Holy Cats, I Have Become One of Those People

I have been tired. I don’t mean a little tired. I have been so, so tired for so long. It has been creeping up on me for years. I go to bed tired and I wake up tired. I nap as often as I can, and when I wake up, I am only slightly less tired.

It has been bad. I have had no motivation to do anything. Being on the road has made it seem like I am doing more, but movement isn’t necessarily doing. I have avoided making plans for anything more than the smallest things, because I didn’t think I’d have the energy to follow through. I was too tired to exercise, which led to being even more tired.

I didn’t know whether it was hormones, or aging, or what. I didn’t really have the energy to even worry about it.

One of my goals while I was here was to see a doctor. I booked an appointment with a functional medicine doctor because my BFF has seen one who has helped her a lot.

Functional medicine doctors are medical doctors. They work differently than most doctors, though – they consider all the body’s systems working together and don’t just treat single symptoms. They look at the person as a whole and work to create health, not just to cure illness.

She’s very expensive and in glowing good health herself. Kind of a cold fish, but she’s serious about what she does. She conducts every test you can think of (and I’m dreading the bills for those when they begin to arrive. I have a huge health savings account that I HOPE will cover it all). I had to give many vials of blood and pee on test strips and look at eye charts and spend hours going over my health history with her.

I had the typical things you’d think are wrong with a fat lady my age: elevated cholesterol, too much bad cholesterol, markers for inflammation.

I left with a binder of stuff to try. Whole 30 diet. Sleep study. Some nutritional powder to make shakes from. Bulletproof coffee for breakfast. Adjustments to my vitamins, my hormones, a cholesterol-binding drug, and an $89 bottle of CBD oil to help me sleep.

I came home and tossed out all the grain-derived food in the house, weeping a little at the half-package of really good Italian pasta. I squirted some CBD oil under my tongue. Waited. Went to bed.

And woke up 8 hours later, refreshed.

I WOKE UP REFRESHED.

Not feeling like I needed another half hour of sleep. I woke up and got up and felt good.

What the hell.

CBD oil. I have become one of those people.

I’m not 100% better, of course. I have tired in my bones. I have a long way to go to be healthy. But for 2 days, I have awakened refreshed, and I feel, for the first time in a long time, that things can change. It’s a whole new decade and a whole new world. Let’s do stuff.

PS The type of CBD oil I use is only available by prescription. My doc likes it because it is tested and certified. The link is to the consumer version, but the kind I take is labeled “Professional.”