Today one of my closest friends posted this wonderful article on “ring theory”.  It better describes what I was trying to say in my recent post “Losing my voice“.  It discusses creating a ring for a person suffering from illness, or trauma, and then adding progressive rings around it, with their family, friends, and caregivers in increasingly outer rings.  The idea is a way for people to provide help to those in lower rings and seek help from those in outer rings.  (Dump out, Comfort In.)  I think this analysis is beautiful, because it acknowledges the difficulties faced by all people in an ill person’s life.  They have the illness to contend with, the guilt caused by the effect that illness has on everyone in their lives, and often only enough energy to try to care for the people in their immediate circle, usually their partner and children.  The partner has the role of caring for the ill person and picking up the slack that person drops in caring for their finances, house, children, etc.  Further, the partner often has to deal with concerns of friends and family who don’t want to burden the ill person, but still want comfort.

The article is powerful to me because it acknowledges that seeking comfort when someone we care about is ill is important, but points out that seeking it from others who aren’t as close or closer to the ill person than you may be better for everyone.  I call it a must read.

Now onto other things…

This week I started the Paleo diet at the suggestion of a friend.  She was kind enough to send me a book, Practical Paleo, after reading my headache whiny posts and feeling for me.  This is exactly the type of help I welcome.  She not only showed me her love for me by thinking about me, but she provided me with the materials I needed to learn about controlling my own health issues using diet.  I have been too low on spoons to parent, work, exercise, and devote a lot of time to researching my own health issues.  I try to look into all the things my family and friends lovingly suggest, but usually when I get to the point of the day when I have the time, I lie down and go to sleep.

However, when Marie sent me the book, I didn’t have to do anything other than read it.  I placed it next to my bed, so when I awoke randomly in the middle of the night I could read it while I waited to fall back asleep.  By the end of the week I had read the philosophy behind the diet and I have to admit, it makes sense to me.  So I started the diet.

It’s day four.  I find it intriguing that I don’t have a headache now, and I haven’t had one for two days.  I am off all medications.

The author wrote something that really stuck with me.  She said that we all turn to medicine to solve our health issues, but we don’t realize that we control the majority of what we put in to our bodies, and therefore we control our health.  For the first time in years I feel like I am in control again.  I feel as though I have a choice in my own health, and that I am not simply going from doctor to doctor, diagnosis to diagnosis.

For the first time in years I have hope.

Every night before I go to sleep I sit down on the carpet next to my bed and I pull out my box of medications.  It is not a small box.  I rifle through pain killers, NSAIDS, beta-blockers, calcium receptor blockers, vaso-dialators, vaso-constrictors, muscle relaxants, estrogen, you name it.  It has been years since I didn’t have a handful of pills to take at night.

Earlier this week I ended up at the ER due to drug interactions.  There were two samples I had been given that weren’t supposed to be taken within 24 hours of each other. They are highly similar medications, so I basically OD’d on migraine treatments.  I have spent the rest of the week feeling like I have the flu as my body processed out the toxins. That got me thinking. What strange chemical soup do I have going on in my body anyway? Should I be on medications non-stop for the rest of my life? Given half lives of medications and drug interactions and nasty side effects, should I be throwing a bunch of samples into the mix?

My lovely trip to the ER and the several hour freak out about overdose or allergic reaction has lit within me the urge to go off of everything, start an elimination diet, and just get myself back to a blank slate.  I have no idea if the migraines I have now are so much worse because they naturally would have been that way, or if it is because I am a mind-boggling concoction of chemical additives.
It’s funny though.  This decision feels gut-level right but already my evil self is coming up with reasons why I should delay it, or not do it at all.

It’s nearly the holiday season, Evil Me says, you don’t want to feel left out during Thanksgiving, or Christmas! Think about how awful it will be to pass up the goodies!!

You have to take the estrogen, failing to do so will cause your bones to turn to dust and your chin to erupt in rivers of hair.

You will have to give up chocolate at the same time you stop taking your HRT’s. No one is stupid enough to do that. (Not even you, stupid).

Evil Me likes the idea of candy and not having hot flashes and being able to eat somewhat “normally”.  However, Evil Me is an idiot.  She also thinks it’s a good idea to put off chores, buy shoes she doesn’t need, and have that second serving of ice cream.  She would probably also be tempted to run off to Vegas with no notice, leaving the children in the care of my long suffering parents.

The books I have been reading indicate I should, at least, get off of refined sugars.  A fabulous new book I have been gifted suggests getting off of all grains, refined foods and sugars.  As sugar, chocolate especially, has long been linked with migraines, perhaps now is the time to go through with the elimination and reintroduction process.  Perhaps I can solve my health problems with a clean slate and close attention to trigger foods instead of using medications that make me ill and cost the earth.

It can’t be any harder than what I am currently doing.