Taking Inventory

As the day draws to a close, I'm taking inventory of the week (plus one day) since I've been at Truth North Health Center. I would have done this yesterday, but today is the final day of my three day juice fast and the true test starts tomorrow when I begin my 30 day water fast! So, I wanted to give a general update on how I'm feeling after five days of super clean eating and three days of juice and how I'm feeling about the upcoming water fast.

Truth: I feel mostly fantastic! I have my moments where I miss my family and friends. I had a full-blown melt down last night as I said good bye to my daughter and husband and after having talked to my other three younger children as well. They'd been telling me all about their day: one had lost a tooth; one had an archery tournament; and yet another showed me an art project that had been completed. I began thinking of all that I am missing while I am not physically there with them and it became too much for a moment. My mental health otherwise, outside of the expected homesickness, has been really good. Since I've long been a sufferer of depression, I'm pleased that depression hasn't already overcome me. 

Physically I am feeling pretty well overall, too. I've had some pain in my hips and some minor lower back pain. I anticipated this might well happen as I've been weening off the Cell-Cept and the last of the steroids. However, I'm overwhelming surprised that I'm feeling as little pain as I am and it makes me hopeful. I'm very hopeful that through the course of this, I will feel the little bit of pain that I currently have continue to diminish. That is an unbelievably exciting prospect. The idea that I could potentially wake up pain free AND do so without being on any meds... Well, that's the bulk of the reason I am here. No pain means little/no progression of disease. No progression of disease means a much brighter future for me and my family. If it were just the pain, if that were the only problem with these diseases, I could continue to suck it up as I have for years. It's all of the other things this disease contributes to in my body that I just can't suck up and pretend aren't there. They'll continue to take my quality of life, but ultimately, they'll steal my quantity of life as well. 

Overall, I've done pretty well on the juice. I've felt occasional hunger pangs. While doing juice, they bring you four a day. Despite the tastiness of the juices, I have struggled to consume all four juices each day. I've averaged more like three to three a half a day. I am of course also drinking water with the juice as well. Honestly, I'm looking forward to just drinking the water because I feel less stressed about my ability to consume the water I need to consume than I do about consuming the juice AND the water! Strange, I know. I've never claimed to be normal!

I've been monitored twice daily since I've been here in addition to my two personal appointments with my personally assigned physician. My initial urine showed protein and my blood labs showed high cholesterol and triglycerides although neither was extremely high. I'm very excited to see what my first results show after being on just water. There were no other abnormalities really with my blood. My meds tend to keep most of those things under control. However, it will be cool to see how "normal" everything is after being off meds for a bit. My very first blood pressure reading after arriving here was 196/102. Not exactly great. I admit that likely was elevated from the norm due to the stress of my arrival day. However, my most recent blood pressure reading was about 150/90. So, between the calm of my surroundings, better eating, etc., I'm making great strides on my blood pressure. I should probably mention that my first reading was while I was still on my blood pressure medication. The 150/90 reading is after being here almost a week and being off my BP meds for four days. So, I'm feeling pretty good about that, too. Oh, I've also lost about ten pounds. That's a nice bonus. I won't lie. 

There's a lot to do here even though it wouldn't seem like there would be. There are lectures twice daily you can attend. I went to both lectures today and really enjoyed them. I've only been to a couple of other lectures simply because I had some migraine and sinus issues when I first arrived that prevented me from getting out much the first few days. I've taken numerous walks around the area. That's been a lot of fun. I've enjoyed the exploring aspect.  I imagine as my water fast goes on, my energy will come down some and I may not attend as many lectures until re-feeding starts. Once fasting begins, you're no longer allowed to leave the property. I've been reading as well and that's nice. It's not something I have a lot of time to do at home. I'm going to have to carve out a way to make that happen once I get back. 

That's the more boring "numbers" end of things in regards to my experience thus far. I'm hoping tomorrow I will have something a little more exciting to talk about. I might even talk some about my awesome Canadian roomie! I really just love her. I confess my immaturity takes hold every time she says "ay" or "aboot" and I struggle not to giggle. She's really nice though, and I imagine she might not smack me, but I'm trying to play it cool. Haha.

Finding my way north

I am all things southern. There is no doubt about that. Some might go so far as to call me country as a turnip green. I'm proud of being southern. I love my twang; sweet tea; my Grandmother; front porch swings; crickets chirping; church on Sundays; my silly southern sayings; and so on. For as much as I love my home state, my twang, and everything else my life encompasses in the Bible belt, turns out to get closer to my goal of true health, I had to find my way north.

True North isn't just the name of the facility where I am staying, it's a frame of mind; a state of being. My journey the last two years hasn't just been about yoga and eating right and even DDP will tell you there is more to it than that. It's also been about finding myself again amidst the struggles of my every day life: learning to react and adapt. But waking up daily in a body that has no desire to do for you what it was designed to do is a real struggle. And this journey of finding my true path to health has been an arduous one at best. Despite the every day struggles though, I have continued to crawl my way forward one millimeter at a time. Even when it appeared I was going backward, I was still moving forward because over the last two years, I have still never thrown in the towel no matter what life has thrown at me. Dallas taught me that for sure. I still haven't given up.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me I'm not known as the person with the best track record of Lady Luck being on her side. So, when middle Tennessee was hit last week with a freak ice storm, meh, that was par for the course. Why wouldn't we be hit with the first ice storm in around a decade the week I'm supposed to hop a plane and fly 2000 miles further into my journey? Why wouldn't my infusion appointment get canceled because Vanderbilt clinics were closing down for the first time in, I don't know, ever. Then my flight was canceled anyway, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah... Of course there were people all over who I am sure were much more inconvenienced than I was, but in my moments of "of course the universe centers around me and my needs," it just felt like twelve more ridiculous road blocks I should not have to be dealing with. There were issues in getting flights rescheduled; issues making connecting flights when my new flight was delayed days later due to de-icing on the runway; and so on. After rising at 2:30am my time, my 22 half hour quest to make it across the country, finally came to a close last Saturday night when I arrived at 1551 Pacific Avenue Santa Rosa, CA.

My first week at True North comes to a close in just over 24 hours. It's been strange. I spent the first few days fighting off migraines and sinus congestion and jet lag. I slept a lot. I mean a lot. I've enjoyed the cleanest eating I've ever had in my life and I've enjoyed quiet. There's been a lot of quiet. Today was my first day on juice. I'll have two more days on juice and then I'll begin my fast. I'm shooting for 30 days of fasting. In my research into fasting, 30 days seems to be a fairly magical point at which the auto-immune system can potentially reset. That's what this whole leg of the journey is about: resetting that thing inside me that works so hard to keep me from moving forward.

It's a fair assessment to say I've been called crazy a time or two in my life.  A fairer assessment might be that I've been called crazy more than a few times. And I'm okay with that. There was a period in my life when I wouldn't have been okay with that; when I would have been bothered by someone's disapproval of me. I'm beyond those kinds of worries for the most part these days. I knew when I began sharing with people I was seriously considering an extended water fast the word crazy might get bandied about. And it did. And I'm okay with that, too. Now that I'm doing it, I'm sure crazy is being tossed around a bit more. What chance wouldn't you take though to get control of your body back? What place wouldn't you take yourself if you knew there was a chance you could cast out a demon that had plagued your existence for almost half of your life? What wouldn't you do? Would you take that chance or would just spend the rest of your life wondering what might have been. I've made some mistakes in my day to be sure, but there's little wondering what might have been going on between my ears. I'm pretty sure every day that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be in life. Today's one of those days.

We've all heard the often trite message regarding walking a mile in someone's shoes before judging, blah, blah, blah. The truth of the matter is that we will never be able to walk a mile in another person's shoes. The similiarity of our struggles can be of some measure in our understanding of what others have gone through, but no two people will ever go through an identical situation and have an identical understanding  or intepretation of that situation once it's come and gone. Both of their understandings will be shaded, shaped and colored by a million factors that began occurring in each of their respective lives from the moment they were born forward. For me, this leg of my journey I'm on is about two things only: discovering my true north and bringing along anyone else that I can to do the same. Welcome aboard the crazy train!

Steph's Way To Well

After much research and discussion, my husband and I have come to a decision. In mid-February, I will be going for in-patient treatment. I am excited. I am nervous. I am terrified. I am thrilled. The range of emotions I feel can't really be articulated although I'm trying. I'll be away from my children and husband and out of work for a minimum of four to six weeks. The only feeling I don't have in regards to our decision is uncertainty.

I've spent the better part of a decade chasing my tail and trying to get well. I have made forward progress; I have given up; I have started and stopped; I've made more gains; and then I've felt loss again and again. Despite the fact I am still not where I want to be a year and a half after beginning my latest journey, I am still miles ahead of where I've ever been before! I actually feel pretty good about that!

Despite the lack of forward progress I would like to have seen to this point regarding weight loss, general health, etc. since I began this, my final journey toward good health inspired by a couple of guys named Arthur and Dallas, there is one very real thing that hasn't happened that has always happened before. I still have refused to give up. Even in every moment that I appear to be failing, I am consciously aware of every aspect of my health and how everything I am doing is affecting my health. While that sometimes leads to some guilt, it also keeps me ever cognizant of new and different choices and, most importantly, the ability to be open to new ideas that could lead to my ultimate goal of good health.

I'm going to work on getting back into the blog every now and then before I go to treatment in February. I also plan to blog the journey through my residential treatment program. 

In preparation for my trip, I have begun a t-shirt campaign through Teespring! I am hoping to help raise funds to help defray my medical expenses since insurance will not pay for a 30 day residential stay that will cost about the same or less than one of my infusions that I have to have every five weeks. For the foreseeable future. Maybe even the rest of my life. I'm unclear on how it makes sense to continue paying for infusions but not residential that could negate the future need thereof. But, I digress. So, just in case you are interested, I'll share the link. Get yourself a cool shirt. Or not. But feel free to share the link! 

http://teespring.com/stephswaytowell

Have a good night. I'll see you soon!

Suicidal Tendencies and the Auto-Immune Disorder

Years ago, I worked with a lady who has Lupus.  Although she lived with chronic pain, she didn’t miss a lot of work which really impressed me.  I remember having a discussion with another co-worker one day about how awful it must be to live with chronic pain.  While I often had issues with my back at the time, it was transient at that point.  I would have “spells” where it was just horrific, but they would only last a few days.  Then it would slowly get better over time, and then eventually it would almost completely go away.  Despite the fact I was in chronic pain, I was at least appreciative of the fact that it was “livable” pain.  It wasn’t until January of 2011 that I got my first mega-dose of chronic pain when I had the worst “spell” I’d ever had.  That one lasted over a month.  It was horrific.  It was grueling.  It brought me to the lowest point I’d ever had in my life - mentally and physically.

As my co-worker and I talked back then, I lamented the mental state of folks with chronic pain.  Because I had a reference of understanding, I could understand fully why someone with chronic pain would contemplate suicide.  It’s a bitch living day-in and day-out constantly hurting.  You get to a point where you can’t even fake it anymore when someone says, “How are you?”  You either just come right out and say, “Man, it really sucks to be me today.”  Or you might tell the truth and try to liven it up a little  with a smile on your face and say something like, “Well, totally awful but what’s the point in talking about that!  How are you?”  Although fairly rare, I’ve done both I’ll admit.  Although lately, the former rather than the latter is what tries to escape my lips more often. 

As my disease has progressed, I have had to learn to live with chronic pain.  The first of this year for about three or four months, I was waking up practically every day almost completely pain free.  It was enough that I could get by without having to take ibuprofen, but this, this was wonderful.  Slowly though, the brick wall has thrown itself back up, and I’ve found myself sliding rapidly back into the pit of chronic pain despair.  Believe me, it’s not been for lack of trying to stay out.  Although my work out record lately has been less than stellar, I’ve been sticking almost 100% to eating gluten free.  My intake of dairy is extremely low to generally none.  My intake of carbs comes entirely from non-bread, non-pasta, non-wheat sources.  I confess my sugar intake could use some work.  I’ve had a bit more lately than I should.  I’m working on it.

Despite the fact I had been doing EVERYTHING right for several months, and a lot still right for the last few months, my disease has taken back complete control of my body.  I’m not sure why.  I haven’t thrown in the towel.  I’m not giving up on at least minimally eating right, and I’m hoping and praying that soon enough, I’ll be back to working out again daily.  For now, the pain is keeping me at bay.  Between the low back pain, the pain in my upper back, hips, and the return of my beloved Costchondritis (painful inflammation of the chest wall), working out is just not even an option.  Additionally, my feet continue to break out, and now my hands are breaking out again.  My  hands generally only break out when I’m in a pretty significant flare.  This one fits that bill.

I confess I contemplated suicide in January of 2011.  There were moments when I considered the pain to be more than I could bear.  There were moments when I really, genuinely thought my family would be better off without me.  There were moments when the life insurance money seemed to me to be a better deal for my family than keeping my broken down self around.  Then I would think about things like my husband trying to get my four year old dressed in the mornings and it just didn’t seem to be as viable an option as I had thought.  In all seriousness though, I really did feel that low.  And it was hard.  It was hard to dig my way out of that.  But I did.  It left me with the realization that if I didn’t have faith, a wonderful husband who is supportive, and five beautiful children, what would have stopped me?  The answer is simple: I don’t know.  I don’t know what would have stopped me then if I didn’t have them, and friends I love, and extended family who mean a lot to me.  I realized the selfish choice of that momentary desire even if I thought I would be doing them a favor.  I realized the truth of words I recently heard my teen quote, “Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.”

Am I contemplating suicide now?  No.  Is this blog some veiled threat or foreshadowing to what I am thinking about doing?  No.  Understand what this blog is.  This blog is a reminder that even when you look at someone who looks like they need to drop a few pounds but looks perfectly healthy otherwise, you don’t know what battles they are struggling with internally.  You don’t know how they are feeling at the moment.  I can easily hide or distract from the couple of “visible” symptoms of my disorder, but I’ve really mastered hiding the ones you can’t see particularly if you don‘t know me very well.  Most people would never know on the day to day over the past decade that I’ve battled physical pain and fatigue almost daily.  But I have.  And it’s been hard.  I’ve overcome it this far though, and I intend to keep going.  If nothing else, I’m going to be the poster girl for working women and mothers with auto-immune disorders.

Despite the despair I am feeling today, I am still hopeful.  I go for my next infusion on Wednesday, earlier if there’s a cancellation.  I’ve contacted my Rheumatologist to let him know about the elevated symptoms so that my infusion can be adjusted accordingly.  I’m feeling low.  I’m feeling down and out.  I know this is just yet another storm I have to weather.  I will overcome it.  At the same time, I am cognizant of the fact there are people out there who lack faith, the support I have from family and friends, or who just haven’t yet mastered the skills I’ve been lucky enough to master to deal with my disorder and everything else that comes with being me.  I still get depressed; I still get down.  I always come up swinging though.  I’m saddened for my brothers and sisters out there who eventually go down and can’t make it back up.  I’ll never judge.  I’ve never been in their shoes regardless of what I think my experience has taught me.

If you are reading this and you are struggling with any of the following:

• Chronic Fatigue
• Chronic Pain
• Depression
• Any auto-immune disorder
• Obesity
• Whatever other sorry demon you’ve got in your life

… Remember these problems and/or flares are only temporary.  I have found my golden ticket between DDPYoga and eating gluten-free.  I know this is the combination that will get me where I need to go.  I’ve just got to remember to hang on just a little longer.  I may not ever be “100%” in the world of physical health, but I can give life 100% of what I’ve got.  Faith, patience, and a whole lotta hard work will pay off for me in the end.  As my old pal DDP says, “Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% how you react.” Add those two numbers together and you get 100%.  So, I’m gonna heed DDP’s advice even on my lowest days.  I’m no math whiz, but I’m thinking 90 is a much larger number than 10.  In other words, maybe not today or even tomorrow, but I’m thinking my 90 is going to kick life’s ten in the ass.  

What Story Do I Tell Myself?

I haven’t blogged this week as I had a house full of guests. Ten guests plus my household of seven kept me busier than a one armed paper hanger! So, I’m trying to get back at it now. So, on we go!

I've managed to cover 37 of my 38 years in about 13 blogs. Needless to say I skipped a lot although some might say I shared too much. Either way, I laid a foundation on the story of me for a few different reasons. Primarily I designed the blog this way so a stranger or someone who doesn't know me that well could come to know how I got to where I am. The hope for me being if they he/she could somehow identify with things I've gone through in my life, it might inspire them and give them hope that they, too, could move past the demons that sometimes appear insurmountable. It's also been a journey of self-discovery for me. I won't lie. I'm hoping to gain some better insight into myself as I go through this process. I don't just want to rehash the past and it mean nothing. I want to talk about it, learn from it, put it away, and move onward and upward.

I guess it begs the question at this point if I have learned anything about myself. I'm not 100% sure "learned" is the necessarily the right word, but I think I am coming to a better understanding of myself. I can't look at all the negative events in my life without simultaneously recalling a lot of positive memories. Despite any struggles I've ever been through in life, no matter how alone I ever felt during those lows, in retrospect I see easily how much love and support I have had throughout everything and it makes me smile. I think it's easy in the down times to lose your sense of self and your self respect. The ability to recognize there are people who love you, and you are worthy of a life of happiness seems like some far off unrealistic ideal. I know I’ve been stuck
there: a lot.

Despite my crazy busy week, I was able to catch about half of DDP Radio on Wednesday night. I’ve been thinking about the show a lot. I wish I could have listened to the entire thing. I don’t know if I could have handled it as the half I caught had me in tears. As I listened to DDP say the words “What story do you tell yourself?” I couldn’t help but think of all the stories I have told myself over the years and the impact those stories have had on me. Truthfully, I don’t think there have been that many stories. Really just one story tells the full tale. My story repeatedly to myself was always the story of a girl who had no worth; a girl who didn’t deserve happiness; and a girl who always had to measure her worth by the yardsticks of others.

Even when I decided to leave the last Mr. Wrong and went on later to marry Mr. Right, I continued to measure myself by the opinions of the man in my life. Fortunately, I stuck with Mr. Right and his opinion is a much better one that Mr. Wrong’s, but the fact that my own self worth still hinged on the thoughts of another, wasn’t a good thing. Like all my relationships before, my esteem rested squarely on Mr. Right. Then we went on to have children, beautiful and intelligent children. So, I moved from measuring my self-worth just by my husband and on to what others thought about how well-behaved or how smart my kids were. Again, my ruler for everything remained how others perceived me. I get to a degree that everyone does this. I just never realized until late last year it was all I ever did.

For the first I found myself in new territory. I had tried to get healthy many times before. Every time I tried, I failed. It hit me for the first time in December of last year why I had always failed before.

I had never done it for me.
I had done it for my husband. I had done it for my kids. I had done it at the urging of other family members and friends. Obviously my husband, my children, other family and my friends are great motivators. It was hard though to make all those kinds of sacrifices, not feel better, and keep on doing it. The end goal was worth it to get started, but even my husband, my children, my family, and my friends weren’t enough to keep me going when I couldn’t see the need to do for it myself. Wow. That’s a pretty big admission. It’s a little sad, too. I think that’s why I cried the other night. I knew I had made this discovery last December. I finally figured out I needed to do it for me. And I was. I was finally doing it for me, and I had seemed to figure out for the first time that I was worth the effort.

Then, somewhere along the way, I lost it.

Bam. The mojo was just gone. I feel like an alcoholic or drug addict who was on the wagon for five months and in one large swoop, I fell from grace. I’m not sure what happened. I have no idea what has brought me to this place. In all honesty, I’m not sure how to get out of this hole. I don’t know what else to do other than put it out there.

This is as bare as it gets. I’m in a hole. I want out. I don’t want to go back to the story I used to tell myself. I liked the new story. For whatever reason though, I’ve lost my way yet again and the new story, well, it’s given way to the old familiar one that I’ve been reading for far longer. I know I’m eventually going to crawl right back out of this hole. I just hope you’ll have the patience to bear with me as I do.  I want to think I am worth it again.  I want to think it and I want to become it.  That's the story I want to tell myself.

Spring of Hope

After a hiatus of several days, I’m back at it hard today.  I took a long weekend off and headed to Baton Rouge last Friday with my STL Connection.  We had an absolute blast visiting with a mutual friend and my family.  It was relaxing, fun, and we have promised we will do it again!  Sometimes it’s just necessary to get away from the pace of your life for a few days, have a little fun, and recharge.  Since I couldn't be in Mexico for the DDPYoga Retreat, I think I managed to drown my sorrows in the most positive of ways! 

Now, on with the blog…

Ten days after the birth of my baby girl Annalee, I began experiencing what has to be the most excruciating migraine of my entire life.  I’ve had a history of migraines for several years, but this one outdid them all.  After about 12 hours with the migraine, I decided to check my blood pressure when absolutely nothing else I was doing was bringing me any relief.  I thought perhaps my blood pressure was elevated more so than normal and was causing my head to pound.  It was about two in the morning when I took my blood pressure.  I was certain when I read the monitor that there must be some kind of error as I had never seen my blood pressure that high outside of a delivery room.  I took my blood pressure a second time and got the same result.  I woke my husband up and took his blood pressure.  His came out normal.  I took mine a third and it was still measuring extremely high.  My theory that the monitor was malfunctioning was now out the window.  I decided to call the on-call doctor for advice on what to do.  Needless to say, I was advised to go to the emergency room.  Immediately.

I arrived at the emergency room sometime after 2:00am.  Although my migraine was still out of control, I was seriously thinking my blood pressure would be normal at that point and I would feel silly for creating all the fuss.  However, it quickly became obvious there was a serious problem with it.  The same measurements were taken in the emergency room I had taken at home:  210/111.  I wound up being taken up to the maternity floor as I was only ten days post-partum.  The next day and a half was literally one large blur.  I was barely conscious and Lord only knows what was done to me try and get my blood pressure back under control.  The only point at which I can even remember being aware of whether it was day or night was when I was taken to have some kind of scan.  I have an extreme sensitivity to light when I have a migraine, and they gave me a towel to cover my eyes on the way.  At one point, my arm slipped off the side of the wheel chair and the comforting dark veil of the towel gave way to the searing pain of sunlight.  In that brief moment until I could coordinate my hands to get the towel back over my eyes, I felt as though needles were stabbing my eyes.  Regardless of the pain though, I couldn’t let myself cry.  Sobbing only made my head ache even worse.  I sucked it up as best I could and tried to breathe out the pain.

The nightmare finally ended after that day and a half although I wound up being in the hospital for a total of four days.  It’s still unclear what exactly happened.  I don’t know if the high blood pressure caused the migraine or if the migraine caused the high blood pressure.  No one else seemed to know either.  Seemed to be the usual case for me.  Nothing ever comes standard for me health wise.  Ever the enigma as I hear from medical professionals on a consistent basis, “Well, I’ve never seen it present this way, but…”  Man, if only I had a nickel…  One thing was for sure, I wasn’t birthing any more babies.

The next year or so would continue on as the last several had.  I would sporadically have migraines, my psoriasis had become an ever present condition on my skin, the acute arthritic back pain and neuropathic pain would come and go, and crippling fatigue would continue to plague me every step of the way.  I continued with work and caring for our two children and would pray for temporary reprieves from my symptoms.  Sometimes they would come and sometimes they did not.

I must have been in a particularly froggy mood when a friend of mine asked me around February of 2010 whether or not my husband and I could temporarily help care for her nephews if needed while her sister underwent treatment for Leukemia.  Without even consulting my husband, I gave her a flat yes.  I somehow instinctively knew my husband would be quite okay with a couple of a little boys in the house to help even out the estrogen to testosterone ratio.  When I spoke with him, he was okay with my response.  And so we waited.  We didn’t know how long it would be before the call would come asking for our help or if it would even come at all.  It did a few months later.


Toward the end of May 2010, the call came asking us if we could take the boys for a couple of months.  We said yes and asked when they would arrive.  It would only be a few days before the number of children in our home was going to double for a period of time.  I knew it would be no easy task, but I had prayed on it and I knew we would be up for it!  We busied ourselves getting a bedroom and ourselves ready for their arrival.  We were very excited to have them with us and with Kim coming to visit soon for the summer, it was going to be quite a summer with five children about!  I simply couldn’t wait to have a house full of children!


Kim arrived shortly after the boys and the summer was off and running.  After Kim’s arrival and several conversations, it became evident Kim wanted to move in with us as badly as we had wanted her to move in with us for years.  We began filing paperwork and doing what needed to be done legally to make it happen.  Although something of a headache, the process went along more quickly and smoothly than I thought it would.  Before we knew it, legal custody of Kim was ours and she was on her way to east Tennessee to pack up her things and head back home!  So, as we were prepping to make Kim a permanent part of the household, we were simultaneously prepping for the boys to return back to their mother.  The two months was almost up and we had been advised they would be returning home as planned.

Word came the Tuesday before the boys were to return home that their mother had been re-hospitalized.  The treatment she had undergone had been brutal.  Her physical health wasn’t near where it needed to be to look after two young active boys.  We were asked if we could keep the boys a few more months to give her additional time to recuperate from the treatment that was almost killing her in order to save her.  Without a doubt, our response was yes.  We had to shift gears from readying the boys to return home to getting them enrolled in Kindergarten and pre-school, getting physicals completed, etc.  It was a pretty major shift as Kim had also just moved into our home.  It appeared we would have a house full for the foreseeable future.  So, it was the seven of us from that July of 2010 until December 0f 2010.  That’s when the boys went back home to their mother.  Although I was happy the boys were going home because it meant their mother was still in remission and doing better, there was a part of me that was so sad to see them leave.  Their mother and the boys spent Christmas with us, the boys would come visit on the weekends, and it was nice that we would get to remain a part of their lives.

It would also turn out to be a good thing the boys went home when they did.  In January of 2011, my body went into a total revolt.  I don’t know what happened.  I’m unsure if it was in some way related to the stress of the whole situation with the boys and Kim moving in or if it was just the natural progression of my still unidentified disorder.  It probably helped little that I had strep in December.  Strep can take my immune system down like nothing else.  Either way, the ride I was about to go on would be a nightmare unlike any other I had yet experienced with my health.

The months of January and February 2011 would be two of the darkest months of my life.  The arthritis in my back had spiraled to new lows.  I remember having said multiple times before when my back would go out a few days at a time that I just couldn’t imagine having to live with chronic back pain.  I didn’t realize that my sporadic issues were going to turn chronic for me.  I missed almost the entire month of January from work.  I was in so much pain I could barely function on the day to day.  Much like the incident from when Libby was a baby, it became a daily struggle to even get out of bed.  The exception being that rather than lasting for a few days, this episode stretched into a couple of solid months.  Each morning would begin the same.  I would wake up feeling nothing but excruciating pain up and down my spine.  Each morning I would spend the first hour of my day getting out of bed and into an upright standing position.  Literally, it would take an hour just to stand up.  I can think of little in life that has ever been more disheartening for me.

My darkest days came when I seriously considered the point in going on.  I felt absolutely useless and was in so much physical pain, I just wanted a way out.  I seriously considered the worst choice to be my best option because I physically and mentally couldn’t take it anymore.  I thought about overdosing.  I thought about pulling my car into the garage and closing the door.  I thought about it multiple times.  I thought about how my husband and children could survive without me and they would be just fine.  At that point, I could only see myself as a burden.  All the while I still prayed for relief and answers to come.  It just didn’t seem to be happening fast enough.  I was just so tired of fighting with my body, feeling sick, feeling tired, and being in pain.  I’m glad I made the wiser choice of hanging on.


The last two months of my harshest winter were almost over, and with the spring answers would come.  Although I wasn’t going to be “fixed” overnight, I was at least happy to finally know there was an answer.  It was a relief to find a “name” and an explanation for all I had been going through.  I knew there was still a long road ahead of me, but at least the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel was visible to me.  Hope.  Hope means a lot when you thought you’d never find it again.

Eye of the Tiger Should Be My Theme Song

A picture of my sweet Liberty Grace at one year of age.

I'm going to go with she was worth it!

Excited as I was to be pregnant for a second time, there was much difficulty in the beginning containing my fear.  Being only four months removed from my miscarriage, I wondered at what point I would be begin to feel safe.  Each time I would hit a milestone, I would breathe a short sigh of relief, but then I would look toward the next milestone and wait for the shoe to drop.  I think things finally started feeling okay when I finished the first trimester and things felt much better when I went for the ultrasound at the 20 week mark.  I was excited for the ultrasound because I wanted to know the sex.  I was absolutely certain I was having a girl, and not being the most patient person in the world; I needed to know for sure.  The tech couldn’t say with all certainty I was having a girl, but she was pretty sure there was no male equipment present.  I happily began snapping up all kinds of pink.

The first 20 weeks of the pregnancy weren’t that bad.  I had horrific nausea, but rarely vomited.  However, because of the severity of the nausea, I had a very difficult time eating.  (I never had any strange cravings but I developed an aversion to bacon almost immediately.  The mere sight of it would make my stomach lurch.)  As a result of the nausea, I actually had a net weight loss during the first two trimesters of my pregnancy.  I certainly wasn’t trying to lose weight and my abdominal measurements and ultrasounds indicated the baby was growing, so, I was content to let my pregnancy serve as an awesome weight loss plan.  I know that’s not generally how it works for folks, but that’s what happened with me.  There is, of course, the fact I was not a small gal to begin with.  My body had plenty of stores to draw from and I was taking my pre-natal vitamins and necessary supplements as I went anemic early in the pregnancy.  Of course there is a draw-back to only gaining between five and ten pounds throughout your pregnancy: when you come out of the hospital weighing less than you did the day you got pregnant, it’s really difficult to blame the weight you later gain on your poor kid.  I never had the luxury of saying, “Oh, I’ve really got to drop this baby weight.”  Um, yeah, no.  She was never going to get saddled with that guilt!

The real fun began after the first trimester.  During the second trimester of my pregnancy, I developed a severe UTI.  I had made it almost 30 years of my life without a UTI.  I had no pain from it, but had other symptoms that were, for a woman who was pregnant and unaware, extremely frightening.  I’ll spare the gory details, but just know a call to the on-call doctor led to a trip to the emergency room.  Although it completely shot my nerves, everything turned out okay with that issue and remained calm for a bit.  Once the third trimester hit, things were going to go less smoothly.  Despite the almost complete lack of weight gain, the pregnancy was really stressing my body.  I wound up developing preeclampsia which led to a great many more doctor visits, ultrasounds, tests, and bed rest.  Between the anemia, high blood pressure, sporadic back issues, and my seemingly weakened immune system, I was more tired and exhausted than anything else and almost looked forward to bed rest just so I could sleep more.   I recognize most pregnant women are tired and face increased health risks, I just didn’t realize then the inner health demons I was fighting to get through each day.  And there were just so many appointments between the OB/GYN, ultrasounds, blood specialist, emergency room trips, and the chiropractor, I’m not completely sure how I was managing to even go to work.  But I did.

Word came ten days before my due date I would have to be induced.  At that point, I had started spilling protein and it was no longer a better option for my baby girl to remain in utero.   Between the blood pressure, swelling, and protein, it was time to get her out of there and into the world.  It was off to the hospital with me to have an induction.  I had no idea the wild ride I was in for that night.  The induction began easily enough, but got pretty hard in a few hours.  My contractions went full throttle after my water broke, and my blood pressure was spinning wildly out of control and dangerously into stroke territory.  An epidural at least got the blood pressure down, but did nothing in assisting with getting my baby girl out.  She was perfectly content where she was and had no plans whatsoever to leave her comfy little nest.

After 17 and a-half-hours of labor, two and a half which were active pushing and delivery, I finally laid eyes on my baby girl.  Liberty Grace had arrived; my sweet baby aptly named as she was born on a Tuesday and “Tuesday’s child is full of grace”.  I scanned her over and over, looking at her face and limbs, counting her fingers and toes (yes, I seriously did), and just marveling at this little miracle in my hands.  A few tears slid down my cheeks as I took in her absolute perfection.  I would have gone through a pregnancy ten times worse to have her.  She was beautiful and she was mine.  As I looked at her, I recapped the stats in my head on her weight, height, time of birth, and date, a thought entered my mind.  I remember distinctly as I said the date of her birth in my head.  The realization hit me I had given birth to her on October 21^st exactly one year to the day I had miscarried was almost too much irony for me.  I thought of the child I had grieved, and looked at the child I was already in love with after only a few moments.  It was such a bitter-sweet irony to be had on that joyous occasion.

It’s true what they say about forgetting the pain though.  Obviously I remember the discomfort and pain of miscarriage, pregnancy and childbirth, but time allows you to forget enough to do it again.  No different than falling in love a second, third or fourth time when you remember being burned before.  Living and loving requires risk-taking.  It would be five years before I took those risks again to have my second child.  It was no cake walk between the two pregnancies as pregnancy seemed to unleash the full wrath of my unknown condition.  Dang it all though.  Regardless of the cost, I was going to do it again someday though I wasn’t really sure how.

After giving birth the first time, I knew it would take a while for my body to “get back to normal” whatever that means.  I just didn’t realize so many things were going to linger or that new issues would crop up afterward.  I had to continue with supplements long after her birth as the pregnancy had literally wiped me clean.  I was still anemic, I still had high blood pressure, and the pregnancy seemed to spur on new conditions and make old ones worse.  One of the absolute worst days of my life came when I was home alone with my infant baby girl.  Mr. Right had already gone back to work and Libby was about 12 weeks old.  She was still oh, so tiny.  My back had been giving me fits and I was still seeing my chiropractor just as I had done throughout my pregnancy.  There just was no relief, and it continued to get worse.

Home alone one day, I was carrying her and I collapsed.  The pain was so excruciating I wanted to scream.  I have no idea to this day how I managed to fall forward to the ground with her cradled in my arms without even waking her.  I sucked my breath in as hard as I could when I hit the floor, and turned my head sideways to exhale heavily.  I was breathing the pain in and out and trying desperately not to cry.  I laid her down on the floor so I could try to get myself in such a position that I could get up.  I crawled around my bedroom floor to the side of my bed.  I thought if I could at least make it to the side of the bed, I could possibly pull up on it and use the bedpost as a support.  As I raised the upper half of my body, that familiar jolt surged through my body.  I cupped my hand over my mouth to keep myself from screaming and waking my baby.  I literally closed my eyes, looked Heavenward and pleaded for relief.  I didn’t know what else to do.

It was not the first time, nor would it be the last, I had been stricken with such excruciating back pain that I literally went down.  It wasn’t even a matter of something in me hurting and me putting myself down to relieve it.  It was a matter of my legs literally giving way when that pain seared through me.  I just couldn’t for the life of me understand why.  Even at that point, a decade ago, I had been given multiple explanations for the cause of my pain: ruptured disc, pinched nerve, degenerative disc disease, and so on.  While everyone seemed to have a differing opinion on what the cause was, everyone seemed to agree on the treatment.  It was the same story no matter where I went: I would just have to learn to deal with it through pain management.  That’s the best advice a 28 year old mother with a newborn infant could get?  Take pain pills?  Seriously.  Perhaps you can see where the hopelessness of my situation began.  It began right with the people charged to care for me.

That’s when my love affair with Ibuprofen began.  I couldn’t constantly remain doped up on opiates.  I would occasionally take one or two just to get me through the most acute points, and then I would load up on Ibuprofen.  I know it wasn’t necessarily a healthier choice for me.  I can’t imagine the damage I must have done to my stomach and liver all of those years, but I couldn’t walk around in a haze either.  How could I take care of my child if I wound up addicted to drugs?  That just wasn’t going to happen.  So, I invested in Ibuprofen and I sucked it up.

I’ve had to do a lot of sucking it up over the years.  That’s fine.  Each time I have had to go through a round, it just made me that much tougher for the next round.  I won’t lie and say I took each punch with aplomb, but each time I got through it.  I would have my moments.  There have been plenty of pity parties over the years.  There were so many nights I cried and wanted to give up.  I didn’t though.  And as the hits kept on coming, I kept right on sticking it out.  I had no plans to go down without a fight.

And Sometimes You Just Go Down

Some of you may be wondering, “Gee whiz lady, what’s any of this stuff really got to do with DDPYOGA?”  Lucky for you, I have a very logical explanation, and it’s a pretty simple one really.  So, here goes…

All of us walk through pain in life.  All of us have had our struggles.  I am 38 years old.  I’ve seen my share of pain in life - mentally and physically.  I’ll never pretend my struggles are any worse than anyone else’s.  In fact, I’ve probably really “suffered” no more than the average person.  What good does it do though for me to say: “Yep, I started doing DDPYOGA in January, it’s great, I love it, you should do it because I notice you are in at least as bad of shape physically and health wise as me.  It will change you.  It will help you” if the person(s) to whom I am making the statement has no clue what brought me to the point in life where I felt it was really time and necessary to make a change.  I think many of us are reluctant to take advice from people we don’t understand or from people whose point of view we don’t understand.  If you can make a connection somewhere through your struggles, I think that inspires people.  If someone can look to my experiences and find some common thread, maybe they will be compelled to make the changes they need to make to live a healthier life.  It is a fact that DDPYOGA has been a catalyst for me in seeking better physical health, but it’s turned into so much more than that.

I decided when I started DDPYOGA back in January I would chronicle my progress via Facebook for a couple of key reasons.  Partially I made the decision to help keep myself accountable, but I also made the decision because I had a sincere interest in inspiring or helping other people who are at the same place I am in life: our worst days are behind us, but we still have to deal with the stress of the daily grind that is a career, parenting children, being a spouse, etc.  When I decided to enter the DDPYOGA Challenge, I felt it necessary to go backwards for a minute.  Sometimes it’s best to start at the beginning.  An inspirational story can only be so inspirational if you don’t start “reading” it until the middle.  I might have been less impressed with Arthur Boorman’s story had I made a wild prejudiced assumption he was some lazy, fat middle aged dude who just woke up one day and said. “I think I’ll try yoga to lose weight.”  With that perspective in mind, I wanted to briefly create a foundation for anyone new to my story so they could understand exactly how DDPYOGA has impacted my life.  DDPYOGA has come to encompass so much more than just my physical health, and this challenge has been a fabulous way to process and think more thoroughly and on a much deeper level about how my past experiences have shaped who I am and how they have contributed to my current physical and mental health.  So my first six posts have covered the first 25 years of my life.  Since you now know I am 38, do some quick math and you will see I’ve only got 13 more years to cover!  I’m hoping you’ll stick it out with me, because if you have found the last several blogs a little depressing, I promise you things will get better!  Well, alrighty then, now that we have gotten all that covered, time to move on to tonight’s actual blog!  Yeah, sorry, there’s more.

…

The irony that I am beginning work on this blog post on Independence Day is a bit cathartic for me.  My last post left off at the exit of Mr. Wrong.  I had successfully asserted MY independence and determined on my own a new course for my life.  I was proud to begin a new career and cut the ties of that horrific relationship.  Despite my new found direction and freedom, I was still depressed.  I had so many lingering questions I knew I would never have the answer to and I think that frustrated me more than anything else.  A lack of understanding someone else’s misbehavior has to be the thing that spins my head out of control more than almost anything else.  It would just have to keep spinning for a while because no answers were going to come.  I needed something positive.  I needed a distraction.  Thank God for good friends and family!

Around the time of my divorce, my mom came up from Florida to visit me.  I think she instinctively knew I needed some “mommy time”.  I don’t care who you are, how old you are or how tough you think you are, if you have a good relationship with your mother or a mother figure, sometimes nothing will make you feel better than a little one on one.  So, it was with much excitement and with great anticipation that I waited for my mother to arrive from Florida.  I had spent some time healing with my STL connection, a new close friend from work, a couple of local girlfriends, and my roomie.  I couldn’t wait to hang with mom. 

Mom arrived from Florida and I was ready for us to get out and have some fun.  Outside of work, I hadn’t really gone out much socially yet or let off any steam.  Mom was ready to get me out of the house and somewhere besides work.  The fun began from the moment I picked her up at the airport and we headed to get some dinner.  I’m guessing our waiter from Chili’s still thinks about us from time to time as we sat for hours eating, drinking, talking, laughing, and making our time at that table well worth him being tied up with us for so long.  We not only left him a good tip, but we had lots of fun being silly with him.  Things were off to a great start and I looked forward to more time with mom and especially more outings.  Our next would be a play.  My roomie was heavily involved in the theater at MTSU and happened to have a show going on when Mom came in to visit.  We decided going to the show would be great fun, and I felt like a teenager running about the house getting ready to go out.  The music was blasting, the vibes were great, and mom and I were ready for a fun night out. 

I had put the finishing touches on my hair and make-up, picked out a cute outfit, and was getting ready to lace up my Doc Martens.  I sat on the edge of my bed, lifted my leg up, and slung it over the bed.  As I reached forward for my laces, I heard what could only be described as a pop.  I was confused as I felt a jolt run through my body.  I had no history of back problems or injuries so I was extremely confused as to what exactly was going on, but felt relieved when the pain began to dissipate after just a few seconds.  I shook my head and went back to the laces.  A few seconds later my phone rang, and I jumped from my bed to run downstairs and answer it.  I answered the phone and headed back for the stairs.

As I moved toward the stairs, something seemed terribly wrong.  The entire lower half of my body was being consumed with a pain like nothing I had ever known and I could literally feel the strength in my limbs leaving my body for parts unknown.  After two steps up the stairs, I collapsed.  My knees buckled, came out from underneath me, and I found myself literally unable to stand.  I screamed in pain.  I couldn’t understand what was happening to me.  I was prone on the stairs and the slightest attempt to move my legs and get myself up sent shock waves through my body.  The pain radiated from my spine outward all the way to my toes and fingertips.  As a child, I accidentally touched an electric fence on one occasion, and that’s the closest sensation I can think of to describe the rolling sensation of pain.  I’m not sure how long I was on the stairs before my mother was able to get me up.  It wasn’t a terribly long time but at least several minutes.  I shudder to think how long it would have taken me to get up from that position had she not been there, but I can guarantee I probably wouldn’t have made the play that night.  I was able to get to my bed.  I rested for a while and downed some ibuprofen.  The night wasn’t going to wait for us and I was determined to push on through.  We made the play, but I had my regrets.  I would up at the doctor the next day and would spend the next few days in bed trying to recoup.  Not exactly how I had envisioned spending the week with mom.

And that would be the very start of it.  From there forward I would spend a decade fighting a pain wracked body that was absolutely consumed by fatigue.  There would be break outs on my hands and my feet, more illnesses than I can begin to enumerate, high risk pregnancies, high blood pressure, and the list goes on.  I have no idea how I would have survived it all had Mr. Right not finally come along.  God bless him.  He’s certainly lived up to his vows.  There’s definitely been a fine mix of sickness and health and good times and bad times.  And he’s stuck with me through it all.  I must be pretty awesome.  I think I meant to say he must be pretty awesome.  It’s true.  He is.  I feel blessed he’s been by my side as I have struggled through the ups and downs of my condition and as I searched for an answer to save me from myself.