hopeful

Today was a busy, interesting day.  It started off with me going to the house of a childhood friend to get the ball rolling on this gluten free stuff.  I left her house with some emergency food, a cookbook, and a handwritten wealth of information from restaurants to what to do if I get "glutened".

I was so grateful to her, and it felt so good to feel like I was finally talking with someone who understood many of my symptoms and also my fears.  We even share the same phenomenon of how being pregnant makes our health improve dramatically.  This friend has severe Celiac disease, but could eat gluten just fine when she was pregnant, up until right before she weaned her baby (insert "Twilight Zone" music here).

After leaving, I decided to check out a nearby gluten free bakery, because if I am going to survive this I have got to be able to have something yummy to eat while everyone around me is feasting on yummy Easter goodies and even everyday treats.  How was the food?  I can't be too sure at this point, because I haven't tried anything else gluten free.  I didn't like my sandwich (but Wes ate it, so maybe I was overly picky), and I liked my broccoli soup - liked, not loved.  But I LOVED my chocolate cupcake!  And nothing about it tasted the least bit weird at all....this says a lot because I am seriously PARANOID of gluten free food tasting weird.  That cupcake gave me an even bigger glimmer of hope to add to the one I had received this morning.

On our way to visit Wes' cute Oma (one of my favorite people....more on that later), who lived in the area, I received an email on my phone from a recent acquaintance who wrote this cookbook.  She had just gotten home from an appointment with a practitioner who does something called, "Neuromodulation".  She was really excited because the practitioner told her he'd just wrapped up treatment with someone with thyroid autoimmunity that bounces back and forth between hypo and hyperthyroid, and he'd been able to completely reverse it.

How hopeful is that?

Throughout all my research, I have never, ever been told this could be reversed.  I have been told that once it gets under control, it is easier to keep it that way, or even make it almost undetectable, but that it would always be a part of my life.  Boy oh boy was it ever refreshing and uplifting to hear that there was even a chance at this going away at some point.  Wes has been telling me all along that I need to have more faith, that this won't be a permanent part of my life, but I have been thinking he is in denial and soon would come to accept the fact that it simply wasn't true. 

But maybe he is right. 

Either way, right now, that's what I feel like telling myself. 

Some days, I just feel like I am in someone else's body.  How can I be so sick when I work so hard at being heathy?  Will this be the new "me" for the rest of my life?  Regular doctor's appointments, the inability to function normally, in a constant state of pregnant-like fatigue, and insomnia and anxiety?  If so, how in the world do I begin to cope and adapt to this?  Where do I start, really?

Some days I feel like maybe things will get better.  I feel happy again.  I can almost function normally.  I get busy and do things.  Those days feel so good to me now, except when nighttime comes and I pay for it royally.  Those days I am somewhat feeling "normal" during the day, I must overdo it or something, because those nights are the worst.  When our piano came, I bustled around the house, doing laundry and rearranging furniture and playing with the boys.  That night, I was gasping and having severe heart palpitations until about 4:30 in the morning when I finally fell asleep. 

So right now, I want to believe that this vicious cycle is not what my Heavenly Father wants for me.  I have some good reasons for believing so, but I truly do not believe that the Lord would want me to be sick and low-functional for the rest of my life.  I believe that I wasn't living in a way He wanted me to when this all started, and that this has been a nudge (or even a shove) back to the more mellow, more peaceful, more meaningful life He wants me to lead.

Between the new way of eating (for now), this "Neuromodulation" thing, the NAET therapy I've been debating trying, and my appointment tomorrow with a new (and hopefully final) doctor, I feel like I have more options to sort through again.  Maybe it's a little setback in the sense that I was really hoping for tomorrow to be my last stop before coming to a decision.  And I really think I will know a lot more after tomorrow.  But I also don't think I would have considered these new options, or even some that I am currently in the process of moving forward on, if I didn't have to go through so much already.

So right now, I chose HOPE.  I will EMBRACE hope.  And faith.  Right now, it feels like the right thing to do.  So here's to HOPE.  :)