Since I’ve been back my thyroid has been wreaking it’s annoying old havoc. While I was away it was so much calmer, perhaps one day a week of pain. For the past week, it’s been four days of pain, which is how it was before I left. I’m still trying to work out what triggers it. In the meantime, I cope, I modulate, I recalibrate and I try to see it all as a necessary gift.

Photo by Brian Oldham

I just had a bad few days of it over the weekend. So I thought I would share just how a typical thyroid day transpires for me, while it’s fresh. And how I cope with the various symptoms. Not to garner pity*, but to comfort those out there with chronic illness who grapple with the loneliness of it all. Mostly, I find, when you have chronic, unexplainable, unfixable illness, all you want is to know you’re not alone and that your symptoms are real and understandable and worthy of recognition, if only via some stranger’s blog post.

* although, if I’m honest, I’m often seeking “leeway” from the world.

But also – and I say this often – I reckon what I learn from having auto-immune disease is applicable to anyone wanting to lead a better, more well life. A life closer to the core. More real. More conscious. When you have an auto-immune disease you are that much more sensitive to the bad shit we do to ourselves and that we’re forced to put up with – the smells, the additives… the noise. We are the canaries down the mineshaft. Want to know what’s bad for you? What’s doing you damage? Ask an AI sufferer! They feel it with their every pore in real time where others often do not.

So. My Sunday.

I traveled recently. You might have noticed. I traveled with some truly odd things. One of the oddest was a bottle of apple cider vinegar.

photo by Ditte Isager

To qualify for a spot in my pack, an item had to have a dual purpose. As a minimum requirement. Well, ACV certainly passed the test.

Read here about what else I packed to travel.

People often ask me, however, what the big deal is with ACV and what one is meant to do with it. Well, I’m here to say I can name five things…

1. Drink it with warm water in the morning and before meals

I take a tablespoon in slightly cooled, boiled water as soon as I wake up, and again before dinner.

Why? Personally, it gets my appetite going (in the morning) and it gets my juices fired up ready for food (before dinner). Having an autoimmune disease, I lack the crucial HCL required for proper digestion. ACV kicks in and does the job of the missing acid. That said, everyone can benefit from the practice – it alkalises, and as I’ve said before, disease is unable to exist in an alkaline system.

The more you alkalise, the better you are.

Here’s some stuff to know:

* ACV works by correcting acid issues. It acts as a buffer in the body – the acetic acid reacts with base or acid compounds to form an acetate, therefore rendering them chemically bioavailable for the body’s utilization.

Today, just this, a quote regular reader (and now e-friend) Ian sent to me last week.

Photo by Brian Oldham

“See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”  – Mother Teresa

I sat on it a few days. And while I was in Provence, on my own for a few days again, I churned on it. And I realised just how right it is.

When I was in Iceland I was struck by how cafes and shops are silent. I pointed it out to a few people. They hadn’t noticed it. But then realised how nice it was when they did.

Over the past four months traveling, some of my favourite moments have been spent sitting in a quiet church, before or after the tourists visit. Smokey, velvety, cool silence.

It’s a thyroid thing. Got an autoimmune disease? Silence is your salve.

I don’t exercise with an ipod. When I eat alone or sit in a park alone, I don’t plug in.

I’ve realised silence gives space for everything else to come forward. Just like we close our eyes when we want to smell something better. It’s the forum for the magic to unfurl. And, yes, it’s the forum for our hearts to truly see other souls. When you can see, you can reach out and touch.

Are you getting enough silence? Wish to share some imaginative ways to get it in this noisy world. I’d love some ideas…