This week, I’ve been the shuttle driver for Mom and her hiking buddy as she hikes her latest stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Her goal is to complete the whole trail, and since she does it as a day hiker in segments, it’s taken her years. But she’s getting close!
So, right now, I’m in the gorgeous wooded hills of New Hampshire, writing this on my laptop on the bench-couch in our small RV at our campground while Mom is off hiking with Lily and company.
Yes, yes, Wi-Fi and an RV—we’re really roughing it. But I’m trying to still get some work done, in between shuttling and camp chores, and this is the only way to do that. And it’s not always as glamorous as it sounds: we’ve had plenty of interesting adventures learning to use (and modify) an RV, and my sleep this week has been terrible. So bad one night, in fact, that my health tracker incorrectly thought I hadn’t slept at all. 😂
Writing update
I’m at over 100k words on book 2 of the new trilogy! And…that’s somewhere between halfway and two-thirds. 😅
But don’t hold your breath. My health and this hiking trip have really slowed me down these past couple weeks, and I’m at a real sticky part in the book where I need to figure out quite a few things I’ve been waffling on for a while.
Health update
But the good news is that I think I’m making some headway on identifying the cause of my mysterious health issues, by dint of combing through every single data point I have for the past three years (even my personal journal and work journal), doing a self-administered 2-week blood pressure evaluation under various conditions, and bringing my findings to a doctor. (Skip to the TLDR if you don’t want to hear the whole spiel.)
Turns out I might have a condition that’s similar to but not at the extreme level of POTS. (The hormonal problems I mentioned before are still a real issue, but probably only a compounding one from all my analysis of the data; my difficult cycles might just mean my body has less resilience cushioning if anything else goes wrong, and this pre-POTS condition might be that “anything else.”)
A lot more medical testing is needed to be sure, but the symptoms line up, even ones I’ve had my whole life but haven’t been an issue before. So, in the meantime, I’ve started trying low-risk interventions like drinking more water.
That seems like such a textbook solution, it’s infuriating.
It’s not like I haven’t tried to drink the “recommended” amount of water before, like I’ve been diligent about every other healthy habit.
But hydrating has actually been very hard for me to do my whole life, because I can easily overdrink and drop my blood sugar to the point I get migraines and nausea, even to the point of throwing up (my reaction this time last year after a day of flying was bad).
This led me to a lot of research over the years on how the “recommended” amount is actually pretty arbitrary and inaccurate for most people, and most healthy, moderately active people can just drink to their thirst and be perfectly fine. So I concluded that I simply needed less water than most people.
Wrongly, perhaps. Apparently not drinking more water could be one of the causes behind a lifelong chronic low blood pressure (which I only just discovered) and some of the exhaustion and migraines I’m having now.
At first, that felt like a real catch-22: drink water and feel worse, or don’t drink water and feel…worse.
But this time, knowing how important hydration might be for me, I’m determined to figure it out, and now I’m hopeful. The two keys I’ve discovered so far are that I need to drink only after I eat (or, at least, eat something the very moment I feel my blood sugar drop), and I need to add high-sodium electrolytes to my water at least several times in the day. (My lifelong salt craving is one of the symptoms that line up.)
So far, those two things have let me drink more and more consistently than ever in my life, and I think it’s helping! Hard to say for sure right now with all the travel and poor sleep, but I’m hopeful. At the very least, it’s probably good for me generally, right?
I’m also going to start trying compression clothing when I get back home and see if that finally lets me work out again without my heart going crazy.
If so, then I might finally be on the road back to my pre-2025 health baseline, and that’s all I could hope for.
TLDR: All that to say, if you’re on your own health journey right now and struggling to get answers or gain traction—I feel you. Don’t give up. Trust your body. It knows far better how to find the answers than anyone else does. It knows better than any well meaning but false one-size-fits-all solution, and it knows better than any doctor, because even the best doctors aren’t you. Still rely on quality doctors as partners in your quest, but keep pushing for the answers for your own body. I hope you find those answers together, and soon.
