush, so alive, so rich in greens, colours, life ... The sun, hot, ripening everything to peak perfection ... toward its death...

Transformation ...

Nature, is our wisest and greatest teacher, if we allow. Everything we could ever hope to know is right before our eyes, waiting to be noticed, witnessed ... the forgotten sacred, waiting to be remembered. Look. See. Open. Go back.

Have you noticed now how hot the sun feels on your skin these days and how cold it is in the shade? The hot-cold sun of Autumn is a sun we need to be grateful for. He is a generous Sun. Letting us know that this particular life will soon come to an end for another season and giving us time to enjoy the heat, the bounty, the sounds, the air ... so gently letting us know that we must prepare for the cold and darkness to come.

The harvest always comes.

Harvest Moon is a time of death and transformation. It is the last harvest of the season, the animal harvest. The most difficult one. The minute we eat anything at all, we have taken death and transformed it. What we have eaten now becomes us, and this being we have consumed, now goes on as part of a new whole... Life is wild ...

The harvest always comes.

Think about your lives now for a moment. Not later. Now. No matter what you are doing. Stop. Give yourself a minute.

Stop.

Do you feel the moment of peace inside of you? Does the breath naturally come? A relief?

What will you harvest when you are in the Autumn of your life my dear ones? No matter what, day by day, moment by moment, with every single action you take, you are putting into the garden of your life. Good or bad, loving or damaging, every moment, it's going in.

The wheel of time goes on.

So take a good, clear, honest look at how you are spending your days ... who you are spending your days with ... what information you are feeding your mind ... what are you feeding your spirit ... your heart ... your stomach ... it all matters, every moment. It all builds your garden and readies it for Harvest.

How will your internal and external garden look in the Autumn of your life? Will it be full of thriving things that have been nurtured and cared for, given adequate food, water, love, sun, air, moon, love, space, time, rest, protection ... Every living being thrives on these things...

Or, will it be dry, wilted, devoid of fruits, stunted, weak from abandon, hungry for love, for rest, for food, water, sun, air, moon, love, space, time, rest, protection ...


Which will you harvest? The bounty? The lack? Think. Look. See your life ... your input in it ... your power to create anything.

Because my dears, the harvest always comes.

A good Harvest Moon to all. ReJOYce in the magnificence of this extraordinary life. Gratitude. Remember the forgotten. Open your eyes once more to what is important. The magic is in the minutes, the seconds, rich with eternity, rich with you.

Fully hers ... fully me ...

A little magic merry go-round lives right beside the shoe store at the mall where dogs are allowed to roam in the summertime. So teeny tiny … complete and utter magic to little children, who still live in their heart. It has three or four little ponies on it, I don't remember exactly. Some pink, some purple, some blue ...

"Mommy mommy can I go on the merry go-round?!!" Sure my baby, I say. She jumps for joy and I reach for my change and put it in the slot.

In my smartphone days, I would immediately reach for my phone, take a few photos (to participate in the endless documenting of every single moment that we have all become addicted to) of her enjoying the ride and put it away. There may have been the little red number that signifies a text or a WhatsApp box on the top and whether I wanted it to or not, the visual alone, would have diverted my full and complete attention away from this moment. The flow of connection, of pure presence would have been broken. Even if for a moment. It matters deeply.

In my new chosen reality, smartphone free, I instead reached for my bag (addiction habit), realized there was no phone and smiled. I felt such relief that it was not there. What I did instead, was spend two full and complete minutes looking at my child. Deeply looking. Looking into her joyful eyes each time the horses came by and she looked into mine and showed me her soul. I was fully there to see it. To see her. To fully witness. Fully hers. Fully me. I didn't take a photo of the moment for later. I was completely in the moment as it happened and it was so rich and so deep that the memory brings tears to my eyes as I write this. I felt so blessed to fully give myself to my life in the here and now. To fully and completely see my baby's joy, to look into those beautiful eyes for a long time and free to delight in it uninterrupted.

I have (and have had for a long time now) an idea of how you are never fully where you are with smartphones, but I did not realize just how much richness and depth you lose in life. How much you lose in the experience of self, of your own internal journey.

How much you become the one constantly documenting instead of experiencing and more importantly, while you are documenting, your soul's journey is constantly being interrupted and subjected to the incessant brain pull of various messaging systems and notifications. And the thing is, we have forgotten how much we have lost, how rich and glorious life and connection and existence actually are, because most of us are never away from our smartphones for an extended period of time.

I'm not sure how to end this piece so I will end it just like this. Imperfectly.

Stay tuned for more.

Oh, also, here are some photos of what we have been up to over here ...

Gathering the peonies of summer ...

The lavender came back this year … thankfully ...

I love flowers in the rain … capturing such beauty with a camera, not a smartphone ...

Watercress  ...

Making sun tea … the best ...

The rain is over, full bloom ...

This came in the mail from Spain … reclaiming my brain, one step at a time ...

Mother water ...

Looking up instead of down ...

Fertility … 

More looking up … slowly, fully … Grandmother moon ...