Blindsided

1) Going gluten free. I've discovered, for me, that it takes about a month completely off gluten before rice flour-based products start tasting good to me. :) Again, I haven't noticed any improvements to my health or well-being by being off gluten, but Baby M is sleeping 5-7 hours straight every night and is crying much less. One weird thing that has happened, though, is that my former almost constant cravings for hamburgers and pizza have disappeared. I guess I was kind of addicted to them! The roughest patch I hit so far, as far as tempation goes, was the pumpkin pie waiting for us at work yesterday. If I know what food is going to be at a place, I can make my own to bring, but I wasn't prepared for ambush pie. ;) Anyway, I resisted! But, I do find comfort in knowing that even the best of us fall down sometimes.

2) West Nile. My headache lasted about a month, total. It went away after I left the hospital, about a week before I went into labor. My eye was still not working correctly at that point. It got better every day and I made myself stop wearing the patch to force it into service again. On the night I went into labor, I was still unable to read or drive. Two hours later, I woke up in labor and the eye was fine, perfect, back to it's normal half-blind self. Yay! They say people experience extreme exhaustion after recoving from West Nile. I guess I did, but I also had a baby, so who knows where one ends and the other begins. All in all, I feel great now. I'm thrilled to have my health back and doubly thrilled to have been blessed with a strong healthy baby.