I Would Like To Get OFF the Roller Coaster Now…

I don’t even know how to describe the past few days.  On one hand I know I’m still more alert than I was, but on the other, I’ve been sleeping and napping more.  I think most of it is due to yet another change I made.  One I promised myself I’d make as soon as I started feeling better.

Six or seven years ago I stopped smoking.  The first few months were tough, but after about half a year, I rarely thought about it.  Until a man ran a red light on a highway in October 2008.  In addition to totaling my van, I wound up with a mild TBI after my head hit the window (hard enough that I blacked out for a brief period of time).

After a couple of years of being a happy non-smoker, I was disoriented enough that all I wanted in those first moments after I realized what happened was a cigarette.  I fought an almost unbearable urge for several months, then heard about something called electronic cigarettes.  So I ordered some…and have been smoking them for just over three years.

While they aren’t quite as bad for me as cigarettes are, they still aren’t good.  Two years after I started I found that I was getting out of breath as easily as I had while smoking the real things.  And I didn’t like it at all.  But I was so exhausted I knew I didn’t have anywhere near enough energy to fight against the urges I knew would be a problem when I quit.

Some might say I was taking a big chance, but I put a lot of hope in the changes I was making…and just refused to order more supplies.  When the liquid I used to refill the filters ran out, I would be finished.  And at no time in the days leading up the moment did I panic or worry (NOT normal for me).  I took that as a good sign that I was, indeed, feeling better.

And here I am, day three winding down, and I haven’t once been tempted to order more supplies in a panic.  Okay, there was one really brief moment (when everyone in my life was stressing me out yesterday) that I thought about it.  But it wasn’t a serious thought.  I know that because it was followed immediately by another more important thought.

No!  I’m NOT going to keep doing this because MY health is important to me.

It’s amazing how simple changes to improve the quality of your life can snowball into other areas.  A month or so ago I couldn’t begin to imagine my life without the addiction to electronic cigarettes.  Yet here I sit, three days later, my determination to stay quit just as strong as it was when I began.

All because I finally took my health into my own hands.  Except for the Synthroid…and I truly hope that all of these changes I’ve made, and will continue to make…will result in the ability to stop using it entirely.  You never know.  It could happen.

So now I have to come clean about a mistake I made.  At least temporarily.  I’ve been knocking Tinkyada gluten-free lasagna noodles for awhile now, based on some of the lousiest lasagna I’ve ever eaten.  However…after reading through some reviews at Amazon tonight, I discovered that I shouldn’t have pre-cooked the noodles before using them.  In my defense, I’m pretty sure the package directions said to boil them.  So I’ll try another batch sometime in the near future and see if my initial opinion still holds.  Until then I’m reserving judgment.  If it turns out good, I’ll let you know.  🙂