It’s the rest of the week. How are you?
How is your whole self?
Last weekend my stomach started complaining, waking up the rest of the digestive system which joined in the revolt.
“What could have caused this?” I asked a friend—mentioning the pile of molokhia I’d eaten earlier (p.s. I agree with the author’s conclusion in the linked post).
“You’re body probably isn’t used to molokhia yet,” she determined.
“That must be it,” I said. And forgot about it.
A couple of days later, I noticed that my chest felt heavy.
“It must be the sand storm from the other day,” I told Ricardo. (Sandstorms in the larger region periodically fill our sky with dust and sand particles for a day or two).
But then, my legs started feeling like dead weight one minute into our daily walk up the hill (instead of hitting me near the top).
So I checked in with the nurse who informed me that we’d been exposed to the dread virus at a recent meeting. She ran through a list of symptoms.
Aah. Of course!
If I’d paid a little more attention to my whole body, instead of chalking the different symptoms up to different issues, I’d have remembered what my body does when fighting sickness. I drag around and feel exhausted—and may or may not develop symptoms like fever.
Usually I try to just push through, but this time I didn’t. We have two big upcoming trips and experience suggested getting better as quickly as possible.
I took naps and did a good bit of lying around.
It was refreshing and I’m considering building more of that kind of thing into my daily routine.
How are you—how is your body?
May you rest as needed and may your rest be sweet.
Alicia
So what is Molokia?
Hope you recover quickly!! 🙏🙏🙏