Alternative title: Fruit is Murder, and It’s Murdering Me Right in the Face of my Gut
I prayed to Pazuzu last night, leaving Him rich offerings of delicious Franco-Spanish food, white wine, and gourmet toffees. In other words, all kinds of food I would like to eat but can’t, because I am incredibly physically ill to the point where ingesting anything causes me a great deal of bodily anguish.
This was all in anticipation of an appointment I had the following day — today — with a new doctor about my ongoing illnesses, which no doctor had since been able to resolve in any lasting way for me. I humbly asked (“begged” is probably a more fitting word for it) Pazuzu to help this new doctor see what was wrong with me and get me on the path toward a better quality of life and a functional body. I’ve felt myself dying slowly for a few years now, and I am admittedly afraid to die. Especially slowly, like this.
Either it was dumb luck (probably), or Pazuzu had a rare moment of indulgence or pity. (And to interject with something tenuously-related, I saw a very large female treefrog standing amid blooming water lilies and her newly-hatched tadpoles before I went to see my new doctor. Whether it was or not, I liberally interpreted that as a good omen from Heket.)
This new doctor was amazing. Is amazing. AMAZING. She has both extensive medical and psychiatric training — which among Western doctors is exceedingly rare, and more medical doctors should have that comprehensive training (not to mention, a soul). She actually treated me like a human being rather than a dollar sign. I ended up talking about a lot of traumas I’ve packed away for years and years, and there was a lot of crying and watery emotion pouring out like blood from a stuck pig that I never expected to happen, but that’s part of the healing process. A good thing, I suppose. She knew exactly what my physical illnesses are when no other “professional” within the last 7 or 8 years could figure it out. And she knew how we need to go about correcting them so I can have my body and my life back. I never expected to see so much done in one day. I was expecting further disappointment and hopelessness, but I was pleasantly surprised.
Although, not much of the news I received is good news.
It turns out that the endoscopy I had conducted about 4 years ago that was stamped “normal” by my former Gastroenterologists was not, in fact, “normal” at all. I am suffering from adema of the gastrointestinal tract, along with “leaky gut syndrome,” chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), and a whole host of “evil tummy demons” too damaging and disgusting to describe here, resulting from 17 consecutive years of “hyper-adrenalization,” courtesy of unrelenting psycho-somatic trauma. In other words, I’ve been — for well over a decade — in a constant state of fight/flight, with no “rest and repair” mode saturated in dopamine to default to. Suffice it to say, I’m in a critical state of health. My adrenal glands are shot and my intestines are barely functional. I can’t digest properly, and can’t absorb nutrients properly. I’ve lost a lot of weight, particularly over the last 2 years, and my health has steeply declined over these last 7 or 8 years.
The first aspect of my treatment involves changing my diet gradually and completely. Fruit, fruit juices, and anything sugary are being factored out of my diet for the next several months to the next few years; I am facing a long convalescent period. My diet will consist of meat, green vegetables, and root vegetables. For the first phase, a lot of my intake will consist of meat/bone broths. From there, modest portions of solid greens and vegetables and meat will be gradually factored in. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to be difficult, but it’s what I have to do if I expect to recover. My doctor told me, “when you actually manage to force something down, your current diet wouldn’t normally be bad for you. If you were healthy, that is. But you’re not healthy, and what you’re living with isn’t normal. Those fruits you’re eating, any sugars you consume, they’re feeding what’s killing you.“
Outstanding.
The second and third aspects of my treatment/attainment of “cured!” status require consonant cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) sessions, and nixing all stressful stimuli, in order to cultivate a more wholesome environment for physical as well as psychological healing.
Which brings to me to my ultimate point: I will be on extended leave from all social networking activity for the bulk of the summer. I hope I have not disappointed anyone in not publishing the academic articles and pieces of non-academic literature I planned to publish by the end of this month and into next month. However, health must come first.
Depending upon the state of my health, I may be back in August. I may not be back until early 2014, since my husband will be returning from war this fall and undergoing surgery sometime shortly thereafter. I need to be well enough to take care of him as well as myself. I don’t know what the exact situation is yet. I do know that if and when I come back, I will come back with a decent fistful of academic articles to publish, after I publish the installments of “The Pazuzu Cycle.” If and when I have free time, I will be using that time to catch up on the reading/notation of sources I’ve recently acquired but have put on the proverbial back burner. I’ll also try to do some work in regard to myth-writing, but I won’t stress myself overmuch. Mostly, I will be sitting or doing yoga in front of my deity shrines when I have the energy, because that keeps the anxiety at bay.
Goodbye for now. I wish you all peace, fulfillment, and a sound mind in a healthy body.
