Mandatory Solitary Confinement

After eleven very long months of neglecting lunch breaks, not sleeping on time, drinking alcohol instead of fluids, and my brain deceiving my body that exercise is not for smart people --- smart people need to exercise their brain --- my body finally gave up and said “That’s it. I’m outta here. I’m shutting down.”

Thanks partly to a clueless protozoan I have fondly nicknamed as Annie Amoeba (who is dead by now, poor thing), I was forced to four days of confinement in a 7 x 8 cell… I mean hospital room. The reason for getting said parasite was completely random: cafeteria iced tea. I’ve always had it almost five times in a week, never thinking that although the water used for the iced tea may be clean, the tube ice which they do not make (they buy it) may not be.

Just like that, the rest of your week changes. The meetings you’ve planned, the reports you need to pass, the presentations you need to draft, all take a back seat because your body refuses to cooperate. You’re weak, physically weak. The ideas that zoom about in your head look like faded smudges because your stomach is telling your feet to run to the bathroom.

Those were four days of my life I’m never getting back. Four days that I could have spent with my family, with my friends, to finish a good book, to finish the second season of CSI:NY (for the fifteenth time), if I had lived a little healthier lifestyle. But because I have neglected the smallest things --- eating on time, sleeping on time, drinking plenty of fluids --- I was stuck in a hospital room with a painful IV in my left hand (the needle looked like a small dagger when they took it out) and a dextrose bottle I had to lag around everywhere I went.

(I also felt like a dog on a leash when a nurse would escort me to the x-ray room, with her taking the dextrose while I had to catch up with her).

The worst part of it all is that being stuck in the hospital room felt more like prison than a vacation. Despite the nice air-conditioned room, the entertaining nurses (entertaining because they were an assortment of personalities. One of them I nicknamed Jumpy, she seemed to be always high on something), it was so horribly lonely. I couldn’t impose on my parents to stay with me at the hospital because my three-year old son was already a handful. So they would spend about 4-6 hours with me and then go home afterwards. I slept alone and woke up alone.
I missed my parents, I missed my friends, I missed my PC (I haven’t checked my mail in seven days! The horror!), and most of all, I missed my little boy. Whenever I go home from work, I spend thirty minutes to an hour with him and then I tell him to go to sleep or I go to sleep. But being away from him, even for only four days, made me miss him so much.

So I vow never again to neglect the simple, most basic do’s and don’t’s of a healthy lifestyle. I’m not about to take yoga or start eating organic food, but I will start with the three things my doctor told me today before he sent me on his way (did I just rhyme?).

Drink lots of fluids. Soda isn’t a fluid. It’s a thick liquid, not a fluid. Anything with sugar and preservatives will cause you to clog your system and make you pee orange. Orange pee is bad.
Eat well and on time. However busy you might be, sneak in a healthy snack, like a tuna sandwich or crackers; and finally

Sleep properly. A four-hour sleep does not fall into the realm of “sleeping properly”. Program your body to relax and shut down before the clock strikes midnight. If your PC gets to be turned off after an eight-hour shift, shouldn’t you?

Just those three things. It’s so frigging simple. If you’re feeling a little ambitious, throw in a jog or a bike ride during weekends. Have at least one fruit a day. Quit smoking. Don’t drink as often as usual (Warning: If your weekly grocery includes four bottles of beer, you should be alarmed). And for God’s sakes, eat breakfast. Eat breakfast. Eat breakfast. Have I told you to eat breakfast?

These little things are so simple. So simple. We’ve known these things since Health Class in senior high school. You wrote it down on paper during the Science & Health exams. You know the concept. It’s in your head. Why aren’t you doing it? Why?

The last place and time you want to be in is bound to a bed regretting the things you could have done, the words you could have said, the people you could have loved, and the ideas you could have had that might have changed the world for the better, all because you neglected the most important person in your life: YOURSELF.