Hi my bloggy peeps. I haven't been on this blog for ages as you can see, but I thought it might be a good idea to update it so that all I've catalogued here about my family life didn't get 'lost' somehow, as I want to save these memories until I'm able to figure out how to transfer them to a scrapbook or other digital format for posterity.
To bring everyone up to speed, our oldest is now in college, and our youngest is in 7th grade. My hubby and I celebrated 25 years of marriage this past summer. We tossed around the idea of moving out of State again last Spring, and I looked in earnest online for properties for us in the North Woods across several States, as I really suffer in the desert heat, and we're itching to get some serious acreage somewhere to begin farming in earnest, but the pieces just didn't come together for us. And the contest I entered back before Christmas to win an Alaskan homestead went belly up due to not enough participants. I was so sure we were going to win, and the odds were never better, but after much prayer, it became clear that it just wasn't meant to be. Neither was the 40 acre farm with outbuildings which we could have bought outright with the sale of our current home.
In May, we found out why things had worked out as they had. I was stricken with some strange and frightening health problems that all sort of happened at once. This turned into a months long quest to figure out what was going on with my body, because (as it became clear) my doctor really didn't have a clue and was just 'practicing' medicine. But I knew my body. Something was whacked out with my hormones and digestion. Foods and supplements were making me feel icky.
Then came the kidney flank pain. Which ended up being a kidney stone. And the CT scan that discovered that also uncovered gallstones and a mildly fatty liver all going on at once. SO MUCH sudden digestive upset. This after juicing and doing Kefir probiotic-rich smoothies for several months prior. (We joke that health food nearly killed me. Literally.) After the kidney stone was removed a few days prior to my birthday, it was discovered to be a calcium stone at the core, which probably would have exited my body on it's own, but the kale and spinach and ice tea I had been drinking had rapidly stacked oxylate crystals on top of that calcium stone like burrs, creating a large stone quite fast, which kept tipping and blocking off my Ureter and backing up the plumbing in that kidney. (Sorry for all the gory deets, but I figured that someone going through similar things might happen across this after a google search, and perhaps be helped by some of what I learned).
My doctor pushed for me to get my gallbladder out (common practice), but since it wasn't giving me too much trouble once the kidney stone was removed from my kidney, I refused. I'm pretty sure it's not an 'extra' organ as the doctor said, but created by God for a reason. To govern certain things within my body. With prayerful guidance to good sources of info in books and online, I have since worked to heal my fatty liver (which was the greater problem) using herbal teas (dandelion root, milkthistle, turmeric and ginger in particular) morning and night, and to eat low fat and gluten-free.
My health journey also uncovered the gallbladder links to all my other issues. With regard tofemale and thyroid hormone imbalances and, lack of sufficient bile makes it so that you you can't flush out excess estrogens, and your liver keeps recycling them over and over, creating imbalances. In addition, my congested liver not forming enough bile to digest fats and cholesterol formed a bunch of gallstones which further hampered good bile production, which in turn upset my digestion, and was at the root of some out-of-the-blue crazy anxiety episodes that were OFF THE CHARTS. I'd never experienced anxiety attacks before (except maybe once when I was on a flight that hit severe turbulence and it felt like we were falling out of the sky), but these were the norm. At first, I mistook them for a hot flash coming on (I'm at that age...), but they felt more like fight-or-flight adrenaline rushes, and every time I had one, it made the hair on the back of my neck feel like it was standing on end for a couple of hours, along with a stir-crazy, panicky feeling that left me fearful of being alone.
Through much prayer during that time (mine and all those wonderful folks praying for me), the Lord led me to keep a 'health journal' recording everything I had eaten or drank and any supplements I'd been on since my strange symptoms began, and from THAT I discovered that those scary anxiety episodes were, in fact, rather severe gluten-intolerance episodes.
For women of perimenopausal age in particular, these health issues can all slam them at once, especially on the heels of having burned out my adrenals while caregiving for my mother-in-law through her last couple of years of life. (Mind you, I would do all that over again, but I would take better care of myself through it all, knowing what I do now, to prevent the adrenal or caregivers fatigue.)
At first, eating Gluten-Free took a lot of the joy out of life, especially when my kidney specialist had me on a stone-preventing diet. The many restrictions left very few choices if I was to avoid upsetting the balance worse. For a while there, about the only thing I could eat was plain grilled chicken or fish, mashed sweet potatos and steamed broccoli or a broccoli cheese soup. But gradually, I learned that there were decent gluten-free options (so long as they didn't contain the common subsitution found in gluten free goodies, tapioca starch, as that made me feel miserable, too.
The plus side was that I lost 40 pounds (rather involuntarily, meaning that I didn't like going gluten-free one bit, but it was absolutely necessary to my health, and really, a Godsend of a discovery). Eating gluten free with lean meats and steamed veggies and drinking herbal teas have helped greatly, and I feel like my health is finally beginning to bounce back once again. Praise the Lord!
I still have an issue with heavy, irregular menstrual bleeding, but I'm beginning to think the herbal teas that are cleaning up my liver and gallbladder and to restore good bile function again, are also helping, slowly but surely to flush out waste hormones again. And all this without having to resort to regular coffee enemas and gallbladder flushes (though I would do that if I felt I needed to. May still, just to help flush things out quicker, but for now, the slow-going gentler course of action seems to be working well for me).
I rejoice, because the Lord led me through that very scary time (17 visits to Urgent Care and the ER, a couple of surgical procedures, and the borderline anemia issue that developed due to the heavy menstrual bleeding). I truly believe the Lord prevented me from getting my gallbladder removed unnecessarily, and led me to exactly the right protocols I needed to begin bouncing back.
I've also not had any further anxiety attacks since eating gluten free. I've been managing my iron levels through iron rich foods in my diet, and with the assistance of liquid chlorophyll supplements. It's also had the side effect of helping me to be more disciplined, as I still would like to lose a lot more weight, and now, slowly but surely I am on my way.
The best part is, I've gotten my mojo back, and have begun to have some of the vigor I had before caring for my mother-in-law depleted my adrenals, upsetting that balance and tipping off the beginnings of all these crazy health issues.
We've recently acquired our first clutch of chicks, and are ramping things up around here to put in a massive backyard garden where we will grow high brix veggies (beyond organic, nutrient dense) and fruits and nuts. The chickens will be utilized for their excellent composting abilities and for eggs, and we hope to eventually get a couple of milk goats or a small cow as well. We've had great success with the Back To Eden method of gardening, as well as hugelkultur here in our desert, and are getting ready to go BIG, finally realizing a bloom-where-we're-planted version of our 'homestead' dream. I believe that growing most of our own fruits and veggies in organic, richly amended soil will help greatly in restoring the imbalances in my body. I haven't yet come up with the name for our YouTube channel, but will try and post back here for folks to follow our journey via a Vlog.
All the best!
~Frumpmama
