I have to start someplace. I have been thinking about this but that’s not good enough. I must do. I found out that there is a way of eating that will help me. It can slow or end the progress of my condition. I refuse to call it a disease. It’s like my husband told my doctors so this is what you call it when you have nothing else to call it. And they said he was right! We call it MC for my condition. Anyway, there is a way of eating that’s been around since the 50’s that can help me. When I started this journey I asked and asked but no one said anything. I have found this through a circuitous path. I should not eat gluten, dairy, eggs, beans, sugar and yeast. And very, very little fat. I can have grilled chicken or fish, vegetables. Now I actually like that stuff. I am not a big red meat person at all. I do like my black beans. The book I’ve decided to go with says that since I am not desperate I can remove things gradually. I essentially gave up gluten August 11. I am starting the dairy. I know the only way I am going to get through this is to blog. Not to keep me accountable. It’s for me. It’s the way I can process. I need to succeed. I’ll track progress or lack of, what I am eating and doing.
Sunday Blues
Today, I didn’t have the usual Sunday blues. I worked, so a little resentful a little tense. No kids for dinner tonight so that was easy. We had dinner last night and it was glowing. Jeremy’s birthday. Bittersweet, no longer a little boy.
I am blogging for myself today. And work was for me. It will ease my mind when I stand in front of a hostile audience on Monday. So it was for me but not in a real me soothing way.
Eating – well an apple streusel muffin with spelt, then munching around and my usual favorite green smoothie. We did take out Chinese so spring roll, too greasy; hot and sour soup; steamed dumplings, gluten mistake.
No real exercise today, just half an hour on the stepper.
For whom or what are you grateful? What matters most in life? What am I grateful for today? Well, stepchildren. I have no children of my own. I am sad about that but the guys have given so much to my life. I think and hope that they will remember me when I am gone. I am thinking a lot more about mortality than before. I am grateful at how far my husband and I have come and the challenges we have overcome. And the blue fall skies.
What can I do tomorrow to make it better than today? Eat better, rest more and exercise. Standard stuff. But what I need to do is get down what I want to do.
Progress? And Green Smoothies
So much for first steps. I have these great conversations in my head and I “write” about all sorts of things but somehow don’t ever get them on paper. This has to be something that happens every day or it won’t be meaningful and I won’t succeed.
What have I done? A lot of reading and ruminating. It’s easy to get lost in a maze of what to do’s. Everyone has a different take on what to eat and how to go about this. I feel like I am walking (ha, if only) into a dark, thick forest with a compass and a pocket knife. I learned to blaze trails when I was a Camp Fire Girl. I was never really good at it. I need to be good at this.
My left leg is changing, maybe deteriorating so it is more than time for the line in the sand.
What am I eating? Well, I have started with green smoothies. They are filling and luscious. I actually crave them. It seems to be curbing some of my sugar cravings and filling me up. I have been trying for mornings. I leave for work at 5:30 a.m. so this is a challenge. The cats are terrified of the blender and my husband hates cleaning it. I make them the night before unless it’s a day I am home. Late in the week I have started having it when I come home. It helps before dinner. Which one do I like best? The one from Sparkpeople. Spinach or kale with almond milk, frozen bannanas, a little almond butter, some chia seeds (I added not part of the SP recipe) frozen blueberries and a little cocoa powder. The spinach is sweeter than the kale. I have tried a variation with mango instead of blueberries, not as good. The blueberries give it a depth and sweetness. I tried one from Clean Cuisine with romaine, blueberries and ginger. It sounded good on paper. I won’t be repeating it. I’ll be trying more of the Clean Cuisine ones. Right now the bananas seem to be giving it the shake feeling and creaminess.
This might be the answer to cutting the refined sugar that I need. We will see/
My First Step
Taking the first step is the hardest. It’s always the hardest, no matter what you do – a job, a relationship, a commitment. This has involved too many first steps and first times.
I have always been “nervy”, high spirited, a stress bunny. I have always fallen. My senior year of college with so many first steps approaching, I spent on the ground of the quad, looking up. It wasn’t my shoes, it was my fear causing me to tumble. Of course, now the doctors say that it was the seeds of my condition manifesting itself. Not true, just a facile diagnosis. Fast forward decades and within the period of a month my father died suddenly and unexpectedly; I undertook financial care of my mother who was subsequently diagnosed with dementia; my then live-in boyfriend, now husband was arrested at my mother’s house and jailed, and they found a lump in my breast that was biopsied the day before Christmas Eve. Stress? I think that’s where it all really took root and started. The only way they would allow me back in the office to work is if I agreed to counseling. The counselor said “Any time you are upset you let your feet out from under you.” Eureka! And during that period I once again was falling. The breast lump was later determined to have been the result of bruising in a fall.
The job ended and so did the dental insurance. A tooth fell out that had had root canal and I had an open hole in my mouth, 2nd doorway in.
So we were walking along the boardwalk a little over ten years ago and I started to stumble and be unable to walk. Husband said my motorcycle boots were the wrong thing to wear. NOT! I have walked blocks and blocks in 3 – 4 inch heels.
Over the next few years, these incidents started coming closer and closer together. I am a person who regularly walked a 15 – 17 minute mile.
First step – I went to my husband’s physician’s assistant. She bears an uncanny resemblance in voice and manner to “The Nanny”. In 15 minutes, she said you have Multiple Sclerosis. I went into the parking lot and had hysterics. Many doctors and many firsts after that – first MRI, first (and only) spinal tap, first neurologist, the diagnosis was confirmed. Or like my husband said to one doctor when you don’t know what to call it this is what you call it. She said he was right.
First step – nutritionist with a ridiculous diet and weird views, a no go
I asked all the doctors if there was anything I could do and that I was open to alternate solutions. One doctor told me to live a good life!
First step – acupuncture. It initially helped a bit. Then I felt like a pin cushion.
And the other first steps – first leg brace, first cane. Yuck.
And gradually realizing that even though I said at the beginning this would not define me or confine me, I woke up one morning and it had.
Through a series of serendipitous events, I found a book The MS Recovery Diet and this led me to the Swank diet. The only way I think I can do this is to blog. So, this is the first step.
Tresswann Shall Rise Again - Living Life! 