moving back to happy...

Hi everyone! Apologies for the two month hiatus, it has been a doozy of a few months. I said goodbye to my dear sweet Cosmo on June 1st, and was so grateful to be able to be with her, safe and warm and at home when she moved out of our world. It has been rough adjusting to her being gone- I didn't realize how much energy one tiny little cat contributed to our household until she was gone. I still catch glimpses of her out of the corner of my eye in our house sometimes, and I find comfort in knowing she had a great life. We buried her right out in the garden, with a big pink dahlia on top of her grave.

I have also been dealing with some health issues, and since this is a health related blog and I strive to be open with my life and struggles, I will explain what has been going on. I have been dealing with pelvic pain and benign ovarian cysts for a while now, and have been using acupuncture to help treat these issues. In late May, I had an ovulation that was excruciatingly painful, and was able to see the doctor the first week of June for an ultrasound. I was fearing that my cyst had returned- but not so. My right ovary had hemorrhaged during ovulation (hence the pain) and the blood was not moving out of my ovary. My doctor (who is wonderful) explained that there is no western diagnosis or treatment for such a thing, but that clearly something was/is going on with my ovarian health- he seemed to think that after being on birth control pills for so long (12 years), my body is still learning how to make hormones, ovulate properly, etc. (When you take hormonal contraception, your body doesn't have to do things like make hormones because the pill supplies them already, so when taken for a long time to body stops making hormones, which facilitate things such as proper ovulation, and it can take a long time for the body to relearn how to do all this when you remove the artificial hormone source from you system). My doctor suggested acupuncture to treat this, which I was glad to hear because I currently use acupuncture to treat the other issues (cysts, etc). I have a fabulous acupuncturist who specializes in women's health and fertility, and we set up a plan to remove stagnation from my reproductive organs and clean out all the old stuff that is preventing my body from functioning properly. It has been interesting treatment, and I have made a lot of progress in the short amount of time we have been addressing the hemorrhage. It was painful recovery and I felt like I was a water balloon ready to pop at any moment (major bloating) for the entire month of June, but I am starting to feel better and I can see positive changes in my health recently. I am hopeful that a healthy lifestyle (good food, good rest, good mental health practices) plus targeted acupuncture and herbs will get me on track and hopefully pregnant by the end of this year!

It was my 33rd birthday yesterday, and my husband has been off work all last week and this week as well. We have been doing lots of celebrating- we hiked to the top of Fremont Peak and stood on 300 million (!!!!) year old marble looking out over the entire Salinas Valley, Monterey Bay and even back towards Gilroy... we had a decadent dinner at La Posta in Santa Cruz...we spent an afternoon wine tasting at Alfaro winery in Corralitos, and this week we are planning a day in Big Sur. This time has been wonderful to just get some joy back, to lift a bit of the sadness of Cosmo passing and the frustration of my health issues, and I am feeling well. I haven't felt like blogging much, but I feel my mojo coming back, and writing is feeling good again.

I hope everyone is well and enjoying our beautiful summer (whilst conserving water!). I am going to take the rest of this vacation off from writing and will be back next week with a fresh new post to get myself back in the blogging game. Happy Summer!