Renewed Hope

Oct. 29, 2014

Back to Fibro doc today after four months. At my previous appointment, he seemed to be throwing up his hands - beyond testing and possible treatment for Lyme Disease and heavy metal testing/chelation, he had little else to offer me. I truly don't believe I have Lyme Disease, and I'm not willing to do antibiotic treatment even if I had Lyme; besides, Doc doesn't know of anyone in the area who treats Lyme anyway, so I see no point in testing. I'm not really on board for heavy metal testing and chelation the way Doc does it, either - I've read too much that says chelating agents don't have a strong enough bond to the metals to hold onto them all the way out of the system. The metals get pulled out of tissue, but when the bond breaks, a lot of metal ends up getting redistributed throughout the body, often in places it wasn't in before. Dentist says it's counterproductive to do chelation before all the mercury is out of my mouth, and since I don't feel good about doing chelation at this point anyway, I believe it's actually been a blessing that I haven't been able to chew without pain on the teeth that have had amalgams removed and/or crowns placed. Dentist says it can take up to a year for those teeth to calm down, which buys me some time before Doc begins pushing the chelation. I'm hoping that Tai Chi, diet and supplements together will improve my immune system enough that after the amalgams are completely gone it can handle any remaining metals without chelation therapy.

Doc began the appointment by asking me to tell him what's going on; he had a list of questions but wanted to hear from me first. I told him about starting Tai Chi in August and that it's been amazing; at the same time I began writing this gratitude journal, and hand-in-hand they have given me a new outlook. I told him why I started writing this - because of the epiphany that Freddie doesn't define me along with a personal need to write again - and related to him the positive effect: looking for blessings every day makes me aware that there really is much more to my life than Fibromyalgia, and that overall my life is very good. Not surprisingly, but still miraculous, I have felt better. He nodded knowingly. He told me at my last appointment, when I felt defeated and showed it, of a patient who just didn't respond to any treatments (one of those 10 percent, of which club I appeared to be a sad new member) and how she reported to him some time after he released her that she turned her life over to God. She accepted her condition and His will, and once she did that, she began to feel better. He urged me to do that, which I had tried many times to do. The gratitude journal - along with the meditative essence of Tai Chi - seemed to be the key to peace for me.

How grateful I am to have been led to a physician who recognizes that any medical intervention is only a complement to spirituality in promoting physical health. At every appointment, he has asked me, "Are you good with God?" or "How are you with God?" I am a spiritual person; my religion is my life. Yet somehow I could never find healing through prayer and faith alone; for whatever reason, I needed a physician to combine medical knowledge with spirituality, and perhaps now just happened to be the time for the two to come together. He told me today that he's not one to tell a patient he can fix this or that or to give false hope (yes, I saw that in my last two appointments!), but that he could tell me today he really believes I will get well. It won't be a revelation, "Hey! I'm healed!" but will be a gradual process. 

So, the technicalities of today's appointment: Doc says for me, the diagnosis "Fibromyalgia" really means mitochondrial dysfunction, as fatigue remains the primary, persistent issue. 

1. First, we need to address sleep, which was pretty good until our vacation approached and my mind raced with preparations. Then on vacation, sleeping in different beds with uncomfortable pillows, coupled with my propensity to overthink details of each day's adventures kept me half-awake every night. If I don't get back into better sleep in the next few weeks, he wants to consider a low-dose pharmacological combination to promote restorative sleep. A body cannot heal without restorative sleep!
2. He has learned even more about glutathione and methylation cycle since our last appointment, and he feels that I can triple my ALA dose to 600 mg twice a day. 
3. He ordered bloodwork to look at DHEA-S, Ferritin, and comprehensive metabolic panel to evaluate how the liver and kidney are functioning. He also wanted a specialized test for glutathione that had to be done in his office, so I did it while there today (three attempts by two nurses to find a vein ... aargh, the reason IV therapies are not a good option for me!) If glutathione is low, he will supplement, hopefully with liposomal cream, nasal spray or other non-intravenous carrier. 
4. Cortisol levels are OK - not great, but no longer at crashing level. I stopped taking cortisol about two months ago and went back on AdrenoChelate; I haven't noticed crashes, but Doc says the formula is weak and recommended Adrenal Stress-End by Integrative Therapeutics instead. 
5. No more Candida therapy! Even though Doc says this, I know too well how sugar and processed foods make me feel, so I will continue with a clean diet.
6. He gave me deep breathing exercises to do, which I did in the past, probably with Fibro Doc #1. Deep, abdominal breathing is inherent in Tai Chi, which I do at least once a day, but Doc's exercises are a good reminder. They're great because they can be done while driving (when I most need relaxation) or standing in line (the second-most common source of nervous stress) or at any time/place. I've actually had people in public places ask me if I'm OK when I start breathing deeply at the onset of stress. I'm sure I look like a head case about to pass out when I do that, but if people only knew how effective a few deep breaths is for centering and calming oneself!

And now it's time for bed, so I'll apply some progesterone cream and lavender oil, do my mind-calming Tai Chi memory exercises, and hope for pleasant dreams. I go to the retina specialist in the morning, though, so my mind will likely be anticipating that all night. For heaven's sake!

You Have a Friend

Oct. 18, 2014

Back in Utah today, I met three good high school friends for lunch. I will meet two others next week. This is always a nurturing experience, as I love these girls so dearly. They were good girls and they are amazing, strong and good women. We often express our gratitude and amazement that we not only found each other back in 7th grade but that our friendships have remained through our adult years. Today, though, as I reminisced with A, who arrived before the other two, a profound thought came. Would anyone argue that high school years are turbulent, the time when we experience deep insecurity and self-centeredness as we try to figure out who we are and what we want? How is it, then, that the friends we make during that time are often friends for life? I don't know many people who go back to college reunions, but we go back to high school reunions, often until all the class members have passed on. I believe A nailed the answer: the choices we make in high school are pivotal; most significantly, the friends we choose quite literally determine who we will be as adults. As I swam the social sea of pre-teenhood, I mingled with various types of kids, some of whom were already making choices that would lead them in sad paths. How incredibly grateful I am to have gravitated to these friends, who ended up being a group of more than a dozen. They are smart, talented, successful, optimistic and wise. I am the person I am today in large part due to these blessed girls. 

We were so busy enjoying each other yesterday that we forgot to take a picture. Gratitude journals have room for regrets, too.

Starry, Starry Night

Oct. 15, 2014

Today I'm grateful for childhood memories of Yellowstone, homemade chili and stars. 

I remember my family's camping trips, many of them to Yellowstone, and some of my memories bubbled to the surface as we drove those roads again with Daughter, Son-In-Law and Grandson. Grandson is 5, and as five-year-olds do, he talks incessantly, usually nonsense. He pokes, squirms, laughs, then instantly turns to sulking when he doesn't get his way. That reminded me of three little girls squirming on the back seat of my dad's Oldsmobile as the miles stretched endlessly on, with my dad crossly threatening that he would pull off the road and spank me if I didn't stop giggling. He kept his word on more than one occasion, and I would cry, my bottom stinging, only to start giggling again as soon as the car was back in motion. My sisters have both independently recorded the same memory, so I'm pretty sure it really happened as I remember it. On this trip, the realization came to me that I must have been about 5 when my own annoying behavior caused some aggravation on family vacations. I never thought spankings would be a memory for which I'm grateful, but somehow, I am.

Daughter wanted a family portrait from this trip, so today, even though it was cloudy, we set up a portrait on the cabin deck and down on the river bank. Yesterday was sunny and would have been a perfect portrait day, but we had so much we wanted to see in the park that we got home too late to do a portrait.

Despite the clouds, the air was still today - until the moment we wrapped up, then the wind came up and blustered the rest of the day. I'm grateful that we got to take a family picture for Daughter. After my parents died, one of my sisters went through all of my dad's slides and made a digital selection of representative photos. I treasure more than words can express the ones of our trips to Yellowstone, many of them probably taken in the exact spots we have taken pictures the last few days. I know what this family photo will someday mean to Daughter and Grandson, and perhaps to others in the family tree who haven't yet been born. 

I also felt a sense of personal history when we drove the road around Quake Lake, as my family was in the great Yellowstone earthquake of Aug. 17, 1959. I was not quite 3 years old, and my family was in a camper when the quake hit at about 11:30 p.m.; the 7.5-magnitude quake triggered a landslide that sent 80 million tons of rock crashing down on sleeping campers at a Forest Service campsite just west of Yellowstone. About 28 people were killed, either crushed under the rock or drowned in the Madison River. I never realized until this trip how grateful I am that we were protected. The 50-year-old dead trees rising out of the depths of the six-mile-long lake are an eerie reminder of how blessed we were.

We put chili ingredients in the crock pot this morning before leaving on our day's adventure and came home to the most wonderful aroma. Even the next-door neighbor's dogs apparently knew something was cooking and were on the doorstep the minute our truck pulled up. I'm grateful for the blessing of food and for how delicious it tastes after a long day of exploring nature. After dinner we played games, and I'm grateful for the bonds that are formed when families play together.

The day ended with a gathering on the porch to look at the stars. This is the only night of our stay that the skies have been completely clear. It's been so long since I’ve seen stars like that, I was awe-struck. We saw the Milky Way stretch across the entire sky. Grandson saw for the first time the Big and Little Dipper, but the stars were so dense that Husby and S-I-L couldn’t find Orion. There we were with the expanse of endless stars like tiny holes punched in a perfectly clear blue-black sky letting heaven shine through; silhouettes of pines against that sky; the river shushing by, and night-birds calling … heaven on earth. I'm filled with gratitude for that breathtaking experience.

Surrounded by Majesty

Oct. 14, 2014

It’s pretty easy to find things for which to be grateful while on vacation – it’s vacation, after all! 

I’ve kept vacation journals before, but I’ve never recorded how I feel about what I see and experience. Doing it brings a new dimension to vacation, just as it has done to everyday life. 

I'm grateful for the wonders of nature I've seen the last few days. I've seen these same features many times, but it occurred to me, as I’m sure it does every time I visit (but I forget when I get back home), that I'm witnessing God’s majesty here. I don’t often see or feel that in man-made surroundings. 

As I looked out at the stunning vistas, with dramatic rocky cliffs towering to the sides, a clear rushing river cascading to a dramatic falls, and beyond that, miles and miles of green pine trees stretching to the blue mountains on the horizon, I felt so grateful for all this splendor! 

And today I’m grateful for 60-degree temps, which made visiting all these sights even more pleasurable than yesterday, when it was overcast a lot of the day, 38° and windy, so our hands, noses and ears stung with the cold. 

Walking through the mist from the hot pots made it even colder, and at one particular spot, the steam was so dense our hair was dripping and our eyelashes froze; our coats were covered with frost, and we looked like wet cats.  

 


We headed to Old Faithful at lunchtime and ate our little picnic on a bench near the geyser, shivering and walking around to stay warm. We were blessed with a tender mercy: the geyser went off about 15 minutes after we ate lunch, and the next eruption wasn’t for nearly two more hours! To be at the site I visited so many times as a child and to see it again now through the eyes of my grandson was ... kind of like Christmas. Things that are magical to a kid don't seem quite so magical when you grow up until you become a grandparent. I'm grateful to have felt the magic again!



We walked and hiked and got in and out of the car dozens of times, and we came home tired and happy. 

We built a fire in the fire pit on the riverbank and roasted hot dogs and completely saturated our clothes and hair with campfire smoke. I'm grateful for all the happy family-camping-vacation memories this activity conjured and to share it now with Grandson. 

 

I'm grateful to look out the window and see this for five glorious days in autumn!

I Have Been Purchased

Sunday, October 12, 2014

Sabbath in the mountains … we had no church to attend today, but if worship is communion with God, then at times, Nature is a fine chapel.

 He who created this chapel of trees, water and mountains (which received a snow-frosting last night) also walked the earth and felt all the pains I have or ever will feel. He himself surely experienced stomachaches, headaches, fevers, scrapes and bruises. We are told He knew sorrow and grief, for He too lost friends and loved ones to death and more tragically, to sin. He was reviled, tempted and betrayed. Whatever mortality has to offer in the way of trials and suffering He knew, either through His own experience or through mine, and everyone else whose soul He lived to redeem. 

He never faltered, He never lost sight of His purpose; even when He could have saved Himself from the agony that only He could endure, He continued. With His tears and His love, He purchased me. 

I often forget that and become frightened, disheartened, impatient and angry. I have become distracted by a job, a hobby or pursing a talent, all of which are gifts from God, but which have, ironically, at one time or another replaced proper worship of the Giver of those gifts.

But listening to a rebroadcast of last week’s LDS Church General Conference messages – here in this environment where my spirit feels most at home – I reflected and resolved to do better at utilizing His sacrifice for me.

I am supremely grateful for my Savior. I am grateful to be reminded today – and every Sabbath day as I take the sacrament of the Lord’s supper – of the love He has for me, for what He was willing to do for me, and that He alone knows how I really feel, and thus how to comfort me, because He felt it, too.

 Today’s smile (from yesterday): As Husby, Daughter & Family and I were saying a family prayer for safety in our travels before we embarked on our trip to the mountains together, I peeked at Grandson, who happened to be peeking at me. We both knew our eyes should be closed, and I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good example. But it made both of us giggle silently to see the other one peeking. Funny, too, he didn’t peek at anyone else, and neither did I. Kindred spirits.

Autumn Day

Oct. 11, 2014

Today I’m grateful to be in the mountains soaking up the crisp air, scented with pine and drenched with freshness. The brilliant yellows, which are all that remain of fall’s colors for this year, look startlingly like flames set against a cerulean sky or the deep emerald of surrounding evergreens. 

This is the time of year that makes me long to live again in the mountain West. I love, love, love Fall. I'm not sure what Zen is, but I'm thinking maybe that's what I feel when I sit cloaked in the glorious blanket of autumn, because I can't conjure words that convey the alive-ness I feel in the Fall. It's cozy and comfortable and refreshing; it's warmth, inherent in fall-cooking spices and campfire smoke, and all things Fall.

It's spiritual - it's reverence for the sheer beauty and for the Creator, who in His loving-kindness created something like this at the end of every wearyingly hot summer. As I write, I can feel my body and mind settle just hearing the river rushing by; the rain on the roof adds to the water Chi. Aside from the river, it's absolutely quiet and still. Thank thee, Heavenly Father, for making this!

Day of Rest

Sunday, Aug. 31, 2014

Today I'm thankful for the commandment to take one day a week and rest from the labors of all the other days and spend time in gratitude for all that the Creator gives me and does for me. It's like a rest between workout sets; it's like stopping the shallow breathing of busy-ness to inhale deeply and exhale slowly; it's like pouring rich, substantive cream into my cup of weak, thin worldliness, and when mixed together, the worldly things become less shallow and more delicious because of the spiritual awareness that they are divine creations. What a loving and wise Father our God is to give us such a day!

I'm thankful that I can meet and mingle with people who share my beliefs and who try to live Christ's example and help me try to live it. I'm thankful for people who prayerfully prepare lessons and messages that give me the spiritual nourishment I need for another week in the world - and that I can come back in 7 days for more. 

I'm thankful for Christ's atonement, that my sins may be forgiven if I repent, that my body will overcome death, be perfected and reunited with my spirit, and that I may live forever with my family and dear friends in a place where there is no evil, sickness or sadness. 

Indeed, thanks for the Sabbath Day!