All Coming Together

This week I have a bit of a sore throat, which is a refreshingly mundane and minorly annoying ailment, all things considered. It's been a fairly typical December in other ways as well—tree collecting and decorating, visiting with friends, slightly too many egg nogs and Frangos, not quite enough walks with the sausaging dogs. I like the short days and long nights, and the cold—real cold—a couple weeks ago was a charming diversion from the norm. And, as 2009 draws to a close, I find my health—physical, but also mental and emotional—resolving into a sustainable place.

First of all, my right eye. I saw my eye doctor on Monday, and she says that the fluid under my cornea is no longer visible with just her naked eye and a magnifying glass—it actually has to be seen under some scanning machine for her to know it's still there. I can still see some distortion, but the vision in that eye is now 20/25, which is pretty good. My left eye is still normal and healthy and sees 20/20.

Second of all, the rest of my physical health. I won't get more scans until the new year, but at the moment everything seems good, and I continue to be bad ass as far as strength and fitness. Last week, I jumped my highest jumps yet—about 2'3", which is definitely a real jump! Even the ridiculously tall Gjinger (not a typo) couldn't just canter over.

Third of all, my mental and emotional health. I haven't been writing about this too much here, because it would've been tedious (for me). For the last several months I've been having anxiety attacks where I think something awful is going to happen (seizures, my death), with no provocation and no trigger that I can see. Flying and travel didn't make me anxious, for example, but having brunch with a group of close friends pushed me over the edge (or rather, I went over the edge during brunch). Since the attacks have been pretty common, and I've had several migraines also associated with stress and anxiety, and it's all been kind of the same thing day after day after day, I haven't really wanted to write.

Anyway, in an attempt to retrain my body how to be calm and reasonable, without the assistance of yet another pharmaceutical, I've been seeing Witch Doctor Dan every week (instead of every 3-4 weeks), and a new cranio-sacral person about every 10 days. I am also seeing a talk therapist every couple weeks, and having an ah HA moment or two with her every time.

And you know what? It's working. I have not had any sort of migraine (or neurological episode, as Taya wants me to call them, to reduce some of the stigma) for the last 8 days, and no anxiety attacks (after almost daily migraines—NEs—and several anxiety attacks the week before). I have some Ativan in my possession, just in case, and I've taken a few pills over the last couple months, but none for the last 8 days, either. I'm going to keep up the visits—all of them—for the next month (like finishing the course of antibiotics even after the symptoms are gone) until Ian and I head off to Africa.

All in all, though, a fine ending to 2009.