The circle of sadness — Jill Greco Bodnar

The oracle I've been seeing told me today that this is a tumultuous month for energy. The change of seasons from winter to spring is like a riptide, with the cold winter forces pushing and struggling against the emerging newness of spring. Seattle has had a more brutal than normal winter, which has made this riptide even stronger and unpredictable. For those of us intimately tied to the ebbs and flows of the earth's energy this has meant an even harder struggle as we wait for spring's influx of energy like cherry blossoms waiting for their own signs that it is safe to emerge. Our emotions are more vulnerable, our energy waning as winter's grip seems to tighten further. It's not as simple a clinical definition as SAD, but more about how our body's energy is entwined with the seasons and as they struggle to unfold so do we. My oracle said that I may have to accept that I'm not an early season energy person and may have to shift my energy schedule to later in the year. That's hard to accept when I see healthy squid nymphs racing hard on the weekends already.

I've had a winter of supreme highs and supreme lows. In December we figured out the primary reason for my chronic fatigue: an unhealthy gut riddled with damaging bacteria and Candida yeast, antibodies to gluten, egg, soy, and dairy, and a gut lining so inflamed that nutrients would leak right through it into my bloodstream and overtax my liver. In a nutshell, I have an unhappy belly that won't absorb anything, something akin to malnutrition. The extent of the damage is so high that it's shocked my doctor and others and must have been ongoing for years. My bet is that I picked up something when I worked at Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and at first, my body could ward off any infections, but it’s a slippery slope to remain undiagnosed and I fell hard.

It's a wonder I've been able to get out of bed (although there have been days). The immediate solution was to put me on an extremely strict diet eliminating all sugar, fruit, booze, vinegar, gluten, soy, egg, and dairy, leaving me with an extensive diet of meat, salads, whatever vegetables I innately tolerate, and rice. There have also been lots of probiotics and toxic herbs (high in oregano, a known antifungal) to kill the bad yeast and bacteria and glutamine to heal the belly. Within a week I had immediate relief and boundless energy. By the end of December my teammates didn't recognize me as I had lost almost 10 pounds and could keep up with the most fit Cat 3s without even trying. I was bionic and overjoyed at having found this holy grail…..until….

Setback #1: Mid-January my doctor's office couldn't get hold of the toxic herbs I'd been taking so I went without for 2 weeks. Energy nosedived, panic ensued, pounds came back. Even after taking them again I didn't manage to regain my new form, but it was still a great deal better than any time before.

Setback #2: Mid-February caught some of the crud going around, but was fighting it well. Then work became overwhelmingly stressful and the Epstein-Barr knocked on my door and stepped back in. Energy nosedived, more panic ensued, more pounds came back. The diet and medicine is all the same, but nothing is making me better. This compounded by the self-initiated pressure of trying to keep up with those training and racing circles around me threw me into a deep, dark cave that I am struggling to crawl out of. My doctor gave me some new antiviral tinctures, but they may have been too strong too quickly because I’ve had weeks of a horrible Herx/die-off reaction, so now I wait to heal....again.

I'm tired of being tired, tired of fighting, tired of being well for three weeks then having it stripped away, tired of seeing healthy happy people take for granted what I cry myself to sleep wishing I could have, tired of co-pays, tired of drugs, tired of not being able to enjoy what's around me, tired of looking like I age three years for every one, tired of seeing what's supposed to be left of my younger years spent like I'm 70. Tired of people telling me that my head can change it all. I want to whack them with a Thompson seatpost and ask them what their head feels like telling me now.

Somehow while I was high on being healthy in December I ordered a custom Indy Fab Ti Crown Jewel and Campy Record 10. It's my absolute dream bike and a worthy successor to my steel bike and Fat Chance history. At this point I hope it's delayed a few months until the seasons change and my belly heals and I have the energy to put it through its paces. It's meant to be a race machine, not a tool on the Burke. Or maybe until I'm really ready to come out of my cave it will keep me company in bed.