Chronically Joyful

Let me tell you a little bit about my 2026 4^th of July week(s) that have spanned since June 14^th. I have had the absolute pleasure of welcoming my brother home for a longer visit from his homeland, New Zealand, and whenever this happens life becomes absolute anarchy (albeit, beautiful anarchy). I have spoken many times before about my personal thoughts on having MS and drinking alcohol but continue to fail at following my own advice in the summer months. There’s just something about Sam Adam’s Summer Ale! 

Coming from a lineage of big drinkers, you can imagine what our family reunions look like; despite approaching these cherished reunions very differently these days, I am by no means perfect. So, after a series of questionable decisions over the last ~16 days, I bring you fine readers the gift of the top things I have done to manage the consequences of my own actions LOL. 

Movement and Stretching 

I know I always come back to this, but movement truly is medicine. In the days I spent alone in between the festivities, I clung to my routine for dear life in an attempt to maintain some semblance of normalcy. I went to the gym on my regular days and even squeezed a hot weather run in! It felt amazing and truly did taper down the higher levels of pain I had been experiencing. 

For ease of speaking, I do not normally experience standard numbness and tingling, but instead would describe my pain as a more severe variation of growing pains (and have been gaslit by doctors many times about this). I’ll refer to my pain as “GP” in this context, and was absolutely delighted when I returned from the hot weather run and felt like a brand new person. While I felt absolutely exhausted, my GP was completely gone and did not return the next day after having experienced it for ~ 2-3 days consistently prior. 

Now, stretching on the other hand, I have a hard time being consistent with. It has nothing to do with slow movement or silence as I’m a consistent meditator, but more about always running out of time in the day when I’m prioritizing other things. I know that’s an excuse, as is my other reason I don’t stretch often – Puddles doesn’t let me get on the ground without mauling me. It’s an excuse, I could always close the door, but…look at her. 

When I’m finally disciplined enough to actually prioritize stretching because I know it’s game changing for someone with MS, I cannot stress enough the difference all around in how I feel. Yes, it comes with a beautiful level of mental clarity when I choose to make it moody as I always do (dim lighting, a diffuser going, and absolute silence in the sanctity of my bedroom), but on the physical level, it is SO important. Due to different circumstances in each person’s situation, muscles in MS patients have a higher likelihood of shrinking/shortening and experiencing muscle spasms. Even just 10 minutes a day can make an enormous difference and I can speak to that  from firsthand experience. 

Food is Medicine 

I know I sound like a broken record, but I come from a place of ultimate balance. I will not sit here and tell you that the Wahl’s Diet is the only way to go, in fact 30 days into trying it, it gave me such severe GI pain that I only kept some aspects in my life today (mainly being conscious of my veggie intake). But we would all be lying to ourselves if we thought only eating fast food, processed TV dinners, and chocolate were going to make us feel good – MS aside! 

With spending so much time with my family, obviously I was not being hyper conscious of my consumption – I know how to cook and I love it, but my poor brother and I lived on Dino nuggets and Stouffer’s mac and cheese as we re-lived our childhood. When my family dined out, you betcha that I ordered the bacon burger and fries (that I severely paid for later, lemme tell ya). All of the nutritional choices on top of the incredible amount of beer drinking, I became a shell of my former self. It’s interesting to introspect simply for the fact that not only did I physically feel like a pile of garbage, but noticed a shift in the way I was entirely. I was grumpier, short fused, took things personally I normally wouldn’t, etc. If nothing else, it certainly explained some things from the past. 

As I slowly reacclimate into my standard routine, I’ve made it a point to try and focus on eating whole foods and drinking A TON of water. 

• Eggs 
• Steel cut oats 
• Ground beef 
• Roast chicken
• Asparagus
• Onions, garlic, mushrooms 

When focusing on trying to eat the right things I know will fuel my body correctly, I honestly don’t put too much thought into this – knowledge is power, but too much of it can lead to thought spiraling and information overload. Stick to what you like, jazz it up (I made a delicious mushroom cream sauce with my chicken one night), and just listen to your body. 

I’m treating myself like a science experiment these days in observing my own patterns; I don’t drink often anymore and classify myself as a social drinker, so going out for drinks with my girlfriends or my honorary bar beverage after long, hard hours of yardwork. What I’ve intentionally done in these recalibration moments is obviously cut the drinking out. While this normally isn’t difficult for me, it IS after having drank enough to sink a sailboat over the last 2 weeks! I’ve caught myself pouring a glass of white wine as I made a mushroom cream sauce or staring at my overstocked fridge from when my brother and I were hanging out on my back deck and needing to really put some thought into choosing NOT to imbibe. There is an art to noticing your personal patterns and habits and is something I spend a lot of time introspecting on. With choosing not to drink during this reset, I feel significantly better and my GP has not only gone away entirely, but I’ve had no inkling of it coming back – we’ll see what happens on the actual 4^th of July during a bigger family reunion/pool party. 

Resting and Meditating 

It’s totally cliche, but I’m a fan of the phrase “I am a human being, not a human doing.” As someone who has recovered from Orthorexia, I have always had a very hard time resting because to me, it always needed justification. Candidly, I kind of enjoyed getting sick because it forced me into “rest and recover” mode and gave me an excuse to take a rest day from the gym and survive on Cheerios and Gatorade. I am grateful not to be in this mindset anymore (and haven’t been since around 2022!) and have finally realized that I do my best work when resting, and in silence. 

We live in a society where progress is measured by what we’ve “accomplished” but what if we swapped that mindset to “what makes us happy”? Everywhere I go, I am met with “yeah, but what did you achieve?” and sometimes I don’t have an answer. Sometimes, it’s just as simple as saying “I felt better” or “I got clarity” and that’s absolutely acceptable. 

As I’ve recovered from the fun festivities, I have made it a point to listen to my body (as previously stated above) and taking the time to meditate has been an incredible asset to keeping my head above water. Taking the time to sit in silence and ground myself, by myself, has changed me for the better. Something I’d like to make abundantly clear: 

Meditation does not always mean just sitting in silence, trying to stop your thoughts!

I always start my sessions in an attempt to drop focus entirely – I am successful maybe 15% of the time, if I’m being honest. I do my best to set an intention for the session but not cling to a specific outcome, but I am human, so it doesn’t look picture perfect. Sometimes I sit with a very specific intention; in those moments, I have a notebook in my lap with a question at the top of the page; once in the right state, I’ll mentally ask the question and just see what comes up. I find more success in this method and have had some prolific experiences. As an example, I’d set the intention once of hearing from my late grandmother; just when I was about to give up, I heard her voice. I heard her say hello to me, using a nickname I hadn’t thought of since I was maybe 10 years old. It was actually that experience that convinced me to make meditation a daily practice when I’m able, and I haven’t looked back since. 

If you don’t like to term it “meditation,” frame it more so a check-in with yourself. It doesn’t need to be perfect and it doesn’t need to match what you’ve read on the internet – just take 10 minutes to mentally check in with how you’re feeling, acknowledge it, process, and move forward. 

So, dear readers, those are my tips & tricks to recovering faster when you fall out of routine and live with a Chronic Illness! Thank you for being here, and as always, I hope you’re remaining Chronically Joyful with me. ♡