Kindred Spirits

This is what I had laying across my legs while I sipped my morning latte.  Dewey loves to snuggle in the mornings before I get out of bed. It is his time.  He assures himself of this mommy and me time by pinning me so I am rendered helpless.  My legs are under there somewhere.

This morning after our coffee we went for a nice run at Clam Beach.  It is my favorite way to start the day.  Fresh air, long stretch of beach, happy dogs, and Gus and I stretching our legs.  We see many of the same people, and most of them have dogs.  This morning we saw the Bassett Hound and his owner, an older gentleman who runs to Little River and back.  We like him, mostly because we like his dog. We also saw the lady with the Icelandic pony.  Her pony is the coolest looking animal, and was instrumental in teaching Dewey that horses really are not that interesting. I could not tell you what most of the regulars look like if not for their animals. I recognize most people and name them according to what breed or species of animal they are with.  There is "Rottewieler lady", she has 2 giant Rotties that she runs with, but whenever she see's other dogs she leashes them, so when we get close to her, we leash out of respect. We always wave at each other. I assume she refers to us as the "Labrador family".  There are also the pug people, the large mastiff couple, and various others that I can't think of.  We think of these people and their dogs as kindred spirits.

Also, I am feeling better! (Obvious, since I went running I guess). The neti pot/sudafed quickly knocked out the cough, and I managed to keep it at bay all week by using the neti pot once daily. So back to a normal routine of being a healthy person.  Here's to staying that way!

Juice Fasting

In an effort to feel better I am juice fasting today. Thankfully my husband is in the mood to juice fast today as well.  It makes my chances of remaining steadfast that much stronger. Why would I want to fast,  you ask?? 

Well, I weaned myself off of the Prednisone yesterday after 2 weeks, and my body is left feeling sluggish, bloated and blah.  One of the horrible side effects of Pred is feeling ravenously hungry, and since I was also bored and depressed I ate, and ate. I woke up full this morning.

I know there are those who think fasting is not healthy.  I actually think it is good to do a 24 hour fast  every now and again.  I don't think it is healthy for me to go without nutrients, so juice fasting is a great way for me to accomplish a brief cleanse and still feel like I am feeding my body.  So for the next 24 hours I will be drinking water, herb tea and having some nice freshly juiced veggies and fruits.

Now, I know it will sound silly, but juicing is FUN for me.  I like mixing different vegetables and fruits together, and finding combinations that are good tasting, and have power packed nutrient values. The fact that my juicer ROCKS makes it that much more fun. My juicer juices everything! Spinach, tomatoes, carrots, oranges, even parsley or wheat grass.  Even the dogs benefit from juicing, although I am not sure they appreciate it as much as I would like.  I take the pulp from the carrots and apples and mix it in with their food.  They always eat it, and there is never any left over so I think they might actually "not hate it".  All the other left over pulps just go to the compost for the worms.  They never ever complain.

My juice plan for today:

Breakfast was a huge hand full of carrots, a hand full of spinach, 2 celery sticks, an apple, 1 lime, and 1 tomato all freshly squeezed.  Obviously carrots are full of beta carotene, as is the spinach. Spinach also is high in vitamin C and iron. Tomato is said to ease digestion. Celery is a good vegetable for cleansing as it has diuretic properties. The apple is to add a little sweetness, and it is also great for high vitamin and mineral content.  The lime is great for potassium, vitamin C, and if you get some of the pith in there, bioflavenoids.

Lunch may include half carrot half orange juice. Simple and delicious, one of my all time favorites.

Dinner juice will be similar to the breakfast, although I may add some parsley and  darker lettuces from the garden.  Lettuces have a soothing property that helps aid sleep. Parsley is chock full of chlorophyll and vitamins.  It actually tastes good in juice, too.

One of the most important parts is to drink plenty of water throughout the day!  So, cheers!

Asthma!

I have asthma.  Not the "run out of breath, pass out" kind of asthma, I have Cough Variant Asthma.  The kind that makes you cough pretty much non stop once it is out of control.  Not a productive cough...a shallow irritating cough that will.not.go.away.  I did not always have this issue, either.  It started gradually in my late 30's while living in the Sacramento Valley, and progressed as time went on. I manage to keep it controlled most of the time with Zyrtec, singular, and advair daily.  I have been taking these drugs for almost 10 years now. Usually I will get a flare up if I am stressed out (not very often), the air quality is particularly bad or if I get sick.

My Dr is the best. She is very proactive about keeping this under control...she insists of flu shots every year, she gave me a whooping cough vaccine booster this spring, pneumonia shots...everything. If I get a flare up she gets me right in to listen to my lungs etc. But it is frustrating for me....one minor head cold and I am down for the count for weeks afterward trying to get my asthma under control again.  And it seems like as I get older the less resilient I am to recovery.

My husband vacuums the house, and brushes the dogs every day in an effort to keep the dander in the house down. (I will never ever not have dogs). We invested in an air cleaner when we replaced the old forced air heater. I sleep with an air filter on every night. Actually, I can't sleep without the "white noise" it makes after so many years of having it on.  So, even in my day to day life I am effected by my asthma. How to prevent it, and how to get it back under control.

Right now I am battling a flare up from a cold I got 2 weeks ago. I am taking oral prednisone (on top of the zyrtec, singular and advair), and have been for almost 2 weeks now. It makes me jittery, spacey, grumpy and ravenous. This time it does not really feel like it is helping with the cough. I have stayed home from work this whole week in hopes that keeping quiet and not moving around too much will help quiet the spasms.  I *think* it is helping, but I hate missing so much work and having so little fun!

This morning I found a blog from a mother who has a small child suffering from the same thing, and it chronicles her attempt at getting her sons asthma under control. He takes all the same drugs as I do, but she had some ideas about nasal cleansing, sudafed, probiotics and a few other homeopathic treatments that are interesting. I am going to try some of these things and see what happens.

So, this morning in addition to my normal daily meds I added in a neti pot nasal wash and 1 sudafed.  I am also still taking my pred, but I am in the taper off mode now.  I go back to work tomorrow for 1 day and then I have the weekend off. Hopefully this will work.