Achievement Unlocked! Grocery Store Victory Check!

I've been experimenting with leaving the house more - trying to go out and see what I can tolerate, how long I can stand for, testing what I can do outside of my home. It's been such a long time being only in my home and staying away from everything everywhere for fear of exposure (and the reactions that follow). I had so little energy I couldn't get off of the sofa, let alone run an errand.

But now I'm getting my strength back and I want to see what I can do. I've been going to run some errands when my husband goes - little things like going to the grocery store - I KNOW I'm not ready for places like the mall or most big box stores. But I can walk the Farmers' Market. And the grocery stores we shop at are all or mostly organic, so it's much safer there. I'll always go with my husband just in case something really doesn't work, he can take care of things and make sure I get home safely.

Well, today I was out of both lettuce AND frozen wild blueberries - two staples in our household, these are foods I eat every day. Anthony William, Medical Medium, has this to say about wild blueberries: 

All fruits have incredible healing and energizing properties, but wild blueberries are the most phenomenal of them all. 
Wild blueberries are loaded with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. These sweet and satisfying berries are excellent liver and blood cleansers, and are vital to the health of eyes and the digestive tract.
Wild blueberries also have the ability to repair tissues and cells and keep the immune system strong. They are a powerhouse food not to be missed!

Wild blueberries also help remove heavy metals from the body, in conjunction with cilantro, dulse, Hawaiian spirulina and barley grass juice powder.  And part of my healing is getting those heavy metals out - slowly and gently, so as not to cause detox reactions in my still very sensitive system. So every day after my celery juice and B12, I have a Heavy Metal Detox Smoothie. I always keep a supply of all of the ingredients on hand, since I have this every morning.

But today I had everything in the VitaMix ready to go and when I went to get the frozen wild blueberries to add, I discovered (gasp!) that we were out. Dun dun duuunnnn!!!

Usually my husband does the grocery shopping, at least since I got too sick to do it myself. I've gone with him a couple of times recently, but it's been over a year since I've even considered doing a trip to the grocery store without another adult along just in case. But....my smoothie. And I HAVE gone recently to the grocery store WITH him and that went all right. I thought, "Maybe I can do this."

So I got ready, got my son, and we went. To the grocery store. With ME as the only adult! AND I didn't use the scooter, although I probably should have - the store we went to was larger than I'm able to walk, and the floors are cement, which is NOT friendly to my back pain. But I DID do it, and I even picked up a few other things we needed, AND managed to bring in all the groceries as well.

I didn't put them all away yet, but I DID do the dishes and made food for myself and my son, so that's still a LOT that I did today. And a huge #victorycheck for me, because holy moly, I ran an errand as the only adult, and it was a BIG deal. Before today, my anxiety and PTSD wouldn't have allowed that, let alone my physical body. It was amazing.

I did learn not to be too ambitious and to let myself use the scooter - that particular store was pretty big, and in places like that, I really do need the scooter. I can do more later if I don't overdo it in the store by trying to walk all the way through. Baby steps. But I could walk through a smaller grocery store maybe. And that's okay. I'm healing and healing takes time. Reintegrating into the outside world takes time. I'll get there.

But now I know that sometimes I CAN go get groceries on my own if I need to (and my body says it's cool). And that's wonderful.