[ b r a t g i r l . n e t ]

I think I'm ready.

It’s funny, I haven’t written in my blog for quite some time. Not for lack of something to say but really because I have too much to say. I often think I should write something down and then stumble over the idea of what to write down. At this exact moment in time I have about 7 things running through my mind so I will just pick one and let it rip.

 

That being said I have to write about yet another health issue. Yes, even I am getting sick of being the poor little Brat. I am sure I have written someplace about my stomach woes over the past two years or so. I went to a gastroenterologist about 8 months ago after talking to my regular doctor about the pain. She did a cat scan, which was cake and then referred me to the specialist. I had a horrible experience with the specialist and in my typical fashion when I don’t get the answer I want, ignored the problem. The original gastroenterologist wanted to have me get a colonoscopy, which besides being horribly oogy would have cost me over 800 dollars out of pocket for a who knows what answer. I was not happy with this since they spent a total of 5 minutes talking to me and ignored completely my cat scan. So after ignoring the constant pain and ickyness for another 8 months I go see a different gastroenterologist with my cat scan in hand. The nurse takes a bunch of information and asks me to undress. Really, undress? So I sit in my little paper pink gown and wonder what my experience will be. The doctor comes in and talks to me for about 5 minutes about my symptoms and nods and goes over to my paperwork and looks me straight in the eye and says “Well you know you have diverticulitis right?” Uhhh come again? Well no I am just a peasant and we don’t know these fancy things unless someone tells us. I tried to kindly tell her that is why I am here. You know, crazy stomach pains, don’t know what’s going on?  Apparently it was plain as day from my cat scan and my symptoms. Thank you other doctor who wanted to stick a camera up my ass. After that casual delivery that I have a bowel disease I regain my composure and ask some details. Diverticulitis is an infection in the colon of the diverticula, which are small pockets that are ballooning out from weak spots in the wall of the colon. Stuff gets inside those pockets and become infected, causing the colon to swell and all sorts of fun and exciting symptoms to occur from that. She asked how long I had been in pain this last time, I told her at least 6 months. That means I have had an active infection for 6 months. ICK. I got my handful of antibiotics and some literature and was told to go about my business and we would see how it went in a few weeks. Not only do I have antibiotics she told me to get some probiotics. Wouldn’t that cause a biotic war?? For, against sheesh! Well, feeling a bit less like I have a gigantic balloon in my abdomen but other than that about the same. The only thing is different is I have yet another line to add on my medical forms.

 

I tell you what though, I was teasing my husband that I really thought it was diverticulitis after all of my own hodgepodge research. But deep down inside I thought it would just turn out to be IBS, which is very common for Fibro patience. To actually have a physical disease was a bit shocking, and frightening. After all I am very attached to my colon, and it is very attached to me. I use it on a regular basis. Many people who have this condition have to have large portions of their colons removed. That totally goes against my no more body parts gone rule. My opinion now is that both syndromes and diseases suck equally as much because apparently for all the wonders of modern medicine nothing can really be fixed.

Who knows. 

I do feel a bit better. My husband, afraid of my early demise decided to make a big sacrifice and help me. IE Do it with me so I am not alone.

As a family we have removed soda, artfical sugars, most processed foods, and a lot of dairy and wheat. Since we have done this I must say I do feel a bit better. My pain is a bit less most of the time. I can't really say anything about the fatigue. But my stomach is complaining less and overall I am pleased. I have also noticed my childrens behavior improving (only slightly) :) The damn monsters... heheh For my husband, he will have to answer how he feels.

I have also taken the plunge and started taking Lyrica. Its an anticonvulsant that has been approved for use in people with Fibromyalgia and with peripheral nerve pain. That, may be helping as well. I think it is to early to really make a clear decisie on. But so far I have not turned homicidal or started crying for no reason. Although I do love some of the side effects, pain, fatigue, dizzyness (to the point of falling over) LOL Isnt that what I am trying to fix?

 

I’m scared.

 

Usually I have fears that I can figure out, master (or at least justify in my mind) and then move on from. This time is different for me.

 

I cannot seem to get out of this cycle of pain and exhaustion. Ever since probably November of last year it has started to snowball and now it seems to be out of control.

 

I have trouble breathing when walking anywhere. My muscles hurt from any type of physical activity. This Saturday I had a “full day” and on Sunday I woke up with what seemed like the flu. I had a sore throat total body ache and no energy. This is after being so exhausted on Saturday I went to bed before 10pm.

 

I have had to take probably three days off of work in a month and a half.

 

I am afraid for my health, and at this point a bit afraid for my life. This may seem melodramatic but honestly I feel very uncertain with how things may go.

 

Maybe this is the bottom that people talk about. If so don’t they usually feel spurred to start climbing back up to the top? I just feel hopeless and afraid.

I am a firm believer that children are cute to keep the adults from wanting to strangle them Bart Simpson style. My son for some reason decided that since he woke up I needed to wake up. This after us having told them that just because they wake up in the night I don't need to be notified. He says " I cant go back to sleep" Ok, what am I supposed to do about it??? I told him to lay there quietly then until my alarm went off and I would get up with him. After the third time of getting him back into his bed it finally worked. Oh yeah, he fell alseep. He wanted me to lay down in his bed with him. OK, its a single... I am not small and he is all elbows. Hell no. Needless to say I have one twitchy eye and half a nerve left today. I started low carb this week. My husband is kind enough to join with me. Yeah for him. I want to say I already feel better but that would sound silly after two days. I can tell you my pain is at a good level today though. I doubt I have lost any weight because I am in that withdrawl faze where you just eat everything nailed down you can. I tell you though, I love me the mashed up califlower. I like that stuff better than regular califlower. Cook it until soft, run it through the hand blender, add some butter and cheese..... mmmmmmm Everyone thinks I am nuts. Oh, nuts are good too.

Every once and awhile an article catches my eye. I was looking at our local paper online and this is the headline of one of the stories of the day. Apparently this is a huge breakthrough and the scientific community is all a stir. Probably just the community that does those surguries.

Let me clarify. Weight loss surgury will cure type 2 diabetes. They did a study and studied X amount of people half who had the surgury and half who did not. Obviously the half that had the surgury did much better.

It just flabbergasts me that we are glossing over the whole root cause of the diabetes (type 2)epidemic. Obesity. We are such a quick fix society that all we can think of is surgury to fix the problem of obesity. Lets not cover the fact of self control or personal responsibility and lets completly forget about corporate and government responsibility. What about making healthier foods available? Nutrition classes for people at risk? Interventions!!! But as usual instead of addressing the heart of the matter we gloss over it with a medical miracle. A pill to fix everything, a new invasive procedure people need to be put through.

And let me state this before it comes to mind that I am the pot calling the kettle black. I am overweight. I am not sitting here preaching health and fitness and enjoying it all. I need some help.  But, I understand that my destiny is in my own hands. I WISH that the world made things easier and that healthy was a standard. I still believe corporations have some responsibility here that they are ignoring. But I am not crying in my soup thinking it is all other peoples fault. I had thought about weight loss surgury at one point and realized that is a cop out for me. It is not teaching me anything and chances are I will still have health issues after. There is also a 1 in 1000 risk of death for those surguries. That seems like quite a bit of risk to me.

The bottom line is until we all change our thinking about health and medicine these types of things will continue to happen. There needs to be a new outlook on the horizon. A new way of thinking. Slowly but surely this country is splitting into two factions. The healthy and the severly unhealthy. Pretty soon it will be as clear as a class distinction.

Sometimes when you dont pay attention close enough to what you are doing in the present moment you may end up eating chicken that is raw in the middle. Then, you get to contemplate the misery you may be in for the next 12 hours.

 

Though others eyes its all ok
Looking into the mirror makes you want to run away
Dont touch me I might break
Dont let the wind get me I might blow away

Walking in a dream never wanting to believe
It all is enough to make you scream
To bad I dont have a voice
I cant seem to make enough noise

The fire tends to be to hot to touch
Only to leave me in the cold needing so much
Always spinning round and round
Waiting for that final fall to the ground

So pretty before you really see
what is really happening to me
Shattered glass it cuts so deep
That is what it is to be

Easy come and easy go
Shuddering from head to toe
Its all so far away from me
Everything I long to be

I am a paper dragon in a storm
So afraid at how much I am torn

Sick on Christmas. There has to be some universal mandate that this should not happen. Alas, I missed the figgy pudding.

My son had a school camping trip last night and Chas went after work to spend the night with him. That left me and Raven alone for the night. The house was so much quieter well, less aggressive since Raven and Aaron fight all of the time. It wasn’t really quiet because Raven took the opportunity having my full attention to talk to me non stop for 5 hours (so it seemed). I had a small calamity with some of Ravens medication and I got so upset. I have no idea why I got upset because I worked around the problem the best I could and came up with a solution that was the best I could do etc etc. I just didn’t have Chas to balance me. So, I text message him and he calls. I tell him what I did and he gives me the same solution that I came up with. Now all of a sudden everything is fine. LOL I am such a goober. I am so lost without him. It’s not like I can’t take care of myself either. I can do whatever I need to do and whatever I can’t do I have other people who can help me. But it’s just like one side of my brain is missing when I don’t have him to talk to or bounce ideas off of. I guess that’s what happens when you put all your being into something for so long. I feel like half a person without him. Don’t anyone tell him though I don’t want him to get a swelled head or anything. J Other than that I had a quiet night. I wasn’t sure where to sleep so I slept on his side just to annoy him. I wonder if other couples are like this or if even he feels this way when he is without me. Probably not, as I am usually the bizarre one! Oh well, chalk it up to true love.

Sleeping for me sometimes is an interesting experience. I was so tired last night and could not fall asleep. I kept my husband up as long as I could. He wasnt playing my game. Finally I fall asleep and go someplace into this land of neverending dreams. Although I probably only dreamed for a few minutes. Brutus woke me up to probably go elimate the three steaks I gave him from dinner. I crawl back into bed and start falling asleep and my phone rings. WTF? Its 2am. I dont get to it in time and I dont recognize the number but they leave a message I have to check. A hang up. so back to sleep. I had the dream where I could run. Ohhh I love that one. Its similar to the push up dream where I can keep doing pushups forever and they are so easy. I can run and run and run and I am all bouncy and floaty and I never run out of breath. Ahhhhhh. The dream was actually very long and complicated. Something about meeting people and someone could make chain mail and oh nevermind. LOL

We were watching TV last night and a commercial came on about Fibromyalgia. I think this is only the second commercial I have ever seen on TV for FMS or CFS. Pretty interesting. It was a drug add though for Lyrica. After this commercial I talked to Chas for a few minutes about Lyrica and my thoughts about the drug etc. I had thought of taking it because in its trial studies it did make a difference with FMS sufferers in pain. I do have a lot of pain but my symptoms that are so hard to deal with are the fatigue and the cognitive dysfunction. Although Lyrica is also supposed to help you sleep better I am just very leery of anti depressant medication.

 

I tend to look at things more holistically. I want to fix the whole problem not just put a band-aid on the symptoms to stop the immediate bleeding. This is not always feasible especially in these types of situations with chronic pain and illness. But it does color my view of the world. That and the fact that I think big pharma are not looking out for our best interests ever. It all comes down to the big dollar signs in the sky.

 

I have been doing some thinking and researching again. I don’t spend a lot of time on it anymore because it ends up being a situation of chasing my tail. Spending too much time researching cures and not actually living life. But I have been trying to think of when my illness started and what was happening in that time of my life. It all boils down to probably 1997. I think that is when I started feeling very bad. But I can’t really remember.  My daughter was born in 1995 and I had my right ovary removed while I was pregnant due to a tumor. In 1996 I had my gall bladder removed due to stones. Shortly after that my life went down hill. I was thinking for a while it was the trauma of all of those events on my body. Which is still a very viable explanation. I have also been reading a lot on what happens to someone who looses a gall bladder, especially at a young age, I was 24. I was in so much pain and had so many problems I wasn’t really thinking much about consequences at the time. My doctor also made it seem like nothing. He made it seem like an organ that did nothing for me. Told me nothing about changing my diet or how it would affect my digestion etc. 11 years of chronic stomach problems tell me different. So now reading on the lack of a gall bladder means my digestion is permanently going to be hampered. I may not be absorbing my fat soluble vitamins like I should be and that could be contributing to my sickness. So I then started to try to think of points in my life when I was feeling better. When I did the Atkins diet I felt a bit more like a human being. I had more energy and felt stronger even though I was abusing my body in many other ways. A lot of people get so upset when you mention the Atkins world to them. They think of people eating pounds of steak and butter. Really what I was eating was a lot of unprocessed meats and vegetables. I cut out most processed foods and simple carbohydrates. So now years later in my big circle of thought and looking at the whole gall bladder angle and some of the things I have learned in the last year or so about my vitamin deficiencies I think a lot of things could be fixed by diet. Even in the last couple weeks my search has let to Candida overgrowth and what that can cause, which are a lot of the same symptoms as FMS. So I did the “spit test”. I was trying to do it for three days but I kept forgetting to spit before I brushed my teeth. What you do is spit into a glass of water (yes icky I know) and let it sit for an hour. If the saliva stays in one clump you are ok, but it if all sinks and turns cloudy or falls apart and gets strings falling from it then you probably have Candida overgrowth. This is basically a yeast overgrowth. Mine fell to the bottom and was cloudy. Candida is a normal bacteria in your bowels but sometimes it goes crazy and grows out of control and causes these problems. I started along this path due to my stomach pains and all my colon oddness. See it all comes together doesn’t it? Ok, it could be just in my mind but I think it makes sense. I also love a character on Cartoon Network called Snitzel who only says “Radda Radda Radda” so my judgment may not be that clear. Those who know me can attest I am a bit off.

 

Where was I going with this? I am going to try a diet designed to get rid of Candida overgrowth. Guess what that basically comes down to? Unprocessed meats and vegetable. Hmmm didn’t I see that someplace before? While I have been contemplating doing this my intake of chocolate cake and rice has tripled in my panic to let them go. Needless to say my stomach feels horrible. So I will give it a try for a few months and see what happens. Hopefully it won’t be too much of an inconvenience on my husband and family. I always seem to be the food inspector causing problems at restaurants and wreaking havoc on family meals.

 

Someone told me I should keep a journal while I am doing this. That is a very good idea since I have a hard time remembering what I was doing 4 hours ago let along 4 days or weeks.

I tell my husband the same story, a lot.

Every 5th or 6th time I turn on my car I am suprised my check engine light is on. Even though it has been on for a year and a half.

My phone rang and I went through a light I was stopped at. It was still red.

 I regularly stop at green lights.

 I see something for the first time, at least ten times.

 I laugh at the same joke forever.

 

It has been awhile since I have posted any front page material. Time seems to be slipping past in that way your parents always promised you it would as a child. Chas has been at his new job for a month now. I think things are finally settling in now but the long hours he has to put in are quite hard. As always things are the same at my job. I do the best I can and try to get by. I am still planning on going to school in the spring but I am not sure if that is realistic or not. I think I will just plug on with it though. After all, what else have I got to look forward to than change?

 

We went to Mt Lemmon this weekend for a small hike. It actually ended up being very fun. Everyone brought their cameras and we did a nature picture adventure. I thought it was so cute because every time Chas would pull out his camera for a shot Aaron would do the same exact picture. They were like two little twins snapping away. The kids enjoyed it so much I have to take them back this weekend for the long version. This is going to be a busy weekend. We have a garage sale on Saturday then the hiking. Weekends go so fast.

 

We did get a new cat. He seems about 4 months old and is full of piss and vinegar. So far we have named him Zim. Although his alias is Darth Kitty. He is all black and did I mention evil?

 

I started going to a chiropractor for my back. It had gotten to be so unbearable. I felt better the first time, I have another appointment tomorrow. I am hopeful. He cringes when I mention my kenpo.

 

We trick or treat tomorrow. Muhahaha.

Ok so Chas started his job last week. After seeing him work for a bit I am going to have to say the situation is a lot better than originally thought. I am a bit sad about how many hours he is having to work. His work ethic is very strong and if it takes 15 hours in a day to get the task done that is what he will do. I admire that. But, I miss him. Other than that we have had to make a few changes to life in general to accomdate but nothing beyond doing. He seems to enjoy it and he really seems filled with purpose. All is well I suppose there. After all a bit of sarcifice is just the way life is.

 I am just glad he is happy.