Make a choice to make a change... Click here to get started!
  • Recipes
  • Events
  • Contact

Hatch Health & Happiness

Certified Holistic Health & Wellness Coaching

  • Home
  • About
    • Why Hatch?
    • My Education
    • Client Testimonials
  • Services
    • Stress Reduction
    • Digestive Disorders
    • Autoimmune and Other Chronic Diseases
    • Changing Unhealthy Eating Habits
  • Health Coaching
    • Who Can Benefit?
    • Hatch Health Approach
  • Blogs
    • Recipes
    • Health and Wellness
    • Food
    • Restarting My Hard Drive
    • Product Reviews

This Just In: Life Ain’t Stable

March 20, 2016 Lydia Buschenfeldt Leave a Comment

Oh hey, friends.

It’s been quite awhile.

I’ve missed you. And writ­ing. And this blog.

Life took a turn for the crazy, but here we are yet again.

After the big genet­ic show­down, my plan was to take a few weeks away from the med­ical world to just be. There are a lot of unknowns and “to be deter­mineds” and I want­ed some time to let it all soak in. Genet­ic test­ing was an ultra-marathon, cer­tain­ly not a sprint, and I was ready for that glo­ri­ous post-race recovery.

HA.

Rather than soak­ing in epsom salt baths and enjoy­ing a lux­u­ri­ous mas­sage, my immune sys­tem took that whole “time away” thing a wee bit too lit­er­al­ly, and took one heck of a vaca­tion over the past 3+ months. Evi­dent­ly I need to be more spe­cif­ic with how I plan on spend­ing my “off” time.

A week before Christ­mas I picked up a stom­ach bug, fol­lowed a week lat­er by an upper and low­er res­pi­ra­to­ry tract infec­tion, that turned into pneu­mo­nia a few weeks lat­er, which then caused me to break a rib, which was capped off 2 weeks lat­er with a bulging disc in my low­er back.

Then, just when I thought I was com­ing up for air (and could actu­al­ly walk with­out look­ing like a lame emphy­semic pen­guin), my nonex­is­tent thy­roid lev­els took a swift and rapid trip south, caus­ing my endocri­nol­o­gist to near­ly fall off his chair with a glance at my lab report, and inquire “how on earth did you do that?!”

(Which, by the way, is the 2nd time in 2 weeks I’ve been asked that ques­tion by a doctor…does this mean I get a refund on my copay?)

Short­ly after the Ghost of Thy­roid Past vig­or­ous­ly stirred the pot, I added two more rounds of sinus infec­tions (or rather, nev­er got rid of the first one), which brings us to this week, when I got a call to tell me that my doc­tor had called in my pro­to­col to the pharmacy.

“Oh…protocol for what?”

[awk­ward long pause]

“Did­n’t some­one call you with your test results?”

“Nope, that’s why I’ve been leav­ing dai­ly messages.”

“Oh…one moment please…”

[sec­ond awk­ward long pause]

“So…normally the doc­tor would call you, but…you have a rather exten­sive inter­nal staph infection.”

Stu­pen­dous.

(And for all of you men­tal­ly cal­cu­lat­ing how long it has been since you’ve been in close prox­im­i­ty to some­one with a giant staph infec­tion, I have been assured by both med­ical pro­fes­sion­als and Dr. Google that I’m not con­ta­gious. Just full of my very own set of antibi­ot­ic resis­tant bac­te­ria. No big deal.)

Peo­ple. I’m tired.

(And full of bugs. Just saying.)

I real­ly want­ed to write a post about how I’m back in action! and things are great! and I’m tak­ing 2016 by storm! but instead it seems that 2016 IS a storm. And maybe that’s why it has tak­en me so long to come back to my blog, because maybe sub-con­scious­ly I want­ed to wait until I felt like life was stable.

This just in: Life ain’t stable.

Genius that I am, I thought the great immune sys­tem vacay was a per­fect time to a) release a brand new makeover of my com­pa­ny’s web­site (check it out!) and b) buy our first home.

Just call me Einstein.

Through the extreme gen­eros­i­ty of our fam­i­lies, Mr. Restart­ing My Hard Dri­ve and I recent­ly made our 6th move in 10 years into a town­house of our very own. It has been a whirl­wind of excite­ment and pack­ing and box­es and unpack­ing and more box­es as we set­tle in and make it our home. And I’m not sure why this made sense in my head, but some­how I had this image of mov­ing into our new home, and turn­ing 33, and burst­ing with health and vitality.

It was­n’t log­i­cal, I know. But I’m human, and a dreamer…so ya know, not the best com­bi­na­tion in the log­ic department.

I had this image of being super­woman and whip­ping both my busi­ness and new house into shape, all while exud­ing ener­gy and strength. Instead I’m full of antibi­ot­ic-resis­tant bugs, and had to rely almost entire­ly on friends and fam­i­ly to move my belong­ings, so as not to bulge a disc or break a bone or pass out in a heap.

Not exact­ly on point with the illog­i­cal dream plan.

It’s like lis­ten­ing to the same album over and over again, and nev­er get­ting past the 3rd song.

Over the years I have writ­ten very lit­tle about the invis­i­ble behe­moth of shame that resides on my shoul­ders. I sup­pose I car­ry it with me wher­ev­er I go, but some­how I’ve always felt like writ­ing about it would give it more worth than it was due, so I’ve kept most­ly mum. How­ev­er, noth­ing unleash­es the beast more than dig­ging through all your belong­ings, and unearthing a life­time of memories.

And trust me, I so wish it didn’t.

I often talk to my clients about shed­ding what does­n’t serve them, and like many peo­ple, I know it is eas­i­er to share advice than fol­low it your­self. I believe, and have writ­ten exten­sive­ly about, the fact that we all have a choice in how we live our lives. We can­not decide what hap­pens to us, but we can always decide how we respond. But, I think shame falls into a bit of a gray area in this depart­ment — not clear­ly defined by chance or choice, which is why it has been on my mind lately.

I don’t want to be ashamed of the box­es of unused run­ning clothes, or dust-col­lect­ing chil­dren’s books. I don’t want to feel a twinge of pain and embar­rass­ment every time I get a med­ical bill in the mail, or when peo­ple ask me when I’m hav­ing kids. I don’t want to con­stant­ly think about the emo­tion­al and finan­cial bur­den I have been to my hus­band and family.

But I do. Every day.
And I know it does­n’t serve me.

I am under no illu­sion that mak­ing some grand blog-post procla­ma­tion that I am shed­ding my skin of shame will actu­al­ly make it hap­pen, but I think there is some­thing very pow­er­ful in shar­ing your inten­tions. I can’t start off my 33rd year in a new home with health and vital­i­ty, but I can cer­tain­ly decide to start it with a renewed focus on exu­ber­ance and self-worth, despite the nev­er-end­ing roller coast­er of my immune system.

And that is exact­ly what I plan to do.

So no — life most cer­tain­ly is not sta­ble, and you know what? It may nev­er be. I raise ques­tions and pro­voke befud­dled looks from the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty and chal­lenge every phar­ma­cist I’ve ever met. I look fair­ly nor­mal, but am put togeth­er with a lot of stitch­es, glue, and robot­ic parts. I’m not liv­ing the life I planned, but I am bound and so very deter­mined to live a life that has pur­pose — no mat­ter the num­ber of infec­tions or breaks or bulging discs.

This is who I am.
Hel­lo, world.

Restarting My Hard Drive

Sign up for my newsletter!

Join my email list and receive 3 free delicious and nutritious recipes!
* indicates required
Email Format

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Lydia

Based in Fairfax, Virginia, Hatch Health and Happiness offers full-service face-to-face health coaching in Northern Virginia and virtually around the globe!
lydia@hatchhealthhappiness.com
610-220-7036

Newsletter

Join my email list and receive 3 free delicious and nutritious recipes!
* indicates required
Email Format

Please check your spam folder for a confirmation email

Healthy Living — Great Recipes and Ideas!

Trail Mix

Bulk Bin Trail Mix

September 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

Sure, it’s tempt­ing­ly easy to grab a bag of pre-made trail mix –col­or­ful, effort­less, and with such fun names to boot! But have you ever stopped to glance at the nutri­tion facts of that bag of seem­ing­ly healthy options? More specif­i­cal­ly, check out the sug­ar con­tent. Some com­mer­cial brands of trail mix have as much sug­ar as a 16 oz bot­tle of soda! The main cul­prit is sweet­ened dried fruit, and some brands add can­dy as well. If that deli­cious mouth­ful of sweet and salty is your taste­buds’ desire, don’t despair. There are plen­ty of ways to make a deli­cious AND nutri­tious trail mix, all with ingre­di­ents from your gro­cery store bulk bin! [Read More…]

Product Reviews — NEW!

Purely Elizabeth Superfood Oat Cups with Granola Topping — Cranberry Pumpkin Seed

More Great Recipes and Ideas!

Meal Planning

Meal Planning

July 31, 2018 Leave a Comment

One of the trick­i­est parts of most people’s healthy rou­tines is the meal plan­ning com­po­nent. Luck­i­ly for you, we have that cov­ered with the lat­est install­ment in our Hatch Video series! More…

Bloat Buster Smoothie

Bloat Buster Smoothie

June 4, 2018 Leave a Comment

Now that we are head­ing into the warmer months of the year, you may find your­self want­i­ng to spend less time in front of the hot stove top or oven. For­tu­nate­ly, smooth­ies are a great way to pack a lot of nutri­tion in one place. Check out the video below for one of my favorite smooth­ies — the bloat buster!

Pan roasted plantains

Pan-Roasted Plantains

May 1, 2018 Leave a Comment

Pan roasted plantains with mashed avocadoDespite the fact that plan­tains close­ly resem­ble a banana, they have a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent fla­vor and are def­i­nite­ly not to be con­sumed raw (you’ll only make that mis­take once!). Plan­tains are actu­al­ly a veg­etable, chock full of fiber, cal­ci­um and vit­a­min C. Pan-roast­ing the plan­tains allows them to caramelize, keep­ing the out­side a lit­tle bit crispy and the inside nice and soft. Cin­na­mon, gin­ger and turmer­ic add a tri­fec­ta of anti-inflam­ma­to­ry good­ness and a lit­tle sprin­kle of sea salt makes these plan­tains absolute­ly irre­sistible. Enjoy as is, or my favorite way –- with mashed avo­ca­do! More…

Energy bites

Energy Balls

April 2, 2018 Leave a Comment

Gluten, Grain, Dairy, Soy-Free and Vegan

Seeds need ener­gy in order to grow, and cul­ti­vat­ing your own healthy habits can take a lot of ener­gy too! Ener­gy bars and ener­gy balls are every­where we look these days. They are super easy to whip up your­self, but many peo­ple are intim­i­dat­ed by the thought. More…

More Great Recipes!

About Lydia and Hatch Health

Lydia Buschenfeldt

I was a happy, healthy, newlywed 4th grade teacher when a random virus paralyzed my GI system, along with parts of my … More...

Follow me!

Client Testimonials

Rainbow

See what Lydia’s clients have to say…

I’d say Lydia Buschen­feldt has changed my life, but that would­n’t be exact­ly true. What she does is even more pow­er­ful. Any­one can tell some­one else what changes they ‘need’ to make to live a health­i­er life. It takes some­one spe­cial to enable and empow­er you to change your own life. Lydia is that some­one spe­cial. Dur­ing every ses­sion, at every twist and turn and bump in the road, Lydia meets me where I am with an incred­i­ble amount of knowl­edge and patience, and helps me iden­ti­fy one or two steps for­ward to accom­plish the goals I have for myself. She knows that each jour­ney is dif­fer­ent, and cus­tomizes our ses­sions so our dis­cus­sions are tai­lored toward what I need in that moment to help me build the health, future and hap­pi­ness that I deserve.
— L.S.
Man­as­sas, VA More…

healthy choices

quotePerseverance, secret of all triumphs. — Victor Hugo

Topics

Acceptance anti-inflammatory properties antioxidants apple cider vinegar aromatherapy conventional vs organic Dairy free egg free electrolytes exercise farmers' markets food allergies gluten free grain free gratitude health benefits of dog companionship healthy dietary fats healthy dog treats healthy pets healthy snacks hydrating recipes managing stress and anxiety natural remedies Natural sugar nut free peanut free pesticide-free probiotics refined sugar free Self Worth soy free vegan vegetarian
Juice Plus

Follow me on Social Media

Search

Contact Lydia

Based in Fair­fax, Vir­ginia, Hatch Health and Hap­pi­ness offers full-ser­vice face-to-face health coach­ing in North­ern Vir­ginia and vir­tu­al­ly around the globe!
lydia@hatchhealthhappiness.com
610−220−7036

© Copyright 2015-23 · HatchHealthHappiness.com · All Rights Reserved ·