I receive my black belt tomorrow. I still have a ridiculous cough. It is extremely aggravated whenever I talk. We shall see if I can manage okay just not talking tomorrow. It would be a terrible time to cough the whole day, during the fancy awards and presentations of the day… yikes. Oh, God, heal me, please! I’m supposed to make an announcement with no microphone tomorrow, too(!). Help, please. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
I’m still sick. I can talk a bit, but talking aggravates the cough. My nose is still dripping on the back, also aggravating the cough. My neck muscles are tired from coughing so much and from such intense coughing. My sides are tired, too, from the convulsions. I am weak and tired from not being able to eat enough, but eating anything causes immense coughing fits. So, I have to eat quickly and strategically – high protein, easy-to-chew, quick meals or snacks. Even then, I still cough up a storm.
Tonight, when doing the saline rinse in my nose, the right nostril suddenly closed up almost entirely – I suppose from something getting pushed over to it up top – leaving the solution to slide slowly but firmly down my throat instead of out my right nostril, as it had been doing quite decently. After too much of this, despite remaining calm and collected, my body revolted and vomited, right there in the sink. I let a little more water rinse through, just to make sure no vomit ended up in my nose, and I abandoned the rest of the saline rinse. I had hit my limit for the night. I had gotten most of the way through, anyway, and that was better than nothing. I had only thrown up a small amount, and didn’t want to consider what it might turn into if I kept at the saline rinse any longer. I’ll just do it in the morning, when my food is well and digested. Because I need that food right now.
Post-a-day 2023
Firstly, yes, I am still sick. Improved further, but still breaking into uncontrollable fits of coughing here and there, making my throat sore sheetlet from the intense coughing. My abdominals are less sore, which is a clear improvement. And my throat doesn’t have the burn to it anymore. Also, there seems to be less coming out of my nose as a whole from either direction, which is good. I also can kind of talk again. Though, the taking aggravates the coughing, so it is only so helpful… 😛
Now, down to business: quick karma., as I called it.
So, my man is juicing. Why? He’s struggling with learning portion control and containing himself in general when tasty food is around. He’s doing a fitness challenge right now, and wanted to do six days total (with two rest days in the middle) of having only these set juices as his ‘food’ for the day, as they help ‘cut’, as the guys all call it. Juice cleanses and juicing in general are by nature very low in calories, making them one of many ways people choose to help cut down their fat levels, especially after bulking up.
Well, that’s what my man is doing right now: cutting, in the form of juicing.
However, he keeps eating little bits of valentine’s candy here and there. 
And then, here’s the kicker. I heard him say earlier how he wanted pizza. Clearly, he saw the leftover pieces from our Valentine’s Day meal together – yes, we had agreed ahead of time that we wanted our meal together to be Costco pizza, because it’s amazing and because a slice is almost like a heart shape – sitting in the fridge. However, he doesn’t seem to act on the desire, and so I say nothing about it, so as not to make it harder on him by talking about food. (He really struggles mentally on these cleanses, in ways I’ve never understood.)
Hours later, he finally rushes out the door to go to the gym for his nightly workout session. It takes him multiple trips back and forth to the car, but he finally sets out, and I start to get ready for bed.
I notice that I’m feeling a little low on something in my own diet, and so go to the fridge to see what can help remedy my situation. The berries I bought will do just the trick, I think. As I pull out the box of blackberries, I end up glancing down at the pizza slices on the edge of the bottom shelf.
But something is wrong… There is too much space. How can this be??
I take a closer look at the pizzas. I know in a moment what is odd about them. They aren’t odd… they’re even… they’re only two.
P——!
I send him a message. I state his name first. Then send another message. “I’ll let you guess what I’m about to ask you…”
He quickly replied with a clever, “Stop.
“🔨🕰️”.
I reply, “Collaborate and LISTEN
“Last chance to guess
“Let’s collaborate on ideas of what this problem might be haha”.
We’re idiots, I know.
He responds, “Yes I left some lights in
“On*”.
“Not a problem, love”
And then I add, “What I’m wondering, is how, when I wrapped and placed three pieces of pizza in the fridge yesterday, there are, somehow, only two in there now… how could that be, when I didn’t eat any pizza today, and you’re on a juice cleanse?”
He immediately responds, “Lolololol”.
A moment later, he adds, “I knew I forgot something… look near our pantry”.
Sure enough, sitting atop the aluminum foil box and zipper baggies is a massive slice of Costco pizza, still wrapped up in foil and cool from the fridge. It hadn’t been there long.
After I discover the pizza slice, he adds, “Dang
“And I still didn’t get to eat it”.
Durn straight he doesn’t get to eat it. In case anyone forgot here, HE’S ON A JUICE CLEANSE(!!!!)! What’s he doing here, trying to cut with a juice cleanse, and then eating a massive slice of calorie-rich pizza??? No wonder he has trouble with self-control under normal circumstances… Ugh! This man… boy, do I love him, but, sometimes, I just can’t see where he’s coming from on things. 😛
And talk about instant karma… he sneaks a slice of pizza, but ends up forgetting it at home. What’s more, if I hadn’t mentioned anything about it, the dog likely would’ve found the slice before I did. Then it would’ve been long gone and made a mess on the carpet in the dining room (where the dog, no doubt, would have eaten the pizza). So, his getting caught actually made the situation better for all. Because the dog doesn’t need that much pizza either – she’d hurl in the middle of the night. Yet another mess he’d have to clean up…
Anyway, with that, I’m going to sleep: I probably rambled telling that all, but that’s where I am in my need for sleep. I wish you a lovely night and day. May God bless you all. Amen.
P.S. Please, God, heal me. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Well, the coughing proved to be a big problem last night. After hours of being in bed, I had barely slept a wink – I just couldn’t stop coughing, even when on the brink of exhaustion. My man came through for me and delivered some specific single-ingredient medicine – typically the only kind I want going into my system – to help stop the coughing. Well, not to stop the coughing, but to lessen it significantly. And it did just that. It took a bit to kick in, but I finally fell asleep around 3:30 or 4:00 this morning. And I actually slept. Thank you, God, for some real sleep, at last.
I had hoped only to take that medicine at night, but my coughing grew so terrible by late afternoon, I couldn’t even function. I’m still taking it easy as a whole, but I don’t like having to be on medicines like this. My body can’t truly tell where it is in recovery and what it may most need. Tomorrow is the last day of the antibiotics, and I hope I will be able to back off the rest by tomorrow night or the morning after, too.
Oh, and I hope I have a voice to use again soon, too. That would be helpful… though, I have very much appreciated this opportunity not to speak. It has been frustrating at times, but very good as a whole… a great lesson in patience for me and for my family. Makes me really want to get us into some ASL classes asap, though. You never know when you might need or want to use another language.
Prayers for healing, if you are willing and able, please, for me and for all the world.
Dear God, heal us all, please. In your name, we pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Started the antibiotics this morning, after a miserable night of almost no sleep. I also took an ibuprofen piece with the antibiotics, and went back to bed. After a while, I finally fell into some only slightly disturbed sleep, which was a major improvement. We shall see how tonight goes. Though I relaxed most of the day, I am wiped. But the coughing doesn’t seem to want to go away – that tickling in the throat from drainage is being quite harsh on me, it seems. And my abdominals haven’t stopped aching, nor have they really had much of a break.
If you would, pray for my restoration of heath and beautiful and beneficial sleep tonight.
Dear God, thank you for this life. Please, heal me. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Sick. Yup. I barely slept last night, for all the coughing and the crazy stuffy nose that came on last night for the first time. I couldn’t get the neti pot – it is the off-brand this time – to run water through the right side of my nose before I went to bed, so I was a touch concerned at that. Sure enough, I was up around 2am, coughing up more loads of yellow gunk in varying shades. By the time my alarm sounded to get up for my volunteering, I knew there was no way I could make it out there today. I couldn’t even stop coughing long enough to drive safely. Don’t even mention how my abdominals and throat were in big pain, or how I couldn’t talk at all. No way could I be up and out the door in two and a half hours, and then last through 1pm, helping people with things outdoors all the while…
My man had offered around 3am for me to have an ibuprofen half, and I accepted, as I was in such tremendous pain that was keeping me from sleeping, making it all the worse. After that, I actually was able to sleep a bit, with only the small interruption of my alarm, seeing I wasn’t well enough, messaging the team, and going back to sleep.
Now, getting ready for bed tonight, I feel better than I did last night, but still not well. We considered and discussed today my taking antibiotics. How I wake up tomorrow will determine our route for that. I avoid antibiotics whenever my body can handle something itself. But, if it can’t handle the germs, I’ll accept what is needed. Since I’ve been over-busy that past several days, sleep and water and food haven’t been at their best. Hopefully, my body will have a better chance, now that I rested today at home and have tomorrow fully open for rest.
Now, off to shower and another run with the Neti Pot, and then off to bed. Wish me well!
Post-a-day 2023
I’m still sick. Still with the same nasal infection. I now can barely talk, even with a terrible rasp. And, when I do talk, I almost always break into a terrible coughing fit that not only sounds terrible, but feels dreadful in my throat and in my abdominal muscles. Add on top of that that we had to do photos in the near-freezing weather this morning for karate, barefoot and just in these thin uniforms, for an hour and a half, and you get an even worse situation than anticipated for today. Now, I have volunteering out in the cold all morning tomorrow, from six AM to one PM. I can’t talks I cough a lot, even without the talking attempts, and I feel miserable. Ugh…
God, heal me, please. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
I went early today and made up everything I’d missed last night and the night before. I was still definitely sick and under recovery, but I had to go, so I went.
It took a lot out of me just to hold up my hands, let alone do the self-defense techniques, and multiple times in a row. We usually yell on the last strike, and it felt really odd not doing that today (saving my throat from torture, you see, and helping me to keep breathing as a whole – even a deep breath would send me into a fit of intense and slightly scary coughing).
After that, people started showing up for the fight night. We each sparred 16 people for 90 seconds on ongoing sparring each. The ongoing part means that we have no break during those 90 seconds – the clock doesn’t stop, and neither do we.
It was tough, especially being so short of breath and low on energy to start the whole thing. But I made it through, and decently well. I even received several call-outs on having done a great job sparring, which was quite unique and cool. I don’t typically have a bunch of people watching me spar… nor do I have them watching me spar for 16 rounds…
For our last round of 90 seconds, when we are at our end of energy and have our last effort to give, we are meant to spar the person who has been the most influential for us in our karate career. Now, that can be interpreted in various ways, though most people choose their main instructor for this last match. Not all, but most.
When I thought about this, I wasn’t sure whom to request. It went weeks without my knowing what to say or do about it. Eventually, when we were discussing my predicament, my instructor asked whom I wanted for that match, “If you could have anyone, who[m] would you pick?”
Instantly, I knew. “Sam C—,” I said. She smiled sadly, and understood why I had had so much trouble. The most influential person on my karate career had been my original instructor, when I was in the junior division. His classes were the whole reason I returned to the organization years later as an adult, as opposed to going to some other form of self-defense or fighting training.
He also passed away a handful of years ago, and I had only learned of this fact when I re-started karate a few years back.
My current instructor had only joined the organization after his death, and had not known him personally, though she had, apparently, learned much of him. He was a spectacular teacher and coach. And he was terrifying, in a sense – you were going to do as he said, and without hesitation – yet it was clear that he loved and cared about his students. I never consciously thought, He loves me, or anything like that. But, if I had been asked, I would have been able to say with full confidence that he loved me. The best teachers usually do love their students – that’s a big part of why they are such good teachers. They truly are here and teaching for us, and for our success.
Anyway, all that to say it really didn’t work to have the person I truly wanted for my final fight.
So, I thought again. Who else had been in similar standing with Mr. C— for me in karate? Well, that answer was clear, too, once I asked the question: my mom.
She’s the whole reason I started as a kid, and her having become a brown belt was the main reason I had ever wanted to become one. Granted, I had now surpassed her rank of brown belt, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that it was all through her that any of this was possible and actually happened in my life.
After weeks of allowing her space to ‘think about it,’ she finally agreed fully this morning. I had had a feeling that she would do it in the end, though she had declined my original invitation to join just as one of the 16 over a month ago. She understood why I was asking her now, as well as the importance and significance of it. And she also appreciated that I would be exhausted by the end of all the sparring, and so necessarily would ‘go easy’ on her. That definitely helped. And the fact that I’m recovering from a sinus infection, and so literally couldn’t breathe as well or move as well as usual. So, she messaged this morning for details about tonight, and I was ecstatic and grateful. She even had to borrow sparring gear for her hands, head, and shins, because I had commandeered her head and hand gear for myself a couple years back – naturally, my child-sized gear didn’t work so well for me anymore. But my foot gear and shin guards did. (I guess she missed her shin guards when she was looking.) But she borrowed the gear and pulled out her old uniform and t-shirt and all, and she showed up.
As soon as we started our match, I instantly began to cry with emotion, of course. Should have seen that one coming, I know, but I hadn’t. Haha
Our match was actually quite fun and a real match, which made it all the better. It was a great closer for the evening and the week and the whole candidacy season.
Afterward, we all retired our brown belts, and we were all granted our black-belts-in-waiting belts, which are brown belts with a black stripe through their length. Everyone else had their main teacher/parent – because multiples have parents who are black belts and teachers – accept the brown belt, hold it up, and pull it taught into its final tie/knot, officially retiring the belt. My mom got to do mine. She had already taken off her top and her belt, so no one likely even noticed that she wasn’t a black belt. We both thought it was silly that she was ‘sneaking in’, but it was also really cool. And it was perfect that she’d taken off her top and belt already, and was just in the old black shirt for our school under Mr. C—. It was perfecto.
Then we were given our eight-day belts, and it was sobs all over the place. Our main instructor started it, just to be clear. Haha
Okay, I must sleep now. So, final thing: Our final scores were calculated before the sparring began, and announced at the end of the sparring. The scores were based on our physical fitness tests, our kata performance, our self-defense skills, and our written test on history and rules of judging and sparring and teaching. The total was several hundred points all together. She announced our grades a percentages. And mine was the highest, with 98%. That was quite cool.
Also, my mom and my man came tonight and watched me the whole time. That was awesome, too. I am very grateful that both made it.
Thank you, God, for this blessing and this success I have had. Please, continue to heal me, and heal my body rapidly, please. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Well, I’m still sick today. I’m much improved, but still very much sick. Before getting into bed tonight, I actually used the Neti Pot – well, some brand’s knock-off, I think…, though it might have been the real thing, now that I’m truly considering it… I do have a real one and a not-real one – because I needed further help in healing faster. I have a whole volunteering thing I have to do all midday tomorrow, and then a major part of the karate stuff tomorrow night. And I have to make up what I missed tonight and last night for karate before the high-intensity cardio night starts tomorrow. So, basically, I will get up and get dressed, drive way down south to volunteer for a few hours, then drive way up north to start karate late afternoon, have a short break, and then do intense sparring against people whose goal is to test my abilities. Let’s not worry about mentioning how I haven’t sparred in maybe a year due to my ankle injury, with its whole popping the bone slightly out of place the last time I sparred in a tournament… that definitely sucked and still does…
Anyway, I need good sleep and rest tonight, so that I can make it through tomorrow. And I need great sleep and rest tonight so that I can thrive through tomorrow, and not merely stumble to the end. I’ve had very low energy since getting sick, to the point that I struggled to get the front door open earlier today, which is usually just a tiny extra push… and that was after I was getting strength back… So, I still have a ways to go before I’m truly ready and able to take on tomorrow night, especially after being out in the 11°C cold tomorrow midday. Fortunately, my appetite was mostly back by this evening, and I had a real meal, though it was a smaller one.
God, grant me wonderful and invigorating sleep tonight, please, and a healthy appetite tomorrow, as well as wonderful digestion. Help me tomorrow to do well, to show how I am capable, and to satisfy well all requirements for obtaining my black belt. Help me to do my best and to be at my best. Heal me, please. Heal all in need of your healing. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
Well, I’m sick. Nasal infection. Big time. My whole body aches, my throat feels like cramping fire, and I have major chills and shakes.
God, please, heal me of this illness swiftly. Help me to continue my testing and to pass on time. Help me to be well, that I may pursue and fulfill your will. In your name, I pray. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
hannah ananas 