Happy New Year! And what I've been doing....

Greetings!

I promise, I didn't fall into a pit or aliens didn't abduct me.

There's been a lot going on. Let me start at the beginning....

A little over a year ago, my gallbladder, Gertie, went to heaven (or wherever dead organs go). I started the fall semester and spent it sicker than a dog. I was trying to keep my head above water, and failing miserably. I failed my first class....ever. And for an overachiever like myself, that took a huge blow. After months of tests and doctor visits, I finally found someone who was willing to take a gamble that the problem was, in fact, my gallbladder. No one had believed me, and the tests all said it was playing nicely. So a week before Thanksgiving, I had my gall bladder removed. Finally. Relief. No pain, no weird stomach cramps. Normal, finally. Yet, little did I know, my nightmare had only began.

Fast forward to the end of December, and a follow-up appointment and the news that since it took months for them to catch it, it would probably take a few more to get over all the yuckiness. Be patient. We will see you in April.

Finally, just before the Spring semester started, I was finally feeling better. Finally. No more dark circles, no more looking like I could play a part in a zombie movie. Everything was just peachy. So I started school and looked forward to the semester. Until the end of February. Strange stomach cramps are back, along with a need to invest in softer toilet paper. I figured it was just some sort of virus that would run it's course. But the exhaustion was back. I was miserable, again. And simply trying not to fail anymore classes. I wasn't sure how much longer I could take this.

Then one glorious night in April, my husband's company had a get-together to thank all the employees for their hard work and to gear up for summer. We had some great barbecue and hung out with some of his co-workers. As the evening wore on, the worse I felt. My stomach was making all kinds of noise, and as we got into the car to head home, I began to wonder if I would make it home without my dinner being revisited. We were 2 blocks from home when I got my answer.

If you have never hurled in a car, don't. It is impossible to get that smell out. There are cracks and crevices that vomit will hide in, so when I couldn't stop in time, I used my shirt. Hey, smelly car for the next umpteen years, or icky shirt...it certainly wasn't a hard choice. Needless to say, I really felt sorry for the house I puked in front of. More so, because they came out the next morning to a horrendous smell, and a shirt in the middle of the road. Yes, I abandoned my shirt. I never really liked that shirt anyway.

So, thinking that I had picked up a bug or something, we cleaned the vomit off my shoes and went to bed. Hoping that I could sleep it off. Unfortunately, I threw up, and up and up, and then, the diarrhea started. I was quite sure I had entered the 7th circle of hell. Around 2am and round #52, I was getting dehydrated, everything was fuzzy, I was shaking, and I nearly passed out on my way to puke up a lung, because that's pretty much all that was left. We go to the ER. I hurl in their bathroom, and then the blood starts. Nothing will terrify a person more than bloody diarrhea. It also motivates ER people to get you in a room...stat.

So they gave me some narcotics, as I had stomach cramps that I thought were going to do me in and IV fluids and sent me home. Probably a virus. Here's some antibiotics. Good luck. So Sunday I laid around and hoped that the gastro appointment I had on Monday would give me some answers.

I walked into the gastro and began explaining all my symptoms and what had gone on over the weekend. My gastro, concerned that there could be something serious going on, admitted me to the hospital and wanted some tests ran. I had CT scans and all kinds of other stuff. It was just super fun or not. I could almost here my bank account crying. They wanted a stool sample to see if I had this infection in my guts. I've never seen so many people who wanted a person to poop in my life. After having nothing really to eat and very little to drink in the last 3 days, I finally gave them their sample. 20 minutes later my nurse comes back and looks like she is prepared for battle. She has on a mask and a cape and informs me that I have C.Diff. Yippee.

Google and I have always been BFF's, but I think I even got on her nerves doing the research that night. Heavy dosage of antibiotics and viola. Good as new. There is no way to know how I got it, but this stuff is typically seen in people who are on long term antibiotics or in nursing home's or other long term hospital settings. It's not common to be found in a healthy 33 year old. So basically this bacteria eats on your colon. Yummy. Depending on how long you have had it, depends on the damage. There was some visible damage during a colonoscopy-like test that only looked at the bottom part of my colon. So, I was sent home on $1500 antibiotics and told to wash my hands, and to be very careful about infecting others. I also got a 2 week vacation, because this stuff is highly contagious. Highly.

I know this is becoming a novel. Just be patient.

I took 2 rounds of antibiotics, and did some outpatient stool samples until there was no trace of the nasty bug in my guts. Yet, I was still plagued by stomach pain, fatigue, and a general not feeling well feeling. I was tired and ran down and very, very frustrated. I went to work and came home through out the summer and hoped that I would be feeling better by the time school started.

Finally, I thought I was beginning to heal. I began to count the pain free days. 1. 2. 3. then a week, then 2 weeks. Then school started. Stupid school screws up everything. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I hurt. It was enough that I was popping Advil during the day and pain pills at night. Usually the pain would go away by lunch time on Wednesday and Friday, but then, it was hanging around longer and longer until it was constant. So another prescription was added. Which thankfully brought some relief, but it was never permanent.

Imagine for a moment, spending a year feeling bad. You have stomach pain that feels so bad that you don't want to do anything but lay around, but even that hurts. It starts to screw with your head. I finally caved and complained to my doctor that I couldn't take it anymore, and was given anti-depressants. I hated that. I hated feeling like I couldn't do this, but I had been holding on by a thread, and that thread was about to break. Those pills certainly made me feel human again, and I managed to use them to find something else to focus on. Like school. Like work. Like life. They got me through the fall semester and to the point I'm at today.

There's been a lot of changes in our house. I'm taking probiotics, and tons of vitamins. I'm eating less processed crap, because I don't really think that my intestines need fertilizer, plastic, or the variety of other ingredients that I have discovered in foods that I regularly consumed. I'm trying to go organic, and add less crap to my body. And slowly, finally, I think I'm beginning to heal. Sure, there are days when the pain is there, and the fatigue that is always present, but the pain, well, I'm back to counting days without it. I'm switching jobs, I'm starting my last year of college (at least for my bachelor's degree). I'm making me a priority. I'm also following a gluten free diet. My doctor suggested that it might help, and it's made a world of difference so far.

So all of this has left me wondering, and questioning, what to do. Sure, I still want to finish this list before I turn 40, but did I want to keep blogging and writing about it? I wasn't so sure. Until last week. See, the company that I currently work for, closed our office and gave me last week, and this week off. So I've had a 2 week vacation. I thought that it would be a great time to cook, and to get this blog set up so that I didn't have so much going on when school started back up in a few weeks. It was brilliant. Yet, I couldn't seem to find the words to write something here. I felt like I owed an explanation, and honestly, how was I going to keep up with Tasty Tuesday, when I had to be gluten free. What about the rest of you, who didn't have to be gluten free? Then I realized, that I can do both. I can still cook the gluten free stuff, and you can just substitute the regular stuff.

I can make it work...for both of us.

I wanted to be honest, and I hated that I hadn't shared any of this. But in the last few months as I've hunted down and done research to try and figure out what to do in order to heal my body from the inside out, I've relied so much on other's blogs and their experiences in order to figure out what to try and what might work to get me feeling better. I figured that some day, someone is going to be hunting for that same advice, and they will want to know that they can feel good again, and that I needed to do this, not so much for me, but for them.

I hope you'll stick around. It's going to get interesting around here.

Truck Driver's Job Description - What They Don't Tell You

It’s funny how life experiences and events can drastically alter our perspectives.

This morning I was headed to work, and saw a familiar blue tractor trailer that my dad spent the better part of 8 years driving. Inside the cab was a man who didn’t look to be any older than I am. Part of me wanted to chase him down and beg him to listen to my dad’s story. I wanted to save his family from the heartbreak and heartache of that job.

Don’t get me wrong – I have a lot of respect for those people driving those big rigs. Without them we wouldn’t have groceries, new cars, clothes, medicines and just about everything else. They move freight from across the country just so we can have bananas from wherever they come from, or strawberries from California. They serve an important purpose. But that job it so….unglamourous. Sure, they get to see the country, and witness so many breathtaking views, but they also spend their life exhausted and so many of them put their health on the back burner just to make a living.

My dad was one of them. 2 massive heart attacks at 52. Early retirement. Living off of disability because he can never work again. Chronic health problems. Disrupted sleep patterns. General unhappiness at being forced to give up on the future he and my mom had planned.

I wanted to chase that young man down and tell him to get plenty of rest. And as awesome as truck stop food is to swap out the greasy cheeseburger for a salad and grilled fish every now and then. To get some exercise; walk around the truck stop, do sprints the length of your truck and trailer. Don’t smoke. Ever. My father lives on oxygen and will for the rest of his life because of emphysema and other breathing issues because of smoking. He can’t even walk from the living room to the bathroom without getting winded. Avoid the energy drinks. When your body is that tired that it needs a stimulant to keep going, it’s trying to tell you to rest, so you don’t wear it out too early.

I realize that he could have the “not me” attitude that so many people have, myself included. I never believed I would be touched by infertility, yet here I am.

That truck driver lifestyle will kill you. It will destroy your family. Your wife will cave under the stress and quit taking care of herself. She’ll fall into a depression because of the lack of money and will rarely leave the house. Her health will suffer. And your kids. They will realize that their parents aren’t immune to old age and dying. They will look to the future and wonder what you’ll be around to see. Your grand kids will wonder if you will see them graduate from high school. Wedding day's. The birth of their first child. Will you live long enough for the kids to remember Poppy? Of course, if you don’t take advantage of the wake up call they will wonder if you’ll still be around in 3 years to see them graduate from college or whether or not you’ll even be able to walk into the arena if you are still around.

We only get so many chances. At some point parts fail, body’s wear out, and suddenly that heart healthy diet doesn’t look so bad in the grand scheme of things. I wanted to tell that truck driver that no job is worth losing your health for. I wanted to tell him how short life is, and how quickly things can change. I wanted to remind him that there are people who love him, and would grieve his untimely demise. He doesn’t want to be 56 and rely on his parents still. He wants to provide for his family, he wants to be there for all those big moments and for the little moments too.

I want to remind him that it’s not too late to make sure that he doesn’t end up like my father. His family will thank him. Too bad I can’t slip him a pair of my dad’s shoes and let him walk a mile, or to the bathroom in them. Too bad we can’t slip everyone those shoes – imagine the world we would live in if we could all take a minute to not be so wrapped up in our own little world that we remember how to sympathize.

Thank a truck driver today, and pray for their health, and their families. They will thank you for it.