It’s a new year, a new day. I’m home today with two sickish kids (sore throats and ennui), which has forced a grinding halt to my recent rather frantic pace of life. I’ve been teaching a creative writing workshop at the kids’ Montessori school, to grades 4-8. This is using my brain again and good for me in so many ways. Meanwhile, the kids are both engaged in many kid things of great import– skiing, gymnastics, hockey, and TaeKwonDo. I’m a serious minivan-driving, kid-schlepping, gear-managing, schedule wrangler.
Just yesterday (admittedly Wednesdays are insane) I drove to all over NE Ohio, literally. My route: Bath-Brecksville-Cleveland-Brecksville-Boston Mills-Bath-Brecksville-Boston Mills-Bath-Medina-Bath! No wonder everyone woke up groaning and hacking this morning.
On the subject of health, many developments to report. I have learned without a doubt that I am NOT pretty on the inside. In January I had the dubious honor of having an endoscopy and seeing full-color horrible pictures of my innards afterwards. Long story short, my esophagus and stomach region is all messed up. I have an ulcer. My esophagus is all constricted, and the worst part: roughly a quarter of my stomach is going up into my esophagus where it is not at all welcome. So this answers the question: why do I have trouble swallowing? (And why for years did I enjoy Tums as a major food group?) Which is what started the investigation. Anyhoo, the upshot of it all is probably surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. I’m going up there in a couple weeks to consult with another GI doc about it. Meh. But the good news is no cancer, which honestly I was worrying about.
In dizziness news, I’m doing a lot better. I get along most of the time sans serious dizziness. One of the remaining details to mop up is the problem of exercise. It’s just so damn annoying when a famous specialist cardiologist says “Do NOT exercise”– especially to me, of all people, who has had a long and trying history with the subject anyway. At some point I decided to say to hell with her and try it anyway, which went along okay — until it didn’t. The experience of nearly, very very nearly blacking out at the gym put the fear of God back in me and I have been too terrified to try again since. So I finally decided that I what I need to break the spell is a different world-famous cardiologist who will disagree with the first one. Test me! Put me on the tilt table again if you must! (dread) or give me a stress test or whatever. But just do whatever it takes to then douse me in holy water and bless me and say, “go forth and exercise thyself like a normal overweight 45-year-old.” This would be ideal. Anyway, I have an appt at the Syncope Clinic (syncope=fainting) in a couple weeks also.
Okay!! So, meanwhile a friend of mine with POTS pointed me to this wonderful person: Dr. Terry Wahls. In brief, she’s an MD from Iowa who came down with really bad bad MS and was almost to the point of being fully bed-ridden (while getting the best possible care in the world, even traveling to our own Cleveland Clinic to the MS specialists there), and then she managed to completely turn it around with a highly specialized diet. Now she’s fine, biking to work, and quite normal. It’s a longer story than that, of course. If you want you can find all the details here.
The diet is almost paleo, but not quite. It’s basically veggie madness. I always thought of myself as a pro-veggie person, but this takes it to a much higher level. 9 cups a day! Of course, all organic. Divided into thirds: 3 cups dark leafy greens and “sulfur” veggies, mushrooms and the onion family; 3 cups bright colors (this can include fruit); and 3 cups other veggies of your choice. You also eat a small amount of wild-caught fish or grass-fed meats, and once a week you are supposed to (NOOOO!) eat organ meats. I was lying awake last night trying to figure out how I could possibly do this when they’re all so revolting. Did I mention gluten grains or simple carbs or dairy? No, I didn’t. Did I mention cookies or ice cream or other high-sugar delights? Um, no.
But the idea behind the whole thing is this: nourish your brain and it can repair itself. Terry Wahls’ book is called “Minding My Mitochondria” — the little repair guys inside each cell. Take care of them and they will fix whatever is wrong in there. Her idea is “intensive nutrition”– and yes, she tried supplements first. They helped slow her decline, but what finally stopped and then reversed it was doing it with real foods. She thinks this is because of micronutrients we haven’t identified yet inside the food, and possible synergies between them that we totally don’t understand. That’s why a pill doesn’t cut it. You need to eat the whole beet, including the greens, from top to toe.
So I’m in phase one: adding a million veggies to my life. So far, so good. This morning I made a brilliantly green kale smoothie, which I managed to make palatable (even frankly tasty) with pear and frozen pineapple. It’s neon green and contains a packed cup of kale.
Phase two is going to be harder. WAY harder. I’m aligning it with Lent. Now that we’re de facto Episcopalians, we’re going to observe Lent for the first time as a family. Ben is giving up alcohol for 40 days!! The kids have agreed to give up liver… (Honestly, they are not into it. But at least at church there will be no sweets.) and I… I’m going to give up both gluten and dairy and see what happens. I suspect that gluten might be a problem for me in terms of making me feel bad, but I’m not too worried about giving it up. I’ve been scaling it way back and doing fine. Dairy, however, dairy my dear dear friend… this is going to be tough. But I hope informative. I’ll gently add it back in post-Lent to see what happens. I’ll test gluten too, and hope to learn something. I can do anything for a finite period of time. I think.
So! My brain is going to get nourished and heal itself all up. (I’m supposed to exercise it too– crosswords and sudoko, which otherwise I would feel too guilt wasting my time with). I’ll get surgery on my messed up tummy and so it will be fixed. I’ll get exercising blessed and be able to move again. I’ll get off my prescription drugs and be a healthier new me, and spend the summer out in my garden growing my own organic kale.
I’m feeling pretty good about the plan and 2012 is looking very promising already.
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