The adventure that led to the veggies adventure...

So to explain why I HAVE to eat all of these veggies requires going a few years back...In 2006 I had my gallbladder removed and I have not been the same since then. It must have been the trauma of the surgery that sent my body into a spiraling down hill battle of the question,"What the hell is wrong with me?" I could not seem to get any energy back what so ever and I just didn't feel right. I knew something else was wrong, it seemed like daily that a new symptom showed it's ugly head. Fatigue, muscle weakness and pain, twitching legs and hands, loss of balance and memory, numbness in parts of my face...all in all I felt like I was losing my mind and was dying.

After having a lot of blood work done and nothing showing up besides Epstein Barr, we resorted to MRI's. I was sent to a neurologist at Baptist Hospital at Wake Forest that specialized in Multiple Sclerosis. After all, I had all the symptoms of MS and the concern of possible ALS (Lou Gerhig's) was there too. This supposed great doctor told me to lose weight, yep that's right, like me dropping 30lbs was going to cure me. Another fine symptom was weight gain, even though I had no appetite and ate very little. So here I drove 3 hours to see this doctor and spent god knows how much for him to say, "Lose weight." So not only was I disappointed at the fact that he had no clue what was wrong with me, he also pretty much told me to go home and call Jenny Craig.

Once again months of doctors visits and different meds, none of with were helping, and most were causing every side effect possible.Tthe same blood tests were being drawn and finally, finally, my regular doctor noticed a huge difference in my T4 levels. My thyroid was on the very edge of completely crashing. He sent me to an Endocrinologist and we began the process of figuring EXACTLY what was going on with my thyroid. First off my T4 was nonexistent, which had the doc scratching his head because he had never encountered that in all of his years of practicing medicine. So to understand why that was he sent me for a few different tests. One was an ultrasound that determined that I had a goiter and two nodules on my thyroid,another was the thyroid uptake test. They shoot you up with radioactive dye (which terrified me, like I didn't have enough going on without being radioactive too) depending on how my thyroid responded to the dye determined one of two things..hypothyroidism (low functioning) or Hashimotos (Autoimmune low functioning) Of course I have the more evil of the two. From this test I was sent to have a needle aspiration biopsy done to make sure that the nodules were not cancerous. That came back negative so now it was time to prescribe meds. Synthroid was the poison of choice, and I guess I really shouldn't call it that considering it has helped me tremendously. Oh, I think that I failed to mention that during these few hellish years I turned into the devil herself! I had become someone that I no longer knew, nor did my family. Once the Synthroid got in my system I was becoming myself again and finally one day my sister said,"It's so nice to have my sister back." A lot of the symptoms were dissipating, but I was short of breath and I hurt from head to toe and was bloated constantly and I could hardly stay awake. I even went as far as doing a sleep study and taking Provigil which is given to Narcoleptic's, hoping to be bouncing off the walls for a change. It made me sick to my stomach and helped only a small bit. Long and short, no herbs that I tried or meds could fix me.

I wound up at the Rheumatologist and was diagnosed with Ankylosing Spondylitis, well that explained the body pain, but not the bloating and feeling full all of the time. We tried different meds and the last one, I thought caused me to itch uncontrollably and when I would scratch huge welts would appear. I stopped the meds and still the itching continued. I then started paying attention to my food...this is how the veggies came about. It was a gluten intolerant and an allergy to MSG's and additives and with the AS red meat aggravates that. Over the past 5 months it has been a process of trial and elimination. I have tried and eliminated everything that tastes good pretty much. I am left with veggies! The bloating and muscle pain and fatigue are gone, well almost completely gone. I guess if it isn't fresh and organic it isn't going in my mouth...