Indeed, not chopped liver..

I had my endocrinology appointment yesterday and I'd say things went pretty well.  I constantly forget how great my doctor is.  She practices western medicine, but was raised in India and some of that culture seems to still be ingrained in her.  Every time I expect to be met with resistance and pushed towards RAI or surgery.  Instead, I am listened to, heard, and my decisions regarding my treatment respected.  My doctor asks about other areas of my life like my work, boyfriends, stress levels, etc.  She doesn't shrug off the benefits of the meditation practice, nutrition, and physical activity to my well-being and potential remission.  I have to say I really appreciate my endocrinologist.

That being said, she talked to me about my liver enzyme levels and showed me that although a few of them were high, they weren't high enough to worry about just yet and wanted me do another set of labs, including a hepatitis screening profile (yikes!).  I explained that I had cleaned up my diet the best I knew how and added a mild liver cleansing tea (Every Day Detox by Traditional Medicinals) and that I had a more potent liver cleanser on the way from a licensed herbalist.  She told me it was probably best to hold off on the latter until I saw a liver specialist who could tell me exactly why my liver was functioning inadequately.  However, she didn't recommend that I go see one unless my levels increased further.     

She sent me off with instructions to take a lower dose of thyroid medication, which had been previously been increased due to poor communication between myself and the doctor filling in for my doctor, who had returned to India upon her father's passing.     

I went to the lab for a stick in the other arm and few hours later, Heather the nurse called to tell me that my liver enzymes had improved.  I heard the word normal in there, but I was a little excited so I can't remember if she said they were normal or almost normal.  Either way, I was ecstatic.  I sent out a text to my mom, brother and Irish lad - who must be psychic, because he called that very moment to see how my appointment went before realizing I'd sent out a text.  I go back in six weeks for more labs on my thyroid, but not on my liver. 

I plan to keep my diet as clean as possible so as not to put any undue strain on my liver.  I also intend to pursue acupuncture for supplemental treatment for my Graves Disease in the hopes that I will achieve remission sooner and for a longer duration so that I can prevent the toxic affect of my medication on my liver.  The hardest part about this disease is the perpetual cycle of stress and symptoms.  I have no doubt that stress triggered this latest episode and the disease itself causes me a massive amount of stress, worrying about the myriad physical manifestations of it, the cosmetic effect of it while still trying to digest the transition into my third decade of life; trying to maintain a perspective of increasing fitness and health rather than accept a decline in either.  This is where my meditation, exercise and acupuncture can help relieve my mind and body of these burdens so that my physical body can begin its return to the state of well-being it knows.  Doctors orders: "don't worry", and I mean not to.

Graves concerns..

I had intended for my next post to be all about my trip to New York City, where I met up with old friends and attended a live session for my Integrative Nutrition program.  As life works, I ran into some snafus.  First, I was making less money at the new job that I left my last job for, with the sole purpose of making enough money to pay my bills and to pay off some debt.  Second, I hated that job.  Both of these things contributed to more stress, so I put the word out to the peeps I've known over the years and got me a sparkling new bartending job, again.  Unfortunately I had to burn a bridge to get from the last one to this one, but I had to choose my needs over those of the job that sucked.

So I finally feel like I've got this little corner of my life calmed down so my financial state of affairs can start to improve when all of the sudden, something in the other corner crashes.  As it turns out, one of the side effects of Methimazole, the thyroid suppressing medication I'm on, is that it can be toxic to the liver.  My thyroid levels are starting to come down closer to normal ranges due to the medication, which is good.  The bad news, which I received yesterday, is that my liver enzymes are above normal indicating improper functioning of that other vital organ.  The good news is that this will likely resolve itself if I get off of Methimazole.  The bad news is, I can't go left untreated and the very pill that has previously enabled me to achieve remission rather than kill or remove an organ necessary for survival is poisoning my liver.

There is another medication PTU, but it is more likely to contribute to liver disease than the one I'm on now.  Beyond that, the only other options offered to me are surgical removal or radioactive iodine, both of which will render me unable to ever produce the essential thyroid hormone ever again and I would have to supplement with synthetic hormone, about which I have grave concerns.  Trying to replicate the function of a vital organ has its own set of problems.  A pill is never the quick cure people tend to think it is.  I'd rather work with my body than rely on conventional medicine for the rest of my life.

My mom has consulted with a licensed herbalist and as I type, some liver cleansing teas and tinctures are on their way to my doorstep.  I had planned to consult an acupuncturist as soon as I could afford it, but that's taken longer than I had anticipated and ...   please, please, oh please don't make me kill my thyroid!

This is a scary time for me.  I don't have a large support network, though I have a pretty strong one, but it's not local.  My mom and brother are always there for me and can help me with things I don't have the energy or resources for.  My Irish friend has been a tremendous shoulder to lean on.   He's going to be away for a marathon and then to Dublin for a couple of weeks in July and then I may feel a little stranded, as he's been really supportive and comforting to me since the moment I met him.  My meditation practice adds a bit of peace to this whole mess, but it's been tearful here and there. 

Even with some emotional support, I'm feeling pretty alone and afraid.  This country doesn't practice medication before murder of the thyroid, so I don't feel as though I have an ally in the medical community that I've had to rely on.  The one thing that I've found some resolve in is that now I know why the circles under my eyes are so bad, despite the kind words of my friends to the contrary, I see them.  It's because my liver is being poisoned and it shows.  As my brother said to me yesterday, people face adversity all of the time and come through it with flying colors.  I intend to be one of those people.  Being strong and brave does not mean to live in the absence of fear, but despite it.

I have an appointment with my endocrinologist tomorrow morning, they will test my liver again at that time and I can ask questions.  The liver cleansing tea prepared by a licensed herbalist will arrive on Tuesday.  Books by Andrea Beaman (also an IIN graduate), Joel Fuhrman (who spoke at my weekend of Integrative Nutrition in NYC), and Daniel Amen are on their way.  I know the body has a tremendous ability to heal itself where pills meant to heal do damage elsewhere in the body.  But I know this takes time and I hope it's not too late for me.  I already eat pretty well, but I have a long history of processed foods in my past.  As of yesterday, I'm doing all I can to keep from adding undue stress to my liver by eliminating alcohol, excess sugar and salt, all processed foods, caffeine, excess fat etc. and am eating as clean a diet as possible with simple whole grains, whole fruits and whole vegetables, most of which in the Cruciferae family - Kale being my latest addition.  I'm not sure what a mere two days of this can do for the liver, but you can rest assured that it'll end up on this blog. 

Here are some lovely pictures from my time in NYC.  I'll write about what I learned from Deepak Chopra and Geneen Roth soon.

dirty baker's dozen

*sigh* Sometimes when we make progress, the standard is two steps forward, one step back. Well, the California government is about to take a giant leap back. They've just approved the use of methyl iodide in pesticides. This chemical is used to intentionally cause cancer in laboratory animals and is about to be exposed in large amounts to both workers in the field and those of us who eat food grown in California. Eighty percent of strawberries sold in the U.S. are grown in California and are a food that readily absorbs pesticides. If this gets approved, we can make the dirty dozen the dirty baker's dozen.

Please go to this site and sign the petition. This decision is open to public comment until June 14, so we still have a fighting chance. Please email the decision makers at mei_comments@cdpr.ca.gov and urge them not to let this chemical be added to the list of pesticides allowed to infest our food.  Feel free to use this text offered from the original site.


It's as easy as copy and paste:


I am writing to comment on the proposed approval of methyl iodide for use in pesticide products in the state of California. Methyl iodide is a dangerous, highly carcinogenic chemical that has no business being involved in our food supply. The fumes can cause lung, liver, kidney and central nervous system damage as well as nausea, dizziness, coughing and vomiting. It is dangerous to the environment, to the workers who will have to apply it in the field, and to consumers who will ingest traces of it.

I refuse to buy produce grown with this dangerous chemical and I strongly urge you to deny approval for methyl iodide.

Thank you.

take the red pill

less junk in the trunk

The official start of my Integrative Nutrition program is just days away.  Part of my warm up includes practicing taking people's health histories.  Last night I practiced with Jen, a fellow IIN student in Atlanta.  Right now, the purpose of this is is not to offer advice or recommendations, but rather to practice listening; to clear my head of all the events of the day and really hear what the other person is telling me; to ask questions with the intention of really getting to know the overall person better.  Practicing this will help me to better serve my clients once I'm equipped with the knowledge to make recommendations to help them reach their health goals.

Talking about my own health history and patterns with food was an eye opening experience.  It helped me to realize that I have had a relatively easy time incorporating whole and healthy foods into my life once they make sense to me.  Over the years of my adult life, I've looked at certain foods as fun projects in an attempt to integrate them into my life and actually enjoy them.  Once I got excited about the nutrients in a specific food and how they could help create balance and well being in my body, it was almost effortless to incorporate these foods into my diet.  Some past examples include lentils, garbanzo beans, black beans, dark green leafy vegetables, bok choy, sweet potatoes, brown rice, millet, raw pumpkin seeds, almonds and even drinking more water.

I, like many people, struggle most with sugar.  When I was a kid, my parents called me "Junkfood Junkie".  My ambivalence about whether that was the result or cause of my ensuing sweet tooth aside, the fact remains that I still have it, but now have the tools to eliminate those cravings more often.  My diet growing up was dichotomous to say the least.  On one hand, I was fed a fair share of spaghetti dinners in front of the tv, waffles with peanut butter and syrup, gooey salads oozing with heavy mayonnaise based dressings over iceberg lettuce, chicken-a-la-king over white rice.  However, the same people who prepared these meals for me also sent me off to school with a brown bag carrying a sandwich on pumpernickel bread and a piece of fruit.

When I was about ten, I remember that my mom announced that she would no longer be buying soda.  She belonged to a CSA, took foraging classes, made sumac tea instead of kool-aid, sauteed lambs quarters from the garden, served salads with dandelion greens and twigs (I swear).  She was not especially talented in the art of flavoring, but she gave me a foundation from which to draw upon and an awareness of organic foods, whole grains like millet, lentils, tofu, kale...  Granted, she had a hard time getting me to eat more than one bite of some of those, but I realize now that she was extremely progressive in her awareness of whole foods.  As a side note, we also had a cabinet full of tinctures that she'd made herself from herbs or roots.   

Every summer she brought amazing foods into the house that I still enjoy seasonally to this day.  Things like steamed artichokes with a lemon-butter dip, cucumber dill salad with yogurt instead of mayonnaise, gazpacho, watermelon and other seasonal fruits.  I'd like to talk specifically about gazpacho.  People seem pretty aware of the health benefits of lycopene, which is found in tomatoes.  Partly this due to the marketing of products that usually also contain too much sodium as well as high fructose corn syrup**.   Gazpacho is a great way to incorporate this fantastic synergy of nutrients from whole vegetables with incredible health benefits.  The following is my favorite recipe so far for a quick and delicious warm weather meal.

In a food processor, combine the following:

3 organic tomatoes cut into chunks

1 clove organic garlic, peeled

1/2 organic sweet yellow onion

2 Tbs. organic extra virgin olive oil

1/2 organic cucumber, peeled

1 organic green pepper

pinch of sea salt

fresh ground pepper to taste

puree until contents flow like liquid but are still a bit chunky

slowly add 32 oz. of tomato or veggie juice of your choice (I use this because it's easily available at my farmer's market - if you can find any organic tomato or vegetable juice with lower sodium, that's preferable)

Chill and serve cold.

My own personal preference is to chop up organic cucumber and organic red, orange or yellow bell pepper and add to the soup with some whole grain croutons that you can make yourself from high fiber bread.

This meal is much more filling and satisfying than you may think if you've never tried it.  You can even make it more filling by adding garbanzo beans either whole to the soup or in the food processing phase which adds more fiber per serving. 



 ** I did a quick google search for lycopene and the fifth search result was Heinz.  Apparently Heinz realizes it is in everyone's best interest to appeal to the growing "green" market.  I think that's great.  While it does matter to me whether large corporations make these changes for profit or from pure philanthropic intent, the former is better than nothing, but it seems to me that deeper change would result from the latter.   I'm a little confused.  On the HeinzSeed page, it says that their proprietary tomato seeds are grown "using traditional breeding techniques (no genetic modification)".  However, on this site, it appears that Heinz is affiliated with Monsanto. 

Because there is not any regulation where genetically modified food must be labeled as such, whenever possible, I buy organic produce, I never buy conventional produce on the dirty dozen list, and when buying packaged foods, whenever possible, I buy organic, non-GMO and always read the ingredients and nutrition information.  For more about Monsanto, please watch The Future of Food for free on Hulu.  It is an eye opening documentary.  Also, check out this link for some information on why genetically modified foods may be dangerous.

See Dick Run

Just a short while ago, I got an email in response to one I'd sent to Dick a few days ago.  In an instant I went from the positive, happier place I've recently rediscovered, to feeling sick to my stomach, angry, shaky, resentful; yet longing for more contact with him.  If you have been following my blog for the last month or so, you're well aware that Dick has made me completely out of my mind crazy.  I began to wonder why there are those certain people that have such a drastic effect on you when the rest of the time it's not so hard to just go with the flow.

In my warm up classes for Integrative Nutrition, I've been introduced to the concept of food as secondary nutrition, where our fundamental or primary nourishment comes from other areas of our life such as relationship (both romantic and not), physical activity, career and spirituality.

If I may make an analogy..

Consider a person who is overweight because they eat a surplus of calories each day but (s)he is still hungry despite eating so much.  If this persons caloric intake consists of heavily processed (read: packaged) foods, it's pretty much guaranteed that they are not consuming the nutrients necessary from and available in whole foods that grow in their own 'packaging' and end up malnourished.  The person's body would naturally crave nutrition which could register as hunger and cause them to eat more and more of the food they're used to; processed and nutrient lacking foods, perpetuating the cycle of hunger, malnourishment, and excess weight.

For a short time I was replete with infatuation.  You've been there...  food no longer becomes necessary when you're deep into a new person.  When all of the sudden the "relationship" became hollow, I craved more and more of it in an effort to satiate myself, but it wasn't working.  When he tossed me crumbs, I scarfed them down but was left ravenous.  I craved him more and more the emptier our interaction became.  That's what happened just now.  I have been going about my life the last week finally feeling pretty happy most of the time and not thinking of him every moment of the day like I was or even every day for that matter... no more dreams of him either.  I felt free.  Then this email came through.  It contained the phrase "No hard feelings" (yeah, no shit..  I'm the one who got hurt,)  and all of the sudden I was transported back to that miserable place where I was craving more, knowing that no matter how much I obsess, it would never give me what I need.

I have no doubt that a couple days of 'out of sight, out of mind' and I'll forget even feeling this way tonight, but I found this insight helpful in avoiding judgment of myself for having those feelings.  It's not even about him even if it feels like it is.  I knew after my visits there that I would not have been happy and would have quickly moved on.  I need the physical stuff to be fiery, magnetic, passionate, communicative, fun; I need to feel like the other person can't get enough of me. You'd think with two scorpios it would've been super hot, but I guess the spark just wasn't enough to light the fire for him.  Whatev...  I've finally remembered that I am still a hot bitch!  (new & improved and now 18 pounds lighter.  what? I didn't tell you about that?  I will later, just remind me)  Still, it would've been nice to be in sunny California and for it to have been my choice to leave when I was ready instead of being hurt and not understanding what happened.  I've lived through worse and the hurt will fade with time.  I already feel better at the end of this post.  Thank you Jebus, my sense of humor survived.  I don't think I could live without it.

“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes.” - Ghandi

After several weeks slumped in deep dejection, I am starting to feel and act like myself again.  After sharing with some new people and gaining some new perspectives, I am starting to think that everyone has one person who shows up at such a time in their life and makes them absolutely crazy and act completely out of character.  I'm glad that mine has come and gone relatively quickly and now I can get on with my life.

Last week I enrolled in the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and am halfway through my warm up classes to prepare for the official start on May 3.  This first step has me feeling very excited and hopeful for the future of my work life.  This program feels like it was developed specifically for me and I wish I could express how amazing it feels to have discovered a potential way to integrate my passion for whole and preventative health with a career.  I know that this is an important landmark for me and am more passionate and enthusiastic about my future than I can ever remember being.

Not only can I feel this change in my attitude, but my behavior is indicative of a return to my higher self.  I have been taking care of my body again.  Granted, I was running while in my gloom, but it was purely to keep me from going over the proverbial edge.  I have returned to preparing meals for myself, going to bed at a somewhat decent hour, washing my face before bed...  I have begun to wake up renewed with gratitude instead of despair.  I have been working hard to surround myself with reminders to focus on these things and the life I intend to create rather than the things that are an illusion of the past or "lacking" in the present and I believe this is a big part of the return to the joyful person I knew that I was.  Thank you for not abandoning me in my time of crisis and negativity.  I did not intend to spread my misery, but I feel as though I did to a degree. 

I hope that many of you will follow me on my journey to becoming a Health Counselor.  Right now, this blog has become more about me than it has about soap and I don't know whether I want to compartmentalize and start a new blog or keep it all one for now.  I am contemplating starting a new blog on wordpress for my nutrition and health learnings and insights.  I encourage you to please share your thoughts and opinions on what you would prefer as visitors to this blog. 


 

Realignment

I realize I've completely abandoned posting about soap during the roller coaster that has been my personal life over the course of the past few months.  I originally started this blog as a way to integrate who I am with my soap and I'm sorry that my chaos has overrun the joint.  I am getting really sick of feeling down, but just can't seem to snap myself out of it lately.  As universal timing would have it, my mom sent me the Excuses Begone book & cd set from Dr. Wayne Dyer, which I started listening to yesterday.  Several months ago, I was introduced to the doc with The Power of Intention and found it quite enlightening.  I had taken to surrounding myself with reminders to think consciously, which somehow faded away and I fell back into old thinking patterns that landed me here.  So... I'm taking Bon Iver out of heavy rotation and putting Wayne in.  Who am I kidding, I'm listening to re:stacks right now... it's just so beautiful.

Even though I have been feeling sad and rejected as of late, I'm excited to have discovered something wonderful that I believe is my next step.  Over the last year, I've contemplated going back to school.  I mentioned that psychology has always interested me, but also, I considered becoming a registered dietitian, as nutrition as part of whole and preventative health is a big passion and fascination of mine.  During my research of the real world application of this type of education, I realized that I wasn't particularly thrilled with the idea of creating nursing home menus and checking meat temperatures with little or no freedom to help individuals feel their best through diet and individual care.  I am also interested in a progressive understanding of nutrition that advances with science and research.  Then, I discovered the Institute for Integrative Nutrition and it was like the heavens opened up and a light shone down.  This is exactly what I've been searching for.  The next distance learning program starts at the beginning of May, so it is my intention to enroll within the next two weeks.

I do not foresee closing up Sudstress shop, but I will have to slow down while I'm studying.  My love of soap remains, but it will have to be a part time love.  I will update you on where Sudstress is heading, but for now it's definitely staying in the wedding niche.  In fact, I need to go now so I can deliver 175 Sudstress favors for the BRIDES magazine event at the High Museum this Wednesday.  I love making cutie pies.