Getting it all off my chest...

2014 started off so well. 

My mantra for this year is 'Make it so!' and all was going so well.  I was making it.  I wear a bracelet with the inscription 'If you can dream it...You can achieve it.'  I look at it often to remind me to keep on track, be positive and be happy.

I've taken advantage of the gym membership which I get for working there.  Everyday I workout! I had lost 19 kilos and was feeling on top of the world!  I was doing this for me, even though I was disappointed that people weren't noticing such a huge weight loss, I kept telling myself it didn't matter, because it was me making it so for me, I was dreaming it and achieving it.

As it happens when you work with young children, I caught a bug which turned into a chest and sinus infection.  Of course, it was off to the doctors for antibiotics.  Being a good girl I took that medicine as directed and sure enough my chest and sinuses cleared and returned to normal...and that's when things turned around for the worse.  The last day of my course of antibiotics I developed diarhorrea.

Back to the doctors and he gave me stronger antibiotics - can you believe it?  But I am no doctor and so I dutifully followed the directions and took the course.  All that happened was the diarhorrea got worse.  In response the doctor gave me an even stronger antibiotics, one that needed an authority script.  Guess what?  The diarhorrea got even worse!

My birthday was spent back at the doctors, having blood and other samples taken and sent away for testing.  Do you know how hard it is to get a stool sample when it's just liquid? Everything came back within normal parameters, nothing nasty lurking anywhere. Meanwhile, I just keep on going to the toilet at a rapidly increasing rate.

Now I have always had faith in modern medicine and doctors, but with this current malady I am feeling quite alone, a little speck in the cosmos which is being ignored and uncared for.  I decided to turn to natural medicine and found a lovely naturopath who specialises in digestive disorders.  After an email sent in desperation, she replied and stayed after hours the following day to see me.  

Our appointment lasted nearly two hours.  Not only did she ask about my current symptoms, she got my entire life's medical history, all sorts of information that not one doctor had ever asked.  I can vividly remember her shaking her head when I said I just kept on being given more antibiotics, even when all the testing showed nothing of interest.  

My gut and intestines have been stripped of all bacteria - good and bad!  Her non-invasive testing showed liver, thalamus, small and large intestine, thyroid and stomach all out of sorts and not working as they should.  I came home with a bag full of powders and reading material along with instructions of what to eat (something the doctors hadn't done). 

I read everything, cover to cover.  I looked up suggested resources and followed link after link.  I downloaded all manner of material relating to my new eating regime to come.  

Paleo.

I spent the following day emptying my pantry of all foods that didn't comply with the paleo way.  Cleaning the pantry was an overdue task, there was so much out of date food!  The regular rubbish and green waste bins overflowed.  Bags of groceries where gifted away.  My pantry is looking wonderfully clean and organised, but sadly empty.  It was no good going out and restocking as all I can eat is stewed red apples for breakfast and simple soups or stews for lunch and dinner.  My children are not too happy as I said we were all going to being eating the same, but I told them they would thank me when they were older!

I followed the regime for the week.  Drinking powders, drops under the tongue, all at certain times of the day.  Nothing changed.  I rang to make an appointment with the gastroenterologist I had been referred to and I couldn't get an appointment for 9 weeks!  I rang around other specialists and finally got an appointment with only a two week wait.  It's going to be a long two weeks...

When I returned to the naturopath after a week, she was visibly shocked when I said I was still visiting the toilet up to 30 times a day, racked with cramping and knife jabbing pains.  I had lost 3 kilos in the week, which made a total of 6 since the diarhorrea began.  

She is treating me as she would a patient with Crohn's disease or Ulcerative Colotis.  My biocampatability testing came back which identified specific foods that I cannot have.  I have more powders to add to the first lot and some liquid herbal medicine and let me tell you they taste vile!  I read my test results while she mixed up my potions, the foods are not forever eliminated from my diet, but for a minimum of six months and then I can slowly reintroduce them back in - except for any that don't comply with the paleo lifestyle.

The naturopath went through my new regime and then asked a big question - who was looking after me?  I burst into tears.  No one was looking after me except me.  I am busy working in the crèche at the gym, trying to run my scrapbooking and photography business', attend to the needs of my family and trying to keep the basic housework done...and failing miserably.  My 18 year old son is depressed, stressed and has been talking suicide with his friends, but he won't talk to us. He has developed  alopecia.  My husband doesn't eat, won't get help and is mad at our son - they haven't had a conversation unless absolutely necessary for about six months.  My 14 year old daughter is lovely but doesn't do a thing to help.  Actually, no one does, but they all demand their washing, their dinner, to be driven around...  I blurted this all out to this lovely lady who I had only met for the second time.  

My life is a mess!  No wonder my body is not working properly.   I said to the naturopath that I feel like I should be in hospital with an iv so I don't dehydrate but by having nothing by mouth let my whole digestive system recouperate.  She looked at me and nodded. 

It's now been 41 days of torture since I finished my course of antibiotics and the diarhorrea began, I am 6.7 kilos lighter and even though I have been trying to loose weight, this was not the way I wanted to go about it!  This 6.7 kilos takes my total weight loss to 25.7 kilos, I should be dancing with joy and patting myself on the back.  

Instead I am miserable, tired, stressed and broke - life is a mess.