Where's The Easy Button?
These past few months have been very hard. My health continued to get progressively worse, we were losing a lot of business and were still unable to pay ourselves a regular income all this year, and my poor husband just could not get a break from all the stress and responsibility of running a struggling business, being a caregiver to his wife, and basically taking care of everything that needs done to run a household. On top of all my other health problems, my doctors decided that I have a serious liver disease that was affecting my heart and would apparently eventually kill me. The worst part was that my husband and I were dealing with all of this alone. Despite moving our church membership to a church closer to home, we had not been able to connect with anyone in the church and still had no support system in dealing with all of this. We were burned out, stressed out, and just plain out of ideas on where to turn or what to do. And all I kept thinking about in my mind was, "We really need one of those 'Easy Buttons'!" You know: the ones from the office supply store commercial where you just press that big red Easy Button and help rains down upon you from the sky.
I felt like my husband I and were literally on fire in the middle of a crowd, and that we were jumping up and down hollering for help while everyone in the crowd just walked on by, talking and laughing and going about their business. We just felt like everything was falling apart and no help was in sight. I know that everyone deals with problems and struggles in life, but we were constantly being hit with one after the other. And then my health status went from "deteriorating" to "crisis" mode with the latest news about my liver and heart. And we knew something had to change drastically. So I made an executive decision that I was gonna get off as many pharmaceuticals as possible in order to give my liver a break, fire all my doctors except for my primary and my narcolepsy specialist, and I was going to detox my body and really focus on putting natural, healthy things in.
This type of program takes a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of support and help, and a lot of energy. I certainly had the time, but none of the other things. And the way I was eating, which was the most important part of my "treamtent" (Phase One antifungal diet from knowthecause.com) required that almost everything be made "from scratch. That means nothing that comes in a can, a bottle, a package, or from a restaurant. I'm talking about the kind of cooking where you have to use every kitchen appliance, utensil, pot, and pan you own just to make one meal. I didn't mind the restrictions on eating so much, but I was literally to the point where I could barely stand up for more than a couple minutes at a time. There were times when I would start to black out whenever I stood up and I barely had enough strength to walk 10 feet. There were a few occasions where I barely made it into the kitchen, so weak and shaky that I had to just lie down on the kitchen floor for 15-20 minutes until I could get what I came in there for. And if I could muster the strength to prepare myself some kind of food, there was NO WAY I could clean up the mess I had made. So I would just have to leave it. Me. Leave a mess.
After coming home finding me lying on the floor, not having eaten or drank anything all day, my husband realized we couldn't do this all by ourselves anymore. So he asked my dad to drive 20 hours down from Michigan to take me up there for a few weeks so that my parents could help out. So I packed bags, boxes, and coolers full of food; all kinds of kitchen appliances and utensils; our puppy, his food, his kennel and other paraphernalia; and enough clothes and stuff to last a month. We had no idea when I would be able to come back home. And it was a tearful, anxious goodbye.
To Be Continued...
