Health

2018 has been a hard year. Health-wise. 

A few things I’ve learned this year: 

*Here is the good stuff. If you’re interested in reading the full story or seeing weight gain progress photos, keep scrolling.

• Life is hard. It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to have a bad day. Just don’t give up.
• Just because someone else has a trial perceivably (or even undeniably) larger than mine, doesn’t mean my trial is any less valid.
• Everything in your body will improve when your nutritional intake improves. You will sleep better, have a more healthy appetite, think more clearly, be more emotionally stable, etc… Even odd functions like the ability to regulate body temperature.
• Collagen does wonders for your hair. I was asked to take this daily to help increase my bone density/health. Since bone density tests are expensive I haven’t taken another one yet to check progress but I have noticed my hair is almost twice as thick as usual and generally the healthiest it has ever been! I use this kind but I’m sure there are lots of good options out there.
• Doctors are not God. Although doctors are very knowledgable, they can’t follow you around and observe your daily habits. You have to be your own medical detective and listen to your body. Try to figure out potential causes from being self aware and assessing your everyday or occasional activities. Share your thoughts with your doctor. Together you’ll make a lot more progress than if you expect the doctor to just look at you and understand what you need. 
• Physical, emotional, AND spiritual self-care is essential to good health. I’m still working on this. It will be a lifelong effort.
• My capacity for helping others increases when I take care of myself. I used to think taking care of others meant ignoring my own needs. But when I truly listen to and care for the needs of my body and mind, I’m able to be more present, focused and ready to help others.
• I can do anything, but I can’t do everything. Even when I want to do everything really bad and all the things I’m pursuing are good! I need to be more selective about where I spend my time and energy.
  
• Sometimes hard work and perseverance don’t make things better. Sometimes it is a battle just to prevent a situation from getting worse. The battle is still worth fighting. Even when it feels like it isn’t.
• Having a relaxing evening at home after work is not lazy, it is necessary. I value productivity and tend to make unrealistic goals of what Lucas and I can accomplish in an evening. One of the best decisions we made this year was committing to not doing house projects on week nights and intentionally do something re-energizing instead. 

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My health has never been exceptional, but this year it has been much worse than usual. In January, my doctor (who I saw regularly for assistance with my life-long GI issues) said, “You look thinner than usual. Have you lost weight? How much do you weigh?” I hadn’t weighed myself in about a year so I had no idea what my current weight was but my guess was 118-120 lbs. That day in the doctor’s office I weighed 105 lbs. We had just gotten back from a 9-day road trip around Morocco so we thought maybe I had contracted a parasite from eating street food and it was causing the weight-loss, but all of my parasite tests came back negative.

I got a nutritional panel test done to see if I was significantly deficient in any one thing and after getting the results back my doctor said…

“According to these levels, you should be in the hospital on an IV right now, but you seem to be functioning okay.”

Apparently, I was off the charts low in literally everything except for zink. Everyone kept asking if I was tired or weak and I thought, “well, yeah! I’m always tired and weak. Isn’t everyone?” I didn’t realize it at the time but I was running faster than I could walk. Clearly my body was struggling to keep up and I was ignoring it. 

According to blood tests, my liver was flaring up so I got an ultrasound and found out I had fatty deposits on my liver. This is the beginning stages of fatty liver disease which is typically a result of obesity, illicit drug use, or a major infection like an STD. Since I don’t fall into any of these lifestyle categories, I asked if there were any other causes of a stressed liver and learned that another, more rare, cause is malnutrition. Due to severe abdominal pain, I had an ultrasound of my liver/kidney area the previous year and everything appeared perfect. So… in a matter of about 9 months I managed to go from a perfect liver to a borderline fatty liver.

My whole life, I’ve avoided talking about my health because it is really hard to explain how I feel when I’m not even sure what my body is doing or why it isn’t functioning like normal. I’m also not sure what normal feels like so I often wonder if the discomfort and pain I’m feeling is the same thing that everyone else is feeling. When people don’t understand something they naturally question or discount it. It is hard enough just to physically feel like crap every day and adding skeptical outsiders is just a recipe for feeling pathetic. I know because I’ve tried it time and again and I always leave those conversations feeling pathetic. I question myself enough, I don’t need other people joining that party.

There have been so many days when I’ve wished I had a cast on my leg so everyone would know both that there is something wrong and understand my limitations. Everyone knows what a person with a broken leg can and can’t do. Very few people, including myself at times, understand what my limitations are so I am constantly feeling the need to explain my ambiguous situation to a confused crowd (myself and often doctors too). Also, people tend to want to fix things and my health (unfortunately) is not something that be easily quickly. If it was, I would have saved thousands of dollars and hours in doctor visits!

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A lot of my middle-school-age memories with my parents are around doctor office visits. I remember getting an x-ray of my intestines (around age 9 or 10) and my dad joking, “You’re literally full of crap!” when we saw the images. I often wish my parents lived closer so they could still come with me to my appointments. Dealing with your own medical care (paperwork, expenses and going to appointments alone) is one of the worst parts of being an adult! There is something about the vulnerability of being in a doctor’s office that makes you feel like a helpless child and crave parental care.

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I’ve gone through phases where I’m really proactive about trying to figure out my body and how to keep it healthy, then I get frustrated and slowly give up, then get re-motivated, and I start all over. My most recent proactive phase started in January 2017 because Lucas and I started trying to have kids. We thought for both a potential child’s sake and mine, it would be best if I could get to a healthy place before getting pregnant. Turns out getting pregnant is pretty difficult and my health is worse than we thought so now we have to wait until I’m “better” (if we ever get there) before we can try any fertility medications. But that’s a story for another day.

In my journey to GI wellness I learned I’m fairly allergic to dairy products and a dozen other various foods. I’m really good at saying no to “unhealthy” foods. I have no problem passing on soda or candy or anything I’ve been asked to avoid. However, I’m not very good at replacing “bad for me” foods with something else. My natural reaction is to think “I’ll just eat later when I can find or make something better.” By the time later comes it is time for the next meal and I’ve missed the previous meal. Looking back, I’ve realized that last year I cut a ton of foods from my diet, was more physically active than I’ve been in years, and had pockets of GI relief but overall that’s when my health started to plummet downward. Part of this is because I unintentionally developed a habit of eating less (just because it is so hard and time consuming to find good food!) but the other part is because there is something systemically wrong with my body so the nourishment I am getting isn’t being utilized like it’s supposed to. We haven’t figured out how to fix the second part yet.

One negative aspect of a poor digestive track is improper nutrition absorption. When your body can’t absorb nutrients well, it can’t help any part of your body function well.

Proper nutrition affects your emotions, sleep, bowels, clear thinking, hormones, blood sugar levels/general energy, appetite, everything! When you are not fueling your body with proper nourishment you’re setting yourself up for failure. I actively try to eat nourishing food but like most people I’m not super good at it. Unfortunately, I’ve learned that if I want to feel good, or even okay, I have to spend lots of time planning, prepping and eating proper food. When I think about life not being fair, I think about people who eat whatever they want, don’t pay attention to their body at all and somehow feel great all the time.

I recognize now that although 2017 was a jam-packed, life-changing year, we bit off way more than we could chew while still maintaining a healthy life. I set myself up for health failure and I was in denial about it for a long time. In many ways, I still am in denial. Lucas was fine because he is one of those people who feels fine no matter how he treats his body. I’ve completely uprooted my life (stopped coordinating weddings, temporarily stopped working full time, paused or spread out major house projects, canceled trips, paused weekend adventures, stopped trying to get pregnant, etc.) all to take care of my health and the progress is still painfully slow. Taking really good care of your body is hard. Some days I feel overwhelmed and tell myself it is impossible to get any better than this. I have SO many things I’d rather be doing than meal planning or cooking or going to the doctor or analyzing my body’s every move. It is really difficult to find and make 3 meals a day that I enjoy and are at least semi-healthy. And harder when you can’t use any dairy products. And even harder when every day is different and food that was fine yesterday makes you sick today. On days that are extra hard and I want to quit trying I notice this thought coming to mind…

So what? I’m a little thin. Why is that so bad? I’ve felt sick my entire life and I’ve made it this far… 

Then I have to remind myself… You are thin because your body is starving on the inside and committing to a life of sub-par health will guarantee you will never get pregnant or if you do both you and the child will be at serious risk. It will also guarantee that the crummy health days you are used to will never stop. That is why it is bad to stop striving for better health!

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After 9+ months of intense self assessment, doctor visits, and daily hard work I’ve (intentionally) gained almost 20 pounds, I have a healthy liver now, and I have almost gained my energy back. Back in January/February I could barely stand up for more than 15 minutes at a time and my heart would race after walking across a room. My GI track is still a mess and I’m a ways from starting fertility treatment but I feel like I’m finally on track to a decent future. I now have stretch marks on my thighs and torso and none of my clothes fit but I’ve had enough good days recently to believe that the future is bright. This day would not have come without my supporting husband and family, caring employer, and smart doctors who advocate for me.

Every day is still hard and lately there have been new challenges I didn’t expect to encounter on my health journey… hello non-pregnancy stretch marks, buying jeans 2-3 sizes larger than ever before, lack of a second income, extended periods of feeling sad and lacking hope, and lifestyle shifts. I’ve learned a lot and feel like I’ve become much more empathetic so overall things are looking up.

Hopefully a few months from now I’ll be feeling amazing, be back a work full time, and have started a fertility treatment plan. Until then, I’m just taking things one day at a time. And shopping for a wardrobe that fits : )