Enter Label: Return of the Jedi-atric
And a note on Vitamin D, Mitochondria, and Potatoes
Dear Companions,
I like the middle of stories, books. The first score of pages are always treacherous territory—the valley of discontinuation, where, in the past, I often, if not quickly enthralled, abandoned ship, quit—the ol’ Irish Goodbye. In a sense, things have grown worse. I may not even read the beginning. I skim, I wade, until I feel as though I’m past the set-up entirely, until I feel the story starts. The story starts once there is within reach a precisely drawn character, whose passive observations are of paramount interest, replacing my world.
Fictional writing has no value, documentary, narrative has no value. The only genres I saw value in, which still conferred meaning, were diaries and essays, types of literature that did not deal with narrative, that were not about anything, but just consisted of a voice, voice of your own personality, a life, a face, a gaze you could meet...
Knausgaard
All the best quotes come from the middle, don’t you find? And so too with the ending. I skim through that as well, because, at best, it is of little import, a divestment. At worst—a micro death. I bludgeon the final pages to get hurriedly to the end, eager to go elsewhere, and be somewhere in the middle again. And so it goes with my healing story, with us.
Sure, after a long pause (due mainly to ongoing computer issues, but also to some intense moments in the healing practice), a part of me wishes that I could be writing something climatic to you now, a surefire success story, but instead I report from the middle, more positive progress in a life still challenging, for instance, yes, I swam a (super super slow) 1000 yards last week, which is awesome, but I blew my load and ended up missing Jewish New Year celebrations a few days later. So plodding along. I hope you like middles too.
I started writing Away Messages with the express purpose of documenting the thoughts and findings of a person whose train derailed. I remember thinking too many books and stories are written from the perspective of the healed, with clarity, hindsight, which has its charm, a confidence, but it can be dogmatic, intangible. And the battle is long. Insufferably long. Longer than the summer we just had, or last summer, or the summer before, if you count my pandemic pregnancy. And longer still.
As we trudge deeper into the Healingvrse, parroting advice no longer works so well. I have to really understand what I’m doing or else I’m just practicing Witchcraft. (And sometimes I pretend I am one and listen to the Wicked soundtrack.)
I started a course in Cell Biology…can’t hurt. With the gain of a few more functional brain cells I dig deeper, in conversation with doctors, in research online, in book selections, especially when I see stuff repeatedly. Healingvrse gospel. If I’m here I might as well understand why its so important. Like, why do we actually need Vitamin D?
Vitamin D gospel
I see countless signs expressing the importance of Vitamin D in the Healingvrse. In fact my functional neurologist says it’s the only supplement we need to take. (He’s a minimalist clearly.) That said, the advice for upping Vitamin D is persistent but vague.
All of us with immune disfunction post Covid should think about Vitamin D. How does it actually work? It would be a lot easier to understand its importance to me by looking at its role in immunity primarily supporting the function of T cells in your immune system.
T cells, or T lymphocytes, are a type of white blood cell that are crucial for adaptive immunity. They come in two main varieties, although they are not typically tested outside of the functional medical space.
Helper T cells (CD4+) - Vitamin D helps activate these cells, which play a central role in coordinating the immune response. They assist other immune cells in recognizing and attacking pathogens.
Cytotoxic T cells (CD8+) - Vitamin D also supports these cells, which are responsible for directly destroying infected or abnormal cells in your body. My CD8+ count has actually been a little as though my body is fighting something and it’s one of the only clues I have to go off of. Whether it’s fragments of persistent Covid, active viral replication, or Lyme specifically—unknown. Maybe a Potpourri of each reminiscent of the muted purple, rose, and ivory mix my grandma always had in her bathroom…
In essence, Vitamin D ensures that your T cells are fully functional, making it an essential component of a strong immune system. Then the levels matter too. I always thought if I achieved a bump, from deficient to sufficient, I was all good. I always stopped taking the supplement at the follow up appointment. But the reality is:
•At 20 IU (ng/ml): Immune function starts, but it's limited.
•At 30 IU: T cell activation improves.
•At 40 IU: Enhanced immune response begins.
So the fact I raised mine from deficient to sufficient levels is not much to celebrate. I need to double my lab values to get the maximum benefit for the fight I’m waging against fragments of Covid or Babesia, a parasite that infects red blood cells. More on my protocol later.
Afternoon slump gospel
Or consider why you experience things like an afternoon slump. Most of us know it’s associated with a carb-y lunch, but then what? What’s actually happening? What I learned this week is that in part, it has to do with Mitochondria. Mitochondria, interestingly is believed to have evolved from bacteria. How they became an integral part of the cell, as its energy house producing ATP is unclear, so far as I can tell.
From my beginner’s understanding: The afternoon slump you experience after eating carbs, or glucose is actually your mitochondria “uncoupling” through a multi stage process to create heat and then generate the energy you need from this fuel source. It also needs to convert the glucose to pyruvate via glycolysis. Using glucose as fuel is thus a harder process generating less total overall ATP (thus causing a nap sensation).
When mitochondria uses fat as a source of energy the process is called "coupled" because it can generate energy (ATP) without having to undergo thermogenesis (creating heat) or going through the interim step (converting pyruvate).
All of us with post Covid issues should obsess about the mitochondria (see this informative video recommended by Dr T):
And then there’s the silly stuff, the magical overlaps that keep me in stimulated company.
One minute I’m reading the Martian by Andy Weir (a great book—if not for literary value, than the myriad stories in biology and chemistry), where the lone survivor on a Mars mission subsists on Mars grown potatoes, and the next I’m falling asleep to a podcast about the Great Famine in Ireland, centered around the potato blight caused by a mold (not too dissimilar to the ones in the Healingvrse), which killed one million Irish souls (in actuality the famine is less culpable for the deaths than English law as Ireland was exporting loads of food the entire time).
Long story short, I learned a lot about potatoes. They grow prolifically, have a long shelf live, and have reasonable caloric content. If otherwise starving, potatoes are a good source of essential nutrients like carbohydrates, fiber, vitamin C, and potassium.
All of this “middle stuff”…all these doodles like the one below inspired by a couple older ladies sitting next to me, and musings from the razor’s edge of centerfield, I hope we can find some use for them as we side-step toward the finish line, a place that seems to only come to fruition if the middle’s played well.
With much love from the Healingvrse,
Rebecca