Thankful

I love my doctors.  I seriously have two of the best doctors in the whole world.  They care about my whole health and my whole body and mind.  I couldn't ask for more.

One of the things I am overwhelmingly thankful for this year is good medical care.  You may think that I'm talking about western medicine in general, and to some extent that is true.  But healing is so much more than prescribing medicines.  Maybe that soapbox is for another post, but I love that my team of doctors think holistically.  I am a whole person to them and all of my systems interact and overlap.

In other good news, we've established that there are two areas of my health that still need major work: hormone imbalance (probably stress-induced) and allergies.

Now that some time has passed and I've calmed down about my allergy test results (and had wonderful chats with both of my wonderful doctors), I'm ready to share a bit about that.  I tested very strongly for dairy allergies (milk, goats' milk, soft cheese, hard cheese, whey, casein, etc.).  I also tested as allergic to red meat, lamb, eggs, peanuts, almonds, red grapes, green beans, etc.  That's an overwhelming list to a midwestern girl! I didn't test with strong allergies to gluten, but I felt remarkably different being gluten-free for three weeks.  So I'm going to stay off gluten as much as possible.  Which will be complete starting in the new year and non-militant until then (side note: I get a huge lump in my stomach anytime I have anything with wheat in it now-- that can't be good).  So a cookie here or a piece of pie there.  And I haven't started dairy-free yet and won't until December sometime.  And similarly it will be complete dairy-free starting in the new year.  I find that plan manageable.

One of the things I was most pleased to hear was that my doctors don't want me to worry about the beef, eggs, peanuts, almonds, etc.  They both said that in their experience, unless I was anaphylactic (which I'm not) then I should focus on wheat and dairy for now.  Any other sensitivities will likely go away as my body heals.

Oh, and for the record, I think staying refined-sugar-free is a smart decision for anyone, myself included.  So I'll keep that up, too.  When I challenged wheat I got a lump in my stomach.  But when I challenged sugar (after being off it for 3 full weeks), I was grossed out by the taste of sugar-- it tasted so strange and chemical-like that I literally can't stand the stuff.  I'll take raisins, honey and maple syrup any day over refined sugar!

As I read through what I've just written, I'm overwhelmed by how thankful I feel.  Thankful I'm living in a place where I can do strange diets and find substitutions and good food.  I'm thankful for Trader Joes, Costco, and all the other places that carry good whole food.  I'm thankful for doctors and for real medical care.  And I'm thankful for the time and the space to get to the bottom of all of this.  We're not done.  Not by any means.  But we've got a good start and I'm encouraged, which is not something to scoff at!  I've had way too many discouragements in this journey, so I'm thankful to see the sunshine through the clouds.

Happy Thanksgiving.

JLR