Finding myself "Worthy"

It's 12:15am and I should be in bed. My has started it's "busywork" time of the day where I avoid sleep, just like I feel like I avoid so much in my life.

Ugh. I feel like every time I come to this blog nowadays all I do is whine and complain. And here, I am spewing verbal diarrhea all over the web about my inability to get to a place in my life where I don't feel the need to spew mental chunks.

For lack of a better term.

My journey through balancing the emotional side of my health is such a huge [read: gapping] piece of the puzzle to my bad health that it feels like climbing Mt Everest to get it conquered. And here I sit, with my old friend "self-hatred" whispering evil things in my head again.

So I focus on my breathing, slow it down, count to four on each step of inhale and exhale and repeat the mantra "I am worthy" to myself over and over again. My holistic healer (for lack of a more concise term for her) has me focus on different "beliefs" each week until we have trained my subconscious to keep them ingrained in my body. This enables my body to release negative emotions of the past and rebalance my physiological with the psychological self.

At the beginning we focused on the belief, "I observe with love and detachment." It took me WEEKS to fully understand what that meant! It was such a foreign concept to me that making it a belief took a lot of repetition.

A few weeks ago we added in "I'm in the flow of my life" and that's where things really started to change for me. The conversation went something along the lines of me asking when I would feel like a) people were actually listening to me, and b) I would feel in control. Her response shook my entire view of life upside down- she told me that we aren't in control.

What???!!!

Okay, the conversation had a few more sentences in it, but the concept was that simple. About 30 minutes later it dawned on me that it's not about feeling "in control" in my life, but feeling "balanced." By being balanced I could maintain the flow of my life as it was intended to be. I could release judgement of other people's reactions and decisions and behaviors because that was the flow of their lives (observing with love and detachment). They could not affect my actions/feelings/etc anymore than I could affect theirs. Sometimes they are in a state where no matter how brilliant my argument or idea they won't be able to hear it or respond to it. This all played out in events in my personal life last week in a way that surprised me completely. But having balanced myself and believing not only that "I am in the flow of my life" and that "I observe with love and detachment" I was able to come out of those events still standing with little more than a metaphorical tiny bruise from it all.

Holy crap- this belief stuff really works!

Having moved through those events we are now working on a new belief. The physiological response I got to her even asking me to work on this belief tells me that it is one that needs a lot of attention- "I am worthy."

Sucker punch.

Prior to even seeing this holistic healer, I have chanted this to myself time and time again getting nothing more than tears and repeating it through gritted teeth. My heart tells me that I am meant for so much in this lifetime and that I am meant to be a vision or inspiration to people... but my head seems to have different ideas, squishing this thought to a far corner of my brain and telling me that I'm NOT worthy.

So here I am, at 12:40am on a Wednesday (or is it Thursday?), pressing back tears of frustration as I earnestly repeat to myself that "I AM WORTHY." Worthy of love. Worthy of happiness. Worthy of success. Worthy of change. Worthy of taking risks and taking life by the horns. Worthy of never looking back. Worthy of being the vision I am meant to be.

I. Am. Worthy.

Losing Control

It has been a long while... and yet, here I am again. The urge to write and share is strong again and sometimes I just want a place to get the thoughts and stories in my head out.

So, cliff notes version of the past months... gallbladder removed, recovery sucks.

There. Done. Band-aid ripped off. Seriously though, recovery does suck. They don't tell you when they take our your gallbladder that you will be nauseous every time you eat for the rest of your life. That one was a total surprise to me and it has been very frustrating to deal with. Thankfully, I have a wonderful holistic nutritionist I'm working with and she has given me several supplements to take that are helping tremendously!

Moving on from that, now that I have done the deed of removing my gallbladder (I fought the good fight, and wouldn't change my decisions the last few years for anything) concentration in my life is now on breaking bubbles of bad health in the emotional areas of my life.

This one is going to be the hardest battle I have fought yet. To win this battle it is a test of will with myself to allow my brain and heart to lose control. The white knuckle grip I have had on every second of my life has to come to an end so I can come to a place where I flow through my life rather than conducting and controlling it.

Big deep breath. This is really hard for me. My intellectual brain has yet to completely wrap around the concept of not controlling everything. Fathoming the concept of not being able to make/require/ask/demand/force people to behave and respond in the manner I feel is appropriate is mind boggling to me. In my head, they should act a certain way and it irritates me when they don't act in the way I see as being logical and healthy and balanced. But, as it has been pointed out to me, I can't control them anymore than they can control me. I can give them the information- the world's greatest speech, even- and they may not have the capacity to listen to it. My self-righteous brain is having a painfully difficult time letting go of the obsession of being right and "in control."

Talk about something that causes a panic attack in me. Just thinking about not being in control makes my chest feel tight and my eyes well up. It makes me feel like I need to scream, grab on to anything I can, and kick until I regain a sense of stability and power. I just can't comprehend not being in control.

The next step in my journey of breaking bubbles, is to trust the flow of life. This might be the hardest bubble of them all to break.

Listen and Respond

For the first time in a while, I am listening to my body. I mean really listening. Not psycho-analyzing, not obsessing, not making assumptions, but really listening to what is happening with it. And I made a revelation.

Doc had it figured out before I did. My stomach was not happy with me.

No joke, when I was having a really rough time two weeks ago (ready my earlier posts if you want to follow the drama of my emotional detox with my liver) Doc mentioned to me that we might want to investigate some issues with my stomach. I told myself at the time that it wasn't my stomach it was plain and simple just my liver and gallbladder causing all the trouble.

I could not have been more wrong!

The gallbladder lady suggested it was my thyroid, and while I still believe that might be playing in to things, I decided I would pay attention to my body this last week and see what I noticed. Sure, there were signs of thyroid problems (PS should have the test results back next week!), but what I noticed more than anything was the difficult time I was having with my stomach. Pain, nausea, waking up or staying up until the hour of the night the stomach is most active (3am, in case you were wondering), gnawing feelings, etc, etc. These things happened most frequently after I took my Phos drops (for GB pain, which I kept thinking I was having- now I'm not sure if that's what it really was), and always right after finishing a meal and taking supplements.

I took action.

First, I added in a digestive enzyme supplement. This was important to help break down the food. Then I decided I needed to add in something to heal the stomach and reduce the inflammation- in comes aloe vera. Those seemed to cut the symptoms down to a dull roar, but still I felt nauseous and sick after eating.

A light bulb went on in my head Saturday morning.

I remembered when I had ulcer-like symptoms in the past I had successful helped those issues by taking a Glutamine supplement. This supplement helps to heal the lining of the stomach and strengthen it. Based on my symptoms, there was clearly some strengthening needed! Go figure, the first meal I took it with was the first meal in weeks that I didn't have pain or nausea. Thank goodness, because I had a girls weekend planned and wanted to be fully functional so I could have a good time! It worked!

So, while waiting for my test results to come back I'm still listening. My body is constantly telling me things in small subtle ways. I'm listening. What I heard today- my body is not a fan of prescription allergy medicine. Looks like we need to chat with my allergist to see if I can skip taking meds before my allergy shots. If not, I think the allergy shots are going to have to be suspended for a while. Right now, feeling functional is the most important thing of all! I have homeopathic remedies that keep the allergies enough under control for now!

Ugh

3 hours of sleep and a full day of work ahead. Ugh.

I really want to rip that darn GB out after last night! Pain and nausea started right before bed and as soon as I laid down it got worse and worse until I finally got up. Took some detox juice to help and took a shower. Pain lessened slightly so I thought I might be in the clear. Nope, laid down for about 5 minutes before I realized it wasn't going to work. Sat up and pissed around on the internet, did a tarot reading for fun (something with my liver and gallbladder is deceiving me or is going to deceive me in the near future- great! not.), and finally tried to lay back down around 2:30. Still enough pain that I couldn't sleep. Drank some apple juice with stone dissolving stuff, laid back down and waited for the pain to subside.

Think it was about 3 am before I finally was pain free enough to fall asleep. And the most annoying thing is that in the grand scheme of GB attacks, it was a small one with only localized pain and pressure right at the GB! Most attacks spread around my whole right side and are really severe, but this one wasn't.

I'm pissed. I'm frustrated. And yes, I'm really whiny about it right now. Wondering how much longer I can fight this fight. But in my heart I worry that there is something bigger going on with my liver, and not even removal of my GB (despite my best efforts to rescue it these past 2 years) will get the pain and health problems to stop. I've been sick forever. Heck, I took allergy medicine DAILY for almost 20 years. That's a lot of wear and tear on my liver... not to mention the millions of other drugs I took for various other conditions or compounded conditions from my allergies.

My biggest fear? My body is failing at the young age of 31 and I won't survive to see my 35th birthday.

This, folks, is what happens when you have long term chronic pain. But I have to keep hope alive. I did before and we finally found the right solution to a chronic pain problem after lots of trial and error. I have to keep hope alive. The solution is out there- I just haven't found it yet.

Trying out some blood tests!

Verdict is...

Let's get those tests done!

Did I ever mention that I work at a wonderful office for health and wellness? As soon as I had a chat with Doc he gave me the test kit to get my bloodwork done to see if there is, indeed, a problem with my thyroid or adrenals or other hormone imbalances that might be causing my body to be a complete and total wreck.

He's having me do a combo test for women using both blood and saliva. I do the kit at home and mail it in and should have my test results back in a few weeks.

The saliva test should be simple to do, but I'm a bit freaked out having to prick my finger for the blood test. I'm going to try to get up earlier enough to do the testing tomorrow morning, otherwise I'll wait until Saturday. Really want to get this figured out so I can get on the right supplement program and get my body back in balance! I'm too young to be this sick, and sick of being sick!

Fingers crossed I get some answers!

The Thyroid Connection?

When I'm not feeling 100% I tend to have a million thoughts running through my head at all times psychoanalyzing every minute symptom. Not feeling well for the majority of last week and now being on the recovery, I am obsessing (to put it lightly) about the possibility that my gallbladder problems might be related to an undiagnosed thyroid condition.

But, I don't know.

It seems so plausible, it seems so within reason that there would be a connection. But when I am still having discomfort it's hard to think about it from a rational point of view. Take for example today, I ate a healthy lunch if nourishing foods and felt pain in my liver and gallbladder for HOURS afterwards. It's finally started to subside thanks to some apricots and some GB stone dissolving supplements, but it still aches a bit and it's really pissing me off.

Then I psychoanalyze every morsel I put in my mouth today. Admittedly, I overate at lunch. Yup, even though it was healthy food, I know I overate. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. My lunch was lovely and tasty, but it was probably the equivalent of a meal and a half- roasted chicken breast, rice with homemade curried sweet potatoes with ginger and lemon (these taste amazing!), and small salad of mixed greens and little bit of guacamole. And before I ate that I was snacking on chips and guacamole and ate an apple.

Ummmm, thyroid condition or not- let's have a reality check on how much food I consumed! Way too much!

Now, most people can eat this much food in one sitting and not feel ill afterwards (though, honestly, they shouldn't eat that much in one sitting... ever). But for me, my body just can't break it down. Perhaps that ties back to the thyroid issue. I'm overburdening my body by asking it to process so much food- no matter how healthy- at one time.

My coworker suggested that the pain was caused by eating the curried sweet potatoes, but my instincts tell me otherwise. I think had I left the chicken out of the meal altogether (like the little voice in my head quietly tried to tell me to do when I put the plate together) I would have been much better off. This was evidenced by having eaten the rice and curried sweet potatoes again for dinner and not having any pain. Mild bloating, yes, but no pain.

Weird story is, the apricots I snacked on that got the pain to start subsiding caused me to feel like I needed to take a nap. Not just, "I feel kind of sleepy," but more like "if I don't lay down right now, I might pass out, and there will most definitely be drool involved." Yup- tired. But, after I ate the sweet potatoes that feeling went away.

Talk about a roller coaster right?

And that again, might point to an issue with my thyroid. Ugh. I don't know. Tomorrow I get to chat with Doc and ask him his opinion on the ordeal. Hopefully he can shed some light on what he thinks might be going on.

All I know is, I want to be fixed. I'm sick of being sick. Right now, I would rather have a sinus headache than this BS of constant pain. Call my whiny, call me needy, but until you have dealt with chronic pain or your body fighting against your will to live it's hard to understand how frustrating the process is.

New Discoveries and Set Backs

Before I start today's post, I just want to say that I make no claims that this blog is anything but self-indulgent ramblings of the issues with my health. So, bear with me as I get some things off my chest- I don't own a journal, never have, and this is closest I have to it. :)

This week sucks. Mere hours after my last blog post I had my first gallbladder attack in the two and half weeks since my last flush. To say I was upset about it, would be an understatement. I was torn apart by it.

Full. Blown. Meltdown.

I'm not even joking when I say I had a meltdown. It was horrible. During the attack I just went in to my usual regime of supplements and waiting to see what works and for the pain to subside. It started at about 3:30am and I finally crawled back in to bed around 5:00am, though it took me another 30 minutes to finally get to sleep. When I woke up several hours later my body felt like a dead weight and I had no desire to move. I made a breakfast of juiced cucumber, apple, and ginger and then decided I should do a castor oil pack to help things heal.

Now, I know I never talked about castor oil packs like I was suppose to and let me tell you why. They didn't help me much, in fact, they just made my liver and gallbladder feel like they got punched when I was done with them. I even tried reducing the amount of time I kept the castor oil and heat on my GB and it still caused pain and tenderness. So, I abandoned the concept. Well, thought that after the attack was a good time to bring them back out.

What happened after the castor oil pack was a very quick unraveling of my mental and emotional state. I jumped in the shower to clean the castor oil off (it's sticky) and within minutes of the warm water hitting my back I began the meltdown. Uncontrollable sobbing- the really ugly kind- began and I was overcome with the sensation of wanting to scream and kick. Despite being alone in the house I was still strangely self-conscious about it, but my body just needed to let (whatever it was) out. I cried (nee Sobbed) through the whole shower and while I was getting dressed. I went to make my lunch for the day- salad with grated beets- and my need to go in to a primal rage of screaming and kicking went in to a full blown state of emergency.

Something had to get out.

I decided whatever emotion/anger needed to come out was not coming out properly with the sobbing and I needed to give in my overwhelming desire to punch, kick, and scream. Not wanting to break any holes in walls, I opted for a pillow. Thankfully, the pillow survived my attack, but had I not run out of energy it might have been a different story. Collapsing on to the pillow after the screaming and punching was done, I knew that something intense was going on in my body. Some deep anger that was stuffed in my liver was working it's way out and I had done my best to allow that process to happen.

The rest of the day was spent quietly. I went to work for an hour before, received acupuncture treatment on my liver/GB, and was sent home to finish recovering. There wasn't a lot of protesting to do on being sent home, I was a wreck and knew it. I started crying the moment I walked in the door.

Sadly, I don't feel like I got everything out. While retelling the story during my therapy session today I felt my body tense and react quiet violently, and hours later the tension has not gone away. It's as though my body has gone in to a severe "fight or flight" mode in reaction to my emotional detox and the detox does not yet feel complete. There is still a lot of pent up anger that hasn't worked out and I don't feel well as a result. I tried to go out to dinner with a friend tonight, but felt sick the whole time. Even now, I'm not sure I'm going to get much restful sleep tonight because my liver/gb area are quite tender to the touch which tells me there might be another attack on the way.

Sigh. This sucks.

On the bright side, I discovered something today. Wanting to know why my gb is still torturing me after TWO liver flushes I had a phone consultation with the gallbladderattack.com lady, Debbie. She and I had a great conversation and she suggested that there is a good possibility that I have an underlying thyroid issue that is causing the continued flare-ups. She gave me great suggestions on a diet program to follow and some supplements to help get things back in balance. I will need to do some blood work to confirm the suspicion, but somewhere deep in my heart I have thought for a while now that I might have something wrong with my thyroid. My first giveaway was that my hands and feet are always cold and I sleep with thick socks and blankets even in the summer.

The good thing is that the diet she is recommended is essentially the diet I followed two years ago- fish and veggies. Not a problem, I can do that. And I so want to be well that I don't think cupcakes will even tempt me anymore. Over two years ice cream free, I'm pretty sure I can make that happen for cupcakes too.