Playing to My Strengths

Its harder for me to give up a behavior, pattern or coping mechanism than to start a new one.  I find myself fighting with myself, trying to change me, trying to stop doing this or that.

I had had a string of migraines starting. It had gone on for a few months, speckling my landscape with miserable moods, fatigue and pain. Although I have a pretty good attitude about things like this, it creeps up on me: I started to feel like I was having a hard time making plans to do things socially and that made me feel defeated, and afraid of how unpredictable it was all becoming. 

When I tried a medication that helped, I realized what a relief I felt by having an "out" and that made me realize how trapped I really had been feeling.  The medications are not something I want to pile on, since my liver needs to be able to process my interferon meds for MS and therefor doesn't need a bunch of other crap with which to deal.  So if I can find another way, I'll try it.

I live a pretty healthy life, with a few bad habits sprinkled in there, but I started thinking I might need to lock down all my fun in order to get this under control.  Then, my husband made me watch a documentary he really enjoyed called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (lovely, right?).  It was really a great film, not the dark and dismal piece I thought it would be. It was then that I decided to play to my strengths.

Instead of trying to overhaul all my bad habits and patterns, I added something: juicing.  I bought a juicer, and after a few combinations I found some that I really liked pretty well.  I found out from my local produce department how to get the least expensive, juice-rich organic veggies and fruits for juicing.

I started with a subtle modification of my diet for 4 weeks for cleansing:

1. 24oz* homemade fresh-pressed fruit & veg juice for breakfast
 *this is a lot of juice, don't expect to be able to afford to do this for very long!  But it helped fill me up while I was getting used to less fat and protein
*good combo: collard leaves, granny smith apples, lemons; or carrot, kale, lemon (organic only)

2. salad for lunch (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, fresh mozz, balsamic)

3. good well-rounded dinner like 2 small organic roast chicken thighs, fresh steamed veggies and brown rice.

4. 12oz  homemade fresh-pressed fruit & veg juice and about 10 dark chocolate-covered almonds for evening snack

5. I drank a lot of water

At times the juice was a bit difficult, but it was actually not that hard to stay on it. After about 3 weeks I craved juice daily.  It made me happy!

I had no more than one headache the whole 4 weeks, not even a full-fledged migraine. What a relief!

I kept up with a juice a day for several more weeks before tapering off due to travel and what-not.  I'm starting to feel some aches & pains reemerge.

I think I'll add back in some juice and see how it goes!

Whoa. 3 Years And Counting...!

I have to confess, I ran into log in problems on this site for a week or so, and exercising my temper, which could be attributed to my mother OR my father (and you can imagine what that means about me), I fled this blog for, well, 3 years actually.

I'm back, log in problem solved, for now, I guess.

So, what's been going on?  ... Everything! Life! Chaos! Turbulence! I'll try to summarize here:

Let's start with a good one: I bought a house. Key takeaways about that process: No one told me I needed to take off 2 weeks from work and sleep with my phone, with every piece of financial paperwork I've ever seen stacked around me in perfectly organized piles.  It was crazy.

I've lost some wonderful people who were essential to my happy life: my grandmother, and my very very good friend, one could easily say my best friend of the past 10 years, Emily White.  This one was recent, and unimaginable.  Both of these women were 2 of the best women I've ever known or could imagine.  And they were imperfect in just the right ways.  I miss them.

Almost forgot, I had another minor episode of MS soon after my last post, during that summer of 2009.  It lasted a few days and freaked me out a bunch, and I did a steroid drip treatment for it.  That was an intense couple weeks.  If you ever do that treatment, prepare your friends and family for your mood swings and zaniness.  Heck, prepare your mailman and your local gas station attendant while you're at it because it is going to be an interesting trip, at least it was for me.  It cannot be described.

I healed, and recovered. Since then I've regained a lot of my balance and a bit more stamina that I had lost since my first episode, but barely noticed (or chose to ignore, whatever) until it returned.  I had a phase of getting migraines and found a helpful medication to take as needed. When the migraines started becoming more and more frequent, running a couple days at a time for a while, I started juicing veggies and fruits daily.  It was remarkably effective for me (to the tune of taking only one migraine pill in the last 4 months).  I keep up with the juicing several times per week, and will probably do a cleanse with juicing (I never completely fast, mind you, that's a no-no) soon too.

What else? ... Oh, my husband and I adopted a dog.  He's huge and extremely time-consuming, and a great joy to us, literally complicating our lives right out from under us.  I've traveled to new states. I've survived an earthquake. My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and took up arms against it.  She's finishing a long round of chemo now and will embark on a journey through radiation soon.  She's unbelievably strong, and we've found a new way to stay in touch like we never have before: texting.  My sister fell in love with a boy.  My sibling-in-laws adopted my magical little niece. 

Many triumphs, many failures. A lot of growing up, a lot of searching. 

I promise I'll keep up better, everyone.  I hoped this blog would be helpful to MS people, and others who were lost and needed hope, and just a bit of direction out of the darkness, a bit of empowerment.  It certainly can't do that if disappear!  So I won't.  But just in case I do, expect that its because I'm out living this crazy life with the rest of you.

;)