It’s Not All Sunshine and Roses, But It Is All Good Baby!
08 Sep 2010 Leave a Comment
in Healthy eating, Nutrition, Organic foods, Weight loss
Greetings beautiful people! What an absolutely gorgeous day! I had a wonderful weekend-hanging out with my friends and their kiddos. I indulged in one of my guilty pleasures-nope, not a big ol’ gooey, gross cheeseburger, but something only marginally healthier-
“reality” television. I LOVE Keeping Up with the Kardashians. I know, laugh. I do. My IQ drops a few points with every episode I watch, but I love it. Chloe is just a hoot! I also love the Rachel Zoe Project and Project Runway. There, now my dirty secret is out. I feel better.
Gosh, so much has happened since the last blog! I was diagnosed with a veritable butt load (classy terminology, I know but bear with me) of food allergies. This was simultaneously anger inducing, a relief, and a major bummer. How you ask? Well, I’ll tell you… About four years ago, I started having really bizarre gastrointestinal symptoms. I would bloat up, practically live on the bathroom (the diarrhea song is stuck in my head now-argh! That’s something you don’t want stuck in your head when you are trying to fall asleep), and had horrible pain in my lower abdomen. By the time the docs would get through the battery of tests to rule out other stuff, the symptoms would ease up and they would chuck it up to irritable bowel or some other such nonsense. Two years ago, the symptoms changed. Not only did I have all the wicked G.I. stuff going on, I also had migratory arthritis, I was so tired I could hardly stay awake, and eventually was in so much pain that I took prescription painkillers to fall asleep. The docs kicked around the idea of Lupus and/or Crohn’s. It was beyond debilitating at that point. Thank God I had my little boy or I really don’t know that I would have had any desire to continue occupying physical space on this Earth. At any rate, I am not one to sit on the pity pot, or let much of anything get me down, so I made the choice to suck it up and make the best of it. I was determined to do everything I could with my little boy and if I hurt like hell, he didn’t need to know that. So that’s what I did.
For the past two years, I’ve had pretty darn severe arthritis pain in my hands and feet, muscle fatigue, joint pain, weird sores in my mouth that come and go, and a host of other stuff. I’ve spent literally thousands of dollars taking test after test praying that something would show up so that we could at least put a name on this critter. I wanted to be able to call by name what I was fighting so I could kick its ass. I went to a doctor who was supposedly the best rheumatologist in the city. She treated me as if it were all in my head and I was nuts. When I would call her begging her to help me because the pain was unbearable, her response was to prescribe me heavy doses of Prednisone, which I refused to take. My big break, so to speak, came when I met a therapist named Debra O’Malley (a kick ass therapist that has become a good friend). She suffers from horrible Fibromyalgia and has a lot of pain from it. She told me about an allergist here in town named Jeremy Baptist that treats illnesses such as Fibromyalgia and even Autism through diet and the elimination of allergens. I thought, what the hell, I’ve been through everything else so I might as well give him a go. I went through skin and blood allergy tests and learned that I was allergic to 21-yes 21!-different foods, stuff that I ate every day. The kicker is that these food allergies could easily be the cause of all of my suffering and it took me being in the right place at the right time to stumble onto a doctor that could help me. That would be where the anger comes in-I spent so much money and suffered so much physical and mental pain all because these geniuses never considered that the source of my suffering could be allergies. I was, and still am, hopping mad about that. I have to let that go though and just be grateful that at last, I may have found the source of my suffering.
So now to the bummer (not really, but kind of). I am very much a believer in reframing thoughts and that is what I’ve had to do with this food allergy stuff. I went to the grocery store last week, just a few days after the diagnosis, and left there hungry, pissed off, and depressed. It seemed that everything I wanted to eat contained at least one ingredient to which I am allergic. For grins, here is the list of my food allergies:
Bananas, barley, cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, Swiss cheese, garlic, gluten, lobster (so sad), malt (funny-I typed male the first time. Just being divorced for the second time, I suppose I do have a bit of an allergy to males. Lol.), Cow’s Milk, oats, black pepper, rye, wheat, baker’s yeast, yogurt, eggs, pork, peanuts, salmon, and corn.
Holy guacamole! Try finding any prepared food without at least one of those ingredients-it’s damn near impossible, I guarantee you. Anyway, I came out of the market so bummed and gave Sherree a call. God bless her! She called me back within five minutes and spent the next 30-45 minutes talking down off the ledge. In my conversation with her, I came to realize that I must focus on the hundreds, if not thousands, of other food choices out there for me, and that a little preparation will go a long way to curbing my frustration. What I mean by that is this-instead of willy nilly going through the grocery store looking at this and that, I must sit down and prepare my menu for the week, and from that menu make a list of the things I need. That way I can do my research in advance and save myself a whole lot of crankiness and an empty shopping cart. Sherree is also helping me find tasty substitutes to some of the things I am allergic to and introducing me to a host of other foods that I’ve never tried. Pretty exciting stuff! I firmly believe that everything happens when it is supposed to happen and for a reason. If I eat whole foods in as close to their natural state as possible, the food allergies aren’t really an issue. Thank God I am not allergic to greens or vegetables! I believe this was the universe’s way of getting me to eat the way people are intended to eat. And if that is the case, then I am absolutely forever grateful. This transformation I am going through is about SOOOO much more than just food. My mind, body, and entire being are evolving and I LOVE it! I’ve met some incredible people through this process and made some amazing new friends. What blessings! I am grateful for it all-the good, the bad, and everything in between.
Well, as it is just after midnight and I have to get up at 5:30 a.m. to pick up my kiddo, I’d better haul my tired butt to bed. I hope everyone is well and send you peace, light and love!
Until next time, blissful eating!
Shelley
