I bet you saw this picture and thought I had some sort of horrible disease or something. Sorry to disappoint you. I am actually quite fine. I am writing this partially so I can remember, and partially so you can be amazed. I went to see my mom's doctor today. Dr. Robbins is genius. He is a real doctor, went to school and all that, but then after practicing for a bit he decided he liked the natural way of healing better, so he went back to do nutrition and such.
I saw the sort of affect this treatment method had on my mom (which were very positive) and finally went to him myself.
When I was about 16 or so, I got really sick. It was very much like mono. Although I was tested twice for mono and it never showed up, I most likely had something similar. I was very lethargic. No energy at all. I also would get nauseous every evening, but never threw up, and would get terrible shivers until I could fall asleep (which wasn't easy). Usually I had my mom or dad read to me to help me relax and fall asleep. Needless to say, I missed a lot of school. Fortunately, my teachers were very cooperative and I was able to keep up without much trouble.
After I got better -a long process when you have been bedridden for a long time- I continued to be very stressed. It is amazing how the world keeps moving even if you aren't there, and how people seem to get used to you not being around. My relationships with my school were stressed because I always felt left out. My relationships at home were stressed because I was always frustrated. Not a happy time. Anyway, enough of the sob story. The point of telling you all of that was because with mono (or other like-diseases that tear down your body) you have to properly take care of your body in order to fully recover. Eating right, getting rest, being active, ect. Well, since my body and mind were both strained, my body never fully recovered. Then I went to college and made it worse. Since then, I can sleep endlessly. It isn't normal to get 12 hours of sleep and be ready for a 4 hour nap. I am always out of energy. My brain feels like it runs slower. It is very worn out.
Second part of the story. I noticed that every time I drank a smoothie from the JBU cafe that the left lymphnode on my neck would swell up- then go back down. When I would drink another one, it would swell back up. Weird right? I figured I had to be allergic to one of the boosters they put in it or the mix they used- something. Eventually it just stayed there. Swollen. Even after I stopped drinking the smoothies from JBU. That was a little bit concerning to me...since my dad had non-Hodgkins lymphoma (which is cancer of the lymphnodes) several years ago. But, I never really got it checked out until a few months ago when I went in for muscle cramps in my shoulder, I happened to ask about it. The lady would not listen to me. Most annoying dr. ever. She told me it wasn't cancerous because it wasn't hard, but that it didn't have anything to do with smoothies. even though it happens many times in a row...I get annoyed every time i think about it! Ok, anyway the swelling thing was weird, but I left it alone.
Finally I decided to go to my mom's Dr. basically just so I could get a check up, see what I was allergic to, ect. While I was filling out the paper work it asked what my main complaints were/why I was at the Dr. I decided that I would put down about my lymphnode, and my energy levels as my main complaints. When he came in, he read over the sheet I had filled out about my body and asked a few questions and I explained my past mono-like experience and how I hadn't had any energy since, and also about my apparent allergy. It was brilliant. I felt like a little kid again sitting on the table having him look in my ears, say "ah" as he looked down my throat, and breath deep as he checked my heart and lungs. Most doctors now don't touch you unless they have to. It is all a mental evaluation. He listened to everything I explained and didn't make me feel stupid by saying I wasn't right when I made a stab at the possible reason behind my issues. He had me lay down and felt around my kidneys and such, asked "does this or that hurt" and all that. Lastly, he told me to lay down and took my blood pressure. After he was done he told me he was going to take it again, but this time to stand up while he was taking it. He was apparently checking my adrenal system. He said the top number of my blood pressure when down 10 points when I stood up. That was high, but not terrible. He told me that by doing that he could tell that my adrenal system was stressed (he explained all of that but I don't remember everything exactly). That made sense since I had been surviving off of adrenaline for the past year.
He confirmed that no, my lympnode was not cancerous and he also gave me a good diagnosis of what was probably happening in my body, which summed everything up. He explained this to me: My mono-like disease tore down my body and I never got to recover from that, and in fact made it worse my going to college and stressing myself out even more (random thing: he said he dad used to say, "you can always tell a college student, but you can't tell them much." LOL). The liver has two main functions and one of those it to filter out the poison in your body. It does that at night when you are asleep. Since I didn't sleep much at school, my liver couldn't do its job. The lymphnodes can only handle one thing/poison at a time. Since my poor liver was on overload it said "hey, lymphnode, you take some of this for me" when something came into my body that it didn't like (whatever was in the smoothie) and my liver gave it extra work- thus causing it to swell. He explained that there is nothing wrong with my liver, it just can't function right because it is not able to do its job. Like a good house that hasn't been moved into yet and everything is in boxes so it is congested and not functional.
So this is what he told me I could do about it. He gave me a new diet (not a losing weight diet, just a new way of eating) to help take some of the stress off of my liver and let up on my lymphnode. No fried foods, no milk, no pork or beef, caffeine, salt, sugar, refined flour, processed fruit juices- things like that that are hard to digest. He gave me suggestions of meals and combinations that I could use. Basically I eat a lot of fruits and smoothies, whole grain, rice, baked potatoes, salads, chicken, ect. It has been a little hard, but not too bad. It is helpful that my mom is on a similar diet. Since smoothies are sweet I can usually satisfy my need for sugar, and sometimes I just have a small piece of dark chocolate. I can have butter, and a little bit of cheese. But no ice cream for me =( I need to find out if ham is in the pork category (i mean, i know it comes from a pig, but does it digest the same as like, pulled pork?)
The hardest part of all is taking my supplements. As you can see in the picture above, I have to take a liver support supplement, stress support supplement, vitamin/mineral supplement, and a digestive supplement. They are all natural, so it is like having food, not medicine. But, I am not all the good at swallowing pills...much less 13 a day (6 after breakfast, one after lunch, 6 after dinner). But I am doing my best and hopefully by the end of this I will be good at swallowing pills! Oh, and I have to put drops under my tongue every morning and night that is supposed to help drain my lymphnode.
I guess I will wrap this up since it is such a long post, but I will say, that from the few days I have been on this "diet" I have noticed my lymphnode going down..just a little- but since I haven't even been doing this a week that is good progress. And since I am being forced to be healthy, I guess it isn't bad =)
p.s. sorry if there are a ton of grammatical errors/misspellings in this...it is so long......
P.p.s- in case you are confused, I started this on one day, and finished it on another. Which is why I say 'today' at the beginning and 'a few days ago' towards the end.
