Toilets come in all shapes, sizes, and behave in sometimes odd manners~ kind of like humans.

Toilets come in all shapes, sizes, and behave in sometimes odd manners~ kind of like humans. I would like to take you on a journey through the roller coaster ride that is Crohn's Disease and hope you come out of this a little more educated about you're own health.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Dear Food: I love you. Don't hate me.

So I'm going to stray a little from the blog formula I have been trying to follow... (I've been trying to chronicle the events in order, but I'm scatterbrained.)

Over Labor Day weekend Brandon and I left my son with my mother and we took off to Buffalo NY to see family and eat lots of wonderfully good and fattening Buffalo food. Only in Buffalo will you find REAL pizza (New York style has no substance! Just sayin'...) REAL wings, and REAL sub sandwiches amongst other foodstuffs you can only find in Western New York.

I ate a lot.

And it was good.

For the most part the food behaved itself in my intestines. Or better yet, my intestines behave themselves. Its my digestive tract that is the hater in the relationship...

We stayed with my 90 year old Grandmother and my Aunt (on my dad's side) which I am so grateful for, they have been nothing but supportive in my life and have always tried to take care of me, but here comes the rant:

I know you all care about me and care about my health but please, let me take care of me. I've done all the research, heard all the advice, the suggestions, the stories, etc. etc. etc. I'm the one who has had to "deal" with this for ten years. Yes, my family has had to stand there and watch me go through it, but for a sickness, disease, anything going on internally there is only so much another person can do. You can't go in my body and change stuff around. I have to take care of it. So let me.

Please do not judge my choices or decisions in how to handle my health. I like doctors, for the most part, I've even had a few that actually CARED about me, but what is that old saying? Don't put all your eggs into one basket. Conventional medicine is fine short-term, sometimes it is needed to get stuff under control. But you must treat and heal the body as a whole! Why do we think we can just treat one symptom at a time as it comes along? And why the hell is it not right to treat a DIGESTIVE disorder with DIET?

A doctor once told me that it didn't matter what I ate.

Hell it does!

I don't buy into the magic pill- there is no one cure-all pill- because if you take one pill you will have to take another to counteract the side effects of that one and it becomes a domino effect. There are a lot of diseases that CAN be treated with diet and heaven forbid exercise.

Now listen.

I'm not a medical doctor. Thank God. But I am a person who has struggled with Crohn's Disease for ten years, has had 2 feet of intestines removed, and been on a lot of medicine that did not make the problem go away. Because hello: Crohn's and Colitis are chronic disorders. They don't go away by themselves, and especially with the medicine out there today. Remissions and Flare-ups. That's the waxing and waning of IBS. Oh hell- IBS is something doctors tell you because they don't know what the hell is wrong with you.

I had surgery because I had a "bad side effect" of the medicine I was on for treatment! It made me sick, created abscesses in my intestines. I guess I got out lucky, because these corticosteroids can cause cancer, liver damage, Hepatitis.... the list goes on.

While talking about these things over breakfast in NY my cousin tried to lighten the blow by adding that even if one person has a side effect from a medicine they have to put it on the label. Well sure. I agree- but I don't see how I need to be dependent on these man made chemicals that could possibly kill me.

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Let me try to get back on track.

I have no medical insurance. No one will cover me because of this. Supposedly in 2014 insurance companies HAVE to accept me. But geez that is like being a lonely kid at a playground and the other kids are made to play with you because their parents said so.

Yeah we'll see how that goes!

With my income at >10K a year (combined with Brandon's it's >20K) plus a child, I make too much money for Medicaid. When I was a stay at home mom and Brandon made >15K we still made too much money for me to be on Medicaid! One suggestion was to quit work so I could possibly get on Medicaid. I'm sorry, my pride is too big, I will NOT ever be on Welfare in order to gain a crappy health plan offered through the government.

So I started educating myself in natural remedies. I mean, why not? We live in a society filled with processed food that is chock full of chemicals so it can sustain months and years of being on delivery trucks and grocery shelves. How does that seem remotely healthy?

While watching a documentary, an overweight family complained that unhealthy food is cheaper than healthy food. Well damn, budget your money- STOP eating so much, lose weight, your stomach will shrink, and you won't feel so hungry anymore. Plus, that processed food with all those chemicals gets you addicted. That's why its hard to stop.

"OH but that is so hard! It's so easy to say that! But it's so hard!"

Stop your whining and start taking care of yourself!

Everyone does too much sitting around and eating food rather than being active. As human beings we used to have to forage and hunt for food. Our foraging now consists of walking the aisles of Walmart. Now that's exercise! *sarcasm*

I'm one to talk- I hate exercise. Being anemic doesn't help. I would love to exercise and be athletic, but I get tired too quickly. I have to take it in turns.

I'm changing my lifestyle. I shop at the farmers market more often, I eat more healthy foods, I take vitamin supplements and I am not in any pain. I still have problems in my large intestine and rectum, as if you must know, you should, because shit happens.

Funny story:

I was in the restroom at work when some other co-workers came in and one says "it smells in here!" HELLO. It's the bathroom- shit happens. I wonder what it would be like if our feces smelled like flowers? Then I think people would be more willing to talk about their bowel movements....

"Man let me tell you! I had a good BM this morning! Smelled like lilacs! Made me want to stay in the bathroom all day...."

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Beef that is 100% grassfed does not give me gas like processed meat from the grocery store does.

Thats a winner in my eyes.