You have such a good humor about all this...

"Look, in my life you either laugh or cry, there is nothing in between." Elizabeth Glaser

And so, I've been laughing...

I spent the first week or so after my sentencing(diagnosis) in complete shock and denial, and the next three weeks wavering between anger and feeling extremely sorry for myself. By the month mark, I thought I'd accepted things and was fine... You see up until very recently, my range of emotional vocabulary was thus: fine, not fine, and angry (I'm slowly learning to recognize and label other emotions I previously couldn't).

I've always been told/thought I had a pretty high threshold for pain, and physically I think I'm withstanding a lot right now, considering; but nothing prepared me for this overwhelming tidal wave of sadness that nearly drowned me yesterday. I knew at some point a not fine feeling would resurface, but I wasn't expecting the magnitude and sheer force I was blindsided with.

The thing is, in the past, I never managed my pain, I just disassociated myself from it. So while I may have experienced a lot of painful situations, physically, emotionally, spiritually, I never learned how to process and deal with any of that pain. I just sidestepped it.

I feel so raw and vulnerable, like an emo-chick entering menopause. A drink sounds like a really good idea right now. Two dozen donuts sound like an even better idea. Three boxes of It's-its sounds phenomenal! Something, anything, to get me away from this feeling, to get me away from me. But a drink isn't the solution. Stuffing my face full of donuts, or It's-its isn't the solution. Not feeling my emotions is not the solution. Learning to sit through and deal with pain in a healthy way is what I need to do. And I sure am doing a whole lot of sitting lately! (I sat for 3 hours and did a puzzle, start to finish, the other day. Holy cow.)



Someone recently told me that pain is beautiful... I told her she was full of shit. I do think pain is necessary for growth, though. This is a learning experience, right?

This illness is going to prove to be a good thing(it'd better!), in that it's stripping away all my defenses and pride and escape-routes.

Now, if I could just make it a day without bleeding from one of my orifices...

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

In February, I went skiing for the first time and rode down the bunny slope on my face(I'll tell you that story another time), enduring second degree ice-burn on my nose.



Then, got a bacterial infection in the wound and was given antibiotics.



However, as a result of having been prescribed too many antibiotics over the years, they weren't working. In the meantime, my nose kept getting sunburned and progressively more infected.



I was prescribed a very heavy dose of antibiotics and it started clearing up(or I thought it was).

Then, I contracted Chronic Mucocutaneous Candidiasis in my nose wound and on my hands and feet.





Apparently those heavy antibiotics were wiping out my immune system and all the probiotics in my intestines. Let's also mention here that I have IBS. As a result of that, and having basically no probiotics in my intestines, the Candidiasis spread to my GI tract where it turned into Candida Albicans. (You still following this?)

Then (yup, there’s more), apparently I have leak-gut due to my weakened immune system and IBS, so the infection spread to my blood, becoming a Systemic Candidiasis. Once the infection was in my blood is spread rapidly to all my organs. This includes EVERY cell of my body: skin, eyes, lungs, heart, brain, liver, kidneys, etc., etc. (Wait, there’s more) THEN, I got Aspergillus fumigatus.

By that point, in early May, I was horribly sick, but they couldn’t figure out what was going on and since I don’t have insurance I was reluctant to let them perform all the tests they wanted to…then, things got pretty scary and ugly(I’ll spare the gross details here, but feel free to ask me).

I had no choice but to agree to the tests and by the end of May they finally figured out what I have, much to the doctors’ surprise. Apparently only people with HIV, HPV or cancer and premature infants contract Aspergillosis (none of which apply to me).

(Wait, there’s more) On top of having Aspergillosis, it turns out I am also Hypoglycemic (yay, go me!) The problem with having both these conditions is that Aspergillosis feeds on sugar, so, in order to kill the fungus, I have to eliminate sugar from my body, however, due to my Hypoglycemia, my body NEEDS the sugar (cue the violins).

Apparently the chance of all these factors aligning for me to be in the position I’m in is one in a trillion, thus confirming just how special I truly am.

So, in addition to all my medications, being overwhelmingly exhausted, and in quite a bit of physical pain, I am now on a very regimented, restricted and monitored diet which excludes gluten, dairy, sugar(except for one serving of fruit if my blood sugar is low), anything processed, most things cooked, most carbs(I can have up to 50g a day-but only 15g at a time- 50g is equivelant to a tortilla, in case you were wondering) and basically everything that I normally eat.

Honestly, changing my diet has been the hardest part of this entire process, and I'm barely a month into it. I’m starting this blog to document my journey through this whole new way of eating. So I’m raising a glass of herbal tea(I hate tea, btw) to this new endeavor. Cheers.