Slowing Down

I’ve taken a little unintentional social media and blogging break because I’m recovering from my third round of mono:(  Perhaps my body is telling me I need to rest? I’ve felt great since Avery has been born (so much energy compared to pregnancy), but I guess I am more drained than I realized.  I think the back-to back travel with Christmas and Florida wasn’t great either – the last recurrence  was right after travel (also in January), so maybe it’s more stressful  than I realize? I wish I had some notes from the other two times I had it to compare symptoms. This time I am so achy and have more of a sick feeling, and I think it other times I was just tired. It feels like being 9 months pregnant the day after running a marathon. I’m thankful Matt is on paternity leave, but also feeling kind of bad that he’s doing so much on his much-needed break from work. This will be week 3, so I think the worst is over.

I had been using every minute that Avery was napping and Emerson is at school (or napping) to keep up with household tasks, shower, exercise, blog, work on Beautycounter or other things on my to-do list, so I’m trying to use more of that time to just rest – either nap, watch TV (this is way more relaxing for me than scrolling), or read.

 

 

My doctor also said a few things that are interesting:

-Alcohol – your liver works to detoxify your body up to 72 hours after you drink, so drinking takes energy away from fighting the virus.  I’m not usually drinking more than one drink these days because of breastfeeding, but I did have one drink every night of our vacation and I’m sure that wasn’t the greatest.

-Breastfeeding depletes stores and takes a lot of energy – my doc said the recurrence is most likely related to pregnancy and breastfeeding and hopes this won’t happen again once I’m finished having kids. I don’t feel physically drained from breastfeeding, but I need to remember that it’s a lot on my body.

-Flu season – my immune system is fighting all the time to keep all the external viruses away so it couldn’t fight the dormant internal virus.

-Constant stress in our society that we don’t notice  – I told her I hadn’t been feeling stressed out mentally and she reminded me that the new normal is busy and stressed and I probably just don’t notice that I’m going non-stop because we are all used to it.

Anyway, Avery is the cutest right now so she’s worth mono for sure!