The Backstory...

A few months ago, I had finally had it with how I looked and felt. I decided that it was time to really dig in and start the research to figure out what to do with myself. I've fought fibromyalgia for almost 20 years. I am technically 41% legally disabled. It got to the point I was using Chase as a service dog just so I could go to work. The headaches were brutal. If I got one when I was out, I could climb in the back of the van with him and feel safe as I waited for them to subside.

In 2006, I decided to really work on the fibro, so I took the summer off from teaching, and set about figuring how to help myself. I joined 24 Hour Fitness and paid for a personal trainer. I put in a jacuzzi (heat helped a LOT). I had three times weekly massages. It paid off! After three months, I definitely felt better! But the truth is that once I went back to work, I couldn't do my therapies as often, and over time that awesome feeling began to wear off.

The next few years were horrible. With the economy as it was, I was working like a crazy person! I taught during the day, I taught during the night. I restarted my CPR credentials and also went back to school to get my EMT license again. And so I worked. As LAUSD took my pay, I had to find a way to make it up. I worked and worked and got sicker and sicker. Then that fateful time came in 2010 when I was ready to go through menopause. Holy shit! What a nightmare! The cramps got worse over the last few years and my doctor decided to do an ablation. Big whoop. It lasted for a whopping three months. Then it was right back to where it was. Sigh.... The good news was that about a year later, I stopped on my own! Celebration time, right? Uh, no. Then came the personal summers. I don't ever do anything halfassed. I had THE WORST HOTFLASHES on the planet. I would get them sometimes more than once an hour! I had to have a privacy fence outside my room so I could run out there and cool off in the middle of the night! I should have known better, but I went back to the doctor. I kept hearing from people I knew how wonderful bioidentical hormones were! Oh, they were the end all to fix my problem! Right? Wrong. I told her how sensitive I was to medication. No problem, she said! I will give you a light dose. Uh huh. I took them for about 5 days, and then I forgot. Wanna guess what happened? Yep! Back came the period! That was June 2013. Cycled in July and skipped August. I was tentatively hopeful that that was it. I was wrong again! At the end of September, WHAMMO!!!! At a friend's Emergency Preparedness seminar that I attended, I went to stand up off a bench and I hemorrhaged. Fourteen days later, I was still bleeding and called the doctor. She, of course, wanted to do a hysterectomy. But knowing my family history of prolapsed bladders, I told her she would have to pry my uterus out of my cold dead body!!! So back in for a second ablation I went. She threw in a DNC this time just for good measure, and a meer 42 days post ablation, I finally stopped bleeding again. So, this was now October and I was really fed up. I started researching.

Sensing a theme here???

I went to my primary care doc and asked for blood work. I needed to know where to start. I needed baselines. What I learned from him is that my kidney functions are only between 60 and 80%. This shook me to my core. My dad passed away from kidney failure. I am only 55 years old! I am not ready to worry about this! I am very much a hybrid of my two parents. I have my mom's shape and deal with the same weight issues as her family. I have my dad's skin tone, hair, hands, and obviously his kidney issues, and both he and I could walk across a desert of all sand and if there were one rock, we would not only fall over it, but break something!

My next step was learning what my blood type was. I am B+. Then I got a DNA kit and learned that my ancestry goes all the way back to the area that is currently Kosovo. Interesting... Romans.... They were both hunter/gatherers but also farmers. Ok, so I put blood type together with DNA and went to see a friend of mine who is a holistic Chiropractor. She is also a nutritionist who follows all of this. Susan did muscle testing on me and felt that much of my issues went back to my adrenals. Basically adrenal fatigue. That made sense, because your adrenals should take over during menopause. They give energy and balance. She gave me a homeopathic solution that I take now to help support them, and I do feel better with it.

Next, I realized I needed to deal with the diet issue. I have recently done Weight Watchers and Adkins, and both had been successful for me in the past, but this time, nothing was making it! My concern for me was growing. The primary doc sent me for tests and I still have one more to go. He's found a spot on the left kidney and can't see what it is. We are hoping for either a fatty deposit, a cyst, or something that I don't want to think about. Results on that next week.

I belong to a mother's online list called Peachhead. I've been on it for probably 10 years. I joined and it was less than 2000 women, now it is over 14000. I saw an ad for a program that was seeking volunteers who wanted to lose between 50 and 80 pounds using a juicing and plant based diet. AH HA! What did I have to lose, other than weight!!! I signed up on a fill-in-the-blank website on a Friday night. I started thinking about my answers and how much I wanted to do this program, and on Saturday, I went back on the site and filled out another request to participate, but this time I began it with, "Hi, it's me again! I really really really really want to be a part of your journey!!" I was contacted two days later and invited to an interview. January 13th I found myself in front of a camera being asked why I wanted to be a part of this program. Anyone who knows me knows I am not shy and that I can talk! God gave me the gift of gab, for sure! A few days later, I got the email that I was one of 15 people who had been chosen out of the 80 people who had applied! I was IN!!!

The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind! Along with changing jobs, I have had to go have blood work done, and then I had an appointment last Monday with their doctor. She shook me up because she was actually a nephrologist and she GOT the seriousness of my decreased kidney function.

The program is based on Jason Vale's, "7 Pounds in 7 Days" book. Jason is a bigwig in the world of juicing. He is from the UK, but now lives in Portugal. He even has juicing resorts in Turkey!! Apparently this book was very well received and even knocked "The DaVinci Code" out of 1st place on one of the UK booklists for a time!

Today was the kick off! I was up early and over at the studio by 8am. We had to be weighed and measured, then they took before pictures in bike pants and sports bra. And of course, more blood. At noon, Jason arrived. He is not a tall man, maybe around my height, but he is a live wire! I was sitting by myself at one point, and he came walking toward me, probably headed somewhere else, but I looked up at the right moment and smiled and greeted him. He veered toward me, and came and sat down. And for close to 15 minutes, I had a private audience with him! LOL! He is very nice and very genuine. He really believes in what he is doing and he's followed his passion. He used to smoke, drink and eat crap. Then he figured it out and is living the life. It doesn't hurt that the dollars, or Euros, in his case, have followed! From 1pm to 5pm, Jason did a live documentary with the participants and their family and friends. There were probably about 100 people in the audience. As this works, it is slated to be a documentary. It's not like other reality shows where there are weekly weigh ins on camera. There are weigh ins, but at a gym, without cameras. The only one that will be filmed will be the one week weigh in next Saturday.

So, for this next week, I will be juicing only. I have hot water with lemon at 7am, then juice at 8am, 11am, 2pm, 5pm, and 8pm, followed by another hot water with lemon at 9pm. I've heard that Day 3/4 will be rough as I am detoxing from sugar and fat and all kinds of crap. That's my story! I will try to update as I can. Wish me luck!!!

Roller Coasters

What an eventful summer it has been. It seems like it was never here and yet it is almost over and time to return to school.

June roared in and out with the departure of Anthony from our home. In the blink of an eye, he was gone. Graduation was fun with the teachers showing their true colors and getting out there and flashmobbing for the kids!


July 4th blew by and suddenly it was time to prepare for Europe! At the last moment possible, we realized that Eric's passport expired THIS year and not NEXT year! That pushed the trip back by 5 days as we scrambled to put it all together.
The trip itself was most excellent! Seeing old friends and a few new ones was joyous! Reconnecting with Europe with my son tightened our bond.

Suddenly we hit a wall when it was time to come home. United placed an embargo on Friends and Family travel out of Europe. Thank Heaven for Chris and his US Air connection or we would still be there.

Sadness hit upon the return, as five days later, I lost my father. When I left, he was very stable, reading his newspaper and watching his beloved Yankees. I was only able to see him once after returning. But, as a friend said to me, I had already had seven months to say goodbye, which I tried to remember every time I saw him.

June 2011

June brought the end of another school year. The teachers surprised the students at culmination with a flashmob dance. That was a lot of fun!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2OfXLWKLuo

And just like that, summer was underway!!!