My apologies for not updating you about my health. So many of you have sent email asking whether I’m all right, and I’m doing my best to reply to each although it’ll take me a while to work through them all. Meanwhile, rather than worry you further, I thought I’d explain.

I’m over my pneumonia and ear infection. I’m on my second round of antibiotics for my sinus infection. The coughing, hacking and wheezing are gone. My head no longer feels as if it’s going to explode and, on most days at least, I can actually breathe through my nose! (It’s been almost half a year since I’ve been able to say that, hence the exclamation point.)

Oddly enough, clearing up the infections’ symptoms revealed even more symptoms. My feet, ankles and knees are still in excruiciating pain every morning. Until recently, I continued to experience mysterious GI problems, although on a less frequent basis, along with unpredictable bouts of debilitating fatigue. When I wasn’t crippled by fatigue, I was merely exhausted. I fell asleep every night by 10 o’clock and most mornings could barely drag myself out of bed before 9 a.m.

My blood pressure and pulse check out just fine, so, suspecting anemia or perhaps something worse, my doctor recommended a series of blood tests that left my right arm looking like that of a heroin addict’s. I steeled myself for bad news, only to find out that my cholesterol levels are great, as is my blood sugar, my iron levels are fine, and my thyroid is functioning perfectly. (Which, frankly, is a pisser because I’d hoped to blame an underactive thyroid for the 20 lbs. I’ve put on in the past year.)

While all of this was going on, I just didn’t feel like sitting down to blog about it. I didn’t have a lot else on my mind besides getting better, and I didn’t feel like writing one entry after another about how crappy I felt. (Although, looking back over the past few entries, I see that’s exactly what’s occurred anyway.) So, aside from monitoring my blog-hosting company, I shunned the computer completely.

Suddenly, I had a lot of free time on my hand. Four or more hours a day, as a matter of fact. So, I cleaned house. I planned healthy meals and cooked them, rather than planning them but making last-minute changes to something fast and easy. I started doing yoga again, dusted off my exercise videos, and forced myself to work out at least twice a week for an hour. I planted a vegetable garden and cleaned up the flower beds alongside my house. I even tore up some shabby foundation shrubs, hauled in 1,000 pounds of topsoil (by myself, I might add) and planted what looks to become an absolutely lovely little shade garden right in front of my house.

And I feel great. My GI problems haven’t bothered me for nearly three weeks now. I’m not exhausted at all anymore and, as a matter of fact, I have more energy than I remember having in years. My feet, ankles and lower back are bothering me today, but that probably has to do with all that topsoil I hauled and the hours I spent hunched over planting perennials this weekend. And, even though allergy season is well underway, I’m breathing just fine. Ok, so I haven’t lost an ounce but the waistband of my pants is fitting much better and, if I’m not mistaken, the squishiness on my thighs is slowly giving way to something that vaguely resembles muscles. I’m still in bed by 10 o’clock most nights, but that’s so I can spend an hour or two reading before I fall asleep, and I’m up by 7 a.m. and raring to go most mornings now.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the connection between the time I spent sitting at the computer and the various physical symptoms I’d been having, not to mention that extra 20 pounds I packed on. While my brain’s been busy thinking up witty things to tell you, and my fingers have been hacking away at the keys, my body has been largely unused and was pissed about it. Inactivity, plain and simple, is bad for one’s health. And, sure, perhaps my sudden surge of well-being is simply due to finally getting over the various infections that have been plaguing me for months. But those infections don’t account for the added weight and, eventually, one has to wonder if this isn’t a chicken-and-egg thing.

The long and the short of it is that I need to get more physically active and, even once I work this 20 pounds off, I need to stay that way. I’m too young to feel old every morning, and too old to stop wanting to feel young. As much fun as I have blogging and all, nothing is worth feeling weak, sick and tired every day.

So, as of today, Electric Venom is on hiatus at least for the next couple of months while I continue to re-learn how to be a physically active person again. I fully intend to keep running VenomPages, but that’s it for my on-line time. There are gardens needing my attention, yoga poses that I need to master, and 17 more pounds that I want to lose… none of which can be accomplished while sitting in front of this monitor.

Take care, until we meet again, and remember: Viva la venom!

- Kate out.

UPDATE To Phil G., who writes to ask if I’ll be posting a picture of me in a bikini when this hiatus is over: sure, but it’ll cost you.

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