Personal Health Reset: Day 8 of 30 (and my birthday!)

Friends, I have had such a great day! After over two years of nausea, tummy troubles, hip pain, vertigo, and more, I can't believe today was so amazing!

Please note: some links in this post are affiliate in nature and may result in a small commission to me at no extra cost to you. 

The Sea Bands I mentioned in yesterdays post have been AMAZING! They are so simple but have truly transformed my life! 

Expect a lot of exclamation points in this post! Sorry, not sorry!

I have been experimenting with periodically taking the motion sickness bands off here and there (I must find them irritating at night even though they are fine during the day as I take them off in my sleep), and they definitely are helping to improve my nausea. They are working better than any medications I've tried!

I woke up slowly this morning and eventually took myself and my dog to Starbucks for my free birthday drink and for my dog's favorite treat--a plain bagel for her--and then we came home and lounged a little bit. While I was hanging out with my girl, a friend texted and asked about getting together for dinner, not knowing that today is my birthday (I'm 52!). We made a plan to run an errand that we both needed to do, to hit up a book store close out sale, and then to go to dinner. 

I packed up the two items I recently sold on Poshmark (a Banana Republic shirt and book about hiking with kids in Oregon and Washington--link for the book opens to Amazon) and set those aside for the mutual errand with my friend (we both needed to drop off items for shipping). Then, I showered, got dressed, and headed out for some birthday presents for myself. 

I was in such a good mood all day (and still am!)! This was the first day in a while where I felt like I could eat and behave normally all day without fear of becoming extremely nauseous to the point of being incapacitated for the rest of the day. It was glorious!

I took public transportation up to the Dr. Marten's store and bought myself some shoes that I had way back when I was in high school (I've always regretted getting rid of them instead of getting them resoled), picked up a couple of greeting cards at Made Here (a shop of Portland, Oregon specific brands and products), and made my way over to my favorite stationery store. 

Oblation Papers & Press is a gorgeous stationery shop and they create some of the stationery sold at my favorite Paris, France stationery shop, Melodies Graphiques! I found this out while at the shop in Paris when I said, "Oh, this place reminds me so much of a shop back home!" The shopkeeper replied, "You are from Portland, Oregon, no?" and he told me that Oblation supplied many of the items they had for sale. Such a small world! I found a few items, and, as I was checking out, I found a few more!

I then wanted to get coffee at a new-to-me cafe and found Matta Cafe Bar. It's a beautiful place with immaculate vibes! I had an Americano with a strawberry matcha scone and spent some time working on a junk journal while enjoying my coffee and scone. The scone is one of the best I've ever had! I also made a bookmark for another person at the shop who I had overheard talking about travel (to Paris!). He was having some hesitations about the trip and I told him to go and enjoy it!

After the cafe bar, I hopped on public transportation again. By this point, closing in on 1pm, I'd also walked a mile throughout the morning--until this past weekend, I was struggling to get a full mile over the course of an entire day due to my nausea issues!

I hopped off the Streetcar in Northwest Portland and went to my favorite clothing shop, Title Nine, where I tried on several items and ended up purchasing a dress and a pair of shorts (I really wanted everything in the store though!). The sales person was nice enough to also let me use their bathroom. 

From there, I walked to Harlow, a vegan and gluten free restaurant that I LOVE, where I had a smoothie (strawberry, marionberry, banana, peanut butter, hemp seeds), a pesto grilled cheese sandwich, and cup of chipotle chili. While there, I also read a few chapters of my current library book, Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson. 

After my lunch, I took the bus to a physical therapy appointment for a hip injury. Unfortunately, due to a recent aggravation of my injury, we weren't able to do a whole lot. I have an MRI scheduled for later this week that will determine if I need surgery and exactly what kind (to fix a cartilage tear or to shave off an abnormality of my femur head or both). 

Until I got the Sea Bands, all of that would have been far too much for a single day! I probably could have done ONE, maybe two, of those things in a day and nothing else. Physical Therapy ended at a little after 4pm and I was still full of energy and in a great mood! Truly, the Sea Bands have transformed my life! I felt a little nauseous at physical therapy due to having to lay on my stomach for about 15 minutes, but once I was back to upright, I began to feel significantly better. I wasn't even having any reflux symptoms--something the bands are only mildly helping with. 

From PT, I took a Lyft home due to feeling a little nauseous and being a bit hot--today has been muggy and warm--but by the time I was home, the lingering nausea was gone. I took a shower, collected a package, and ran into my kiddo in the lobby of our apartment building. My kiddo gave me a magazine I had asked for, as well as a T-shirt they though I would like (they were correct! I love the shirt!).

I took another shower, took my dog out to go potty, and then hung out at home until my friend was ready to go out. She picked me up and we went over to the book store where I found four books and she found a cookbook. We then headed over to a restaurant called Screen Door which is soooooo delicious! The waiters are incredibly nice and super helpful about dietary restrictions (I'm life threateningly allergic to dairy). We shared an appetizer of spicy deviled eggs (I'm not vegan even though I eat that way a lot), and then I had red beans and rice plus their lemon vinaigrette coleslaw--hot tip: put the coleslaw IN the red beans and rice! It's soooooo delicious! I also had a strawberry Aperol spritz with my dinner--I drink maybe three to four times a YEAR and usually only one drink that I don't even finish. We had a great time talking, deepening our knowlege of one another, and we laughed A LOT!

I'm home now and feeling so incredibly grateful for my kiddo, my dog, my friends, my home, Sea Bands, and just so much! Despite my health challenges over the last two years, I am truly blessed and do not take any of those blessings for granted!

Tomorrow, my focus will be on cleaning up my home (I made a big mess over the weekend with a project related to my Poshmark shop), going to use the pool at my gym (with my physical therapist's blessing), and finishing some snail mail letters I started at one of my coffe shop stops today. I also plan to focus on drinking water throughout the day.

The Sea Bands truly have made me feel like I've not only accomplished my goal to be 10% healhier at the end of 30 days, but like I've blown way past 10%! I don't know that I can quantify how much healthier I actually am, but I FEEL 85% healthier than I did just 8 days ago when I started this blog series!

I still need to take my dog out once more before bed, but so far today, I've walked nearly 3.5 miles! The last time I walked that much was more than a month ago on March 16th when I racked up 4.2 miles, but most of March and until today in April, I've only gotten a mile or less over the course of an entire day on most days!