I am! I went kayaking. Though of course that was not smooth. Pre-Pandemic, I had put a chain and lock on our two kayaks, and in the interim, lost both keys. Since memory was one of the things that "went," though it is coming back too!

My aunt was here for a visit but bolt cutters didn't work. And she's a strong and healthy person. So I borrowed a friend's kayak, as had been previously arranged, and I didn't know it was a racing kayak. So this thing wanted to do 360s constantly, and I let it, because it rode low and too much body english and I'd lose buoyancy.

Aunt was using the kayak that came with her rental on the lake, so we had a great time and I left her at her motel (they are nice where I am) so I paddled home alone and found the kayak fit like a wetsuit. And my friend is about 5 inches shorter. And I'd lost my sandals somewhere in it, so I would have to maneuver, barefooted.

As I hung on the dock with one elbow, pondering this logic puzzle, along came two ladies paddling inflatable kayaks, who helped me pin mine against a breakwater as I hauled myself up and out. It turned into down and out, but the kayak and I were both fine, found my sandals in it, and hauled the kayak next door to its home.

And I managed all this without fatigue or anxiety. I have definitely reached a better plateau of health. My low carb and Carnivore efforts laid the foundation, and low oxalate has really let me build on it. And contributed to my continuing efforts to recover from neurodivergent burnout. Which does take years, even without a global emergency of long duration.

People ask what happened to me, and I explain, "The last few years have not been a good time to have a stress-related illness." They certainly get that

Six months and my face (small but painful lesions at the corners of my eyes and mouth) is finally healing. I'm convinced that autoimmune and oxalate poisoning are almost identical. Both misunderstood by modern medicine. Both manifesting in different ways in each person. Both bringing serious consequences.

A wonderful friend of mine was a transplant patient, and when a person signs up for the autoimmune drugs, they are essentially in the same leaky boat. They eventually died from an uncontrolled infection, after suffering from it considerably.

It was scary. My own visible illness covers less than 5% of my skin, and is considered MILD. Except for my one big flare (and I never want another!) because it's more like lupus in the fatigue and pain. So even getting a diagnosis past excema and psoriasis would be a struggle.

And the consequences for misdiagnosis in this field are grim. I read a memoir by a woman who drifted more and more vegan "for health" until she had scary symptoms and a lesion was found on her spine with an MRI. She was told she "had MS, pick a drug, none of them work very well," by the nationally famous specialist in her state. And that was the end of her care.

After several attempts, she discovered she was B-12 deficient, which fixed everything. But now there is no way to show she was misdiagnosed, no way to show she is well, since MS spontaneously remits, and the diagnosis means her health insurance was affected, until the law was changed.

She also fears that any visit could declare that "the MS is back" and her symptoms will be attributed to the wrong thing.

Always, with my own struggles with autoimmune, I become more firmly convinced that medical science knows what it does, but nothing else. And their help actually makes people worse.