The year has come to an end I’m here trying to figure out the things that I need to change about my life and my lifestyle before we step into the New Year. I’m not a person who makes many resolutions, but whenever I do, I try to stick to it. For 2019 however, I am just trying to figure out how to maintain a healthier lifestyle and a balanced schedule. You see, my entire 2018, was spent struggling to have a balanced schedule but as many of you might have noticed I posted lesser articles and haven’t been much active on Instagram. And I will blame it all on my time management issue and the fact that I haven’t completely settled in to my apartment after the wedding.

I’ve often expressed my dislike towards my apartment, how it’s dark and gloomy and has a lazy vibe and sunlight doesn’t even touch any corner of our apartment. I was very vocal about my distaste towards the apartment when my in-laws chose it for us, but my husband assured that once the wedding is over, we can move because it was convenient for him to stay next door to his parents during the wedding, and it was the closest available apartment, right next to his parent’s home. Because we had plans to move in to a better apartment once the wedding was over, we never really got around settling in, decorating, or even unboxing. Whatever we unboxed, we kept the packaging because we’ll be moving, right? However, we never really got around choosing a better apartment and thus spent an entire year in a dark, gloomy, humid, undecorated apartment with boxes piled up throughout the entire hall area. 1 room is filled with our musical instruments so my bedroom started doubling as my work station. We started living a very unhealthy lifestyle, living in a humid apartment, me spending my entire day in bed, sometimes with the laptop on my lap, sometimes with my mobile on my hands and then I started getting very sick because of the change of food habit. My in-laws wanted us to have lunch and dinner with them every day and my stomach not being accustomed to the rich Bengali food resulted in chronic stomach burn, losing too much weight and then getting diagnosed with dyspepsia. My weight came down to 39kgs and because of the humidity in our apartment my husband got costocondritis: inflammation on his rib due to cold. On top of that, my insomnia became even worse as my husband is the worst snorer ever! He can sleep in one room and keep everybody on the other room awake the entire night. It’s the worst combination as I’m the light sleeper who wakes up at the neighbour’s alarm. So yes, I have been getting my share of sleep only after my husband goes to work, and I skip breakfast, have a late lunch, start working late, and most of the days can’t even open my laptop due to stomach ache. All these eventually started having a negative effect on my mental health because as some of you might know I have a history of battling with depression and my blog is what keeps me going. If I’m caught up due to health issues or something and unable to write for more than a week, I start sinking into my depression phase and that’s what I’m trying to fight right now.

I’ve had my wakeup call back in October, started trying to be as active as a blogger as I can, and most importantly started cooking my own food. Starting from October, I started cooking my lunch, what my stomach can tolerate and gained 6kg in a month. The Durga Pujo days were a bit mess and again I lost some weight and started suffering from stomach ache yet again due to having the festive food. After spending a couple of weeks at my parents, I came back with a few added kgs. My MIL said she’ll start cooking with less spice and asked me to start eating at her place again. I did, but turned out ‘less spice’ of a Bengali is still too much spice for me and thus I had my second and last wake-up call before 2018 ends.

It’s 2018; we have easy access to telehealth! I Google-d my condition and started very strictly following the diet chart my doctor made for me. I started cooking all my meals; I have been prescribed only boiled, low fibre diet and no dairy. I started Googling every single ingredient that went inside my stomach, and I started purchasing only items that are low in fibre (my husband eats at his mother’s so I just cook for myself). Within weeks I got back to a balanced weight and the terrible stomach ache haven’t returned once since I started Googling what to eat and what to not.

Next step was to maintain a balanced schedule, and the key to it is to cure my husband’s snoring issue before I try fixing my insomnia. Again I took help of telehealth and found out his symptoms are similar to that of Sleep Apnea. All these while I have been trying to convince him to visit a doctor for his snoring and he keeps shrugging it off saying it is normal as his dad snores equally bad. It was only after I showed him articles regarding Sleep Apnea that he agreed to visit a doctor, especially after I highlighted the fact that his recurring chest pain can be related to his Sleep Apnea. He visited a doctor, and was prescribed a polysomnography because the doctor too believes he might have Sleep Apnea. He hasn’t done it yet because we are currently treating his chest pain. The doctor believes he has costocondritis, but the meds aren’t working so we’ll have a list of tests done later this week.

The entire situation is a mess and it’s certainly taking its toll on our mental health. My husband who never really understood depression has now completely lost it. As workaholics, we can compete each other. However, his chest pain has resulted in him bunking work every other day, and worst of all, have completely detached him from his instruments. As a sound engineer, he loves his job and not being able to do it has had a terrible effect on his overall mental health.

So for 2019, it’s safe to say all I want is healthy lives and a balanced schedule. Our days are currently spent getting tests done and more importantly, desperately looking for a better apartment. If it wasn’t for Google and telehealth, our days would be even crazier than what it already is, because we’d be rushing to the doctor almost every week. I’ve come across so many meme’s about Googling your condition, but what I’ve realized is that if you do it correctly, it can be very beneficial for you. I mean I self-diagnosed my tumour taking the help of telehealth, and it turned out indeed I had a tumour in my throat. Which reminds me of my next resolution, even though my tumour turned out benign, my doctor suggested me to get it checked every 3 months if I don’t want to operate it. Of course I didn’t operate it; however, the last time I got it checked it was like a month or two after my wedding. We are in such a mess right now that I haven’t even been able to get my routine tests done, so that’s another thing I gotta do before we enter 2019.

And lastly, when both of our healths are a little stable, we are really considering a counseling session. After all, our first year as a married couple was a mess and I’m looking forward to a better year. I’m looking forward to waking up early in the morning, cooking us a healthy and hearty breakfast, getting my work done during the office hours, try writing 1 post a day again, and when my husband comes home from work we can spend some hours with our instruments and our cameras or just watch some movie together and then go to bed early instead of staying up all night like a night owl. And if it takes to consult a therapist to fix our completely messed up lifestyle, I’m ready to do that. We’ve made an appointment last month but then had to cancel it due to our messy schedule, so currently I’m rooting for online counceling sessions, because we really need a couple counseling rather than separate sessions. I feel both of our health issues are connected as his snoring is worsening my insomnia, which then results in me not being able to get up and make us breakfast. He can’t really cook so he gets a late breakfast at his parent’s messing his digestive system even more. Thus I feel it’s important to sort things out together.

So all I’m doing the next couple of weeks are- getting ALL our tests done (including his Sleep Apnea test), take a counseling session, eat healthy (and also try and make our in-laws eat clean as they aren’t very healthy either), try to be as active as a blogger as I can, and keep looking for a better apartment.

Hope your year wasn’t as crazy as mine. Do let me know what your year was like and what’s your resolution for the next year. Maybe I’ll get some inspiration?

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us