My Gluten-free World...

I woke up this morning in a lot of pain. I'd put it at about a 6.7 on a scale of 1-10. I had promised my doc that if anything changed I'd give her a call ASAP, so I limped over to the phone and called her. She told me to come in as soon as I could. I hopped in the shower as my anxiety slowly started to rise.

Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing except good news. It turns out that my 8.5cm x 5cm cyst is now a beautiful 1.5cm X 1cm cyst. My doc seems to think that it's leaking some, and the leakage is what's causing me pain. But at the moment it looks like I won't have to get it surgically removed, and it'll disappear on it's own.

The first thought that came to mind when she told me this was "WAHOOOOOO!!!!".

She also gave me the okay to return back to work, and to start running. So since I'm finally able to keep solid foods down I am going to designate today as the first day of my 30 days of gluten-free diet. This is the first actual "diet" I have ever placed myself on, so I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

My main goal for doing 30 days of good-bye gluten is to see if it helps with my joint pain. I have this feeling it well, because after my almost two-week long episode of clearing out my intestines, I feel 100% fine. I'm not sure why. But I have this gut feeling that it's due to food. I haven't had any foods with gluten in them since I got sick, with the exception of 3 crackers. So I'm going to go with the flow and see what happens.

I'm also going to start my running plan sometime this week. Probably Sunday evening after I get off work if I'm feeling up to it.

The Life of the Bulimic

First off, no I am not a bulimic. I love to eat, and I despise puking. I try my best to avoid it at all costs. Unfortunately, it seems to not want to leave me alone lately. It's following me around like great aunts do at family reunions trying to pinch your cheeks. It just won't go away.

I've had to place my running aside, simply due to being so ill. The doctor's still are not sure as to what is causing my nausea and vomiting. There's a few theories out there. One being that I have a virus. The other that this is my body's way of dealing with the pain from an orange sized cyst that is in on my ovary.

Thankfully, even though the cyst is extremely large, I don't feel very much pain. It's more of this dull ache you get whenever you press against a deep bruise. Either my pain tolerance is much higher than I realized, or my God is keeping me from feeling the pain.

I started feeling sick 11 days ago. I wasn't able to keep even water down 5 days ago. Landed myself in the hospital 4 days ago with severe dehydration. They loaded me up with IVs. And may I just point out that it was one of the most painful experiences I have ever endured in my lifetime. It took them three tries and two nurses to get that stupid needle into my vein. Apparently it's rather difficult when the person has been puking non-stop, and hasn't drank water in over 24 hours. Whoops.

They ruled out a lot of stuff--gall bladder, etc. but still were not able to find the root of the problem. They told me to follow-up with my doctor on Monday (two days later). So, I stayed at my parent's house and basically puked non-stop for two straight days.

My family doctor put me on a water-only diet for 24 hours. He told me that I could add popsicles to that diet the next day. Then the third day I could start the BRAT diet (Bananas, rice, apple sauce, toast). I am on the third day.

However, the BRAT diet does not seem to be agreeing with my good ol' tummy at the moment. My fever broke a few days ago, so I'm assuming it's just my body's way of dealing with the pain from the cyst.

But that's where I am now. Still trying to keep a positive outlook on the whole situation. My doc doesn't know for sure whether or not my cyst is cancerous, so we're all in limbo at the moment. She decided to wait for 4 weeks and do more testing to determine if it's changed in size. She told me if it gets bigger, or stays the same size, they are going to remove it. But if it gets smaller, then I'll be able to go on with life without any operations.

Right now I'm praying it disappears within the next 4 weeks. I'm ready to have my energy back, and look forward to the day I can chow down on well-done steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans. Yum.

I realized I haven't blogged in a while. I have recently found myself with extraordinary amounts of free time, due to a reoccurring high fever that just won't leave me alone.

I started running a fever Saturday, and can't seem to get rid of it. I went to the doctor's Monday and was diagnosed with strep. I got some medicine, took it faithfully, and....still have a high fever. Yesterday was the worst, it got all the way up to 103.8!

Needless to say, I am starting to go stir-crazy. I haven't really left the house from fear of passing my germs to some poor, innocent, kid who doesn't deserve to be sick. I would rather be selfish with my germs and not share them with poor little Billy Bob who is 5 years old.

All of this extra time has allowed me to reach a few conclusions. The first being that I am going to put myself on the same running plan I did 2 years ago when I first started running. It worked then, so I see no reason why it would not work now.

When I had first started running, I asked around to see what a good running plan would be for someone who hadn't really ran before. Everyone I talked to seemed to point to something that was called "From Couch Potato to 5K Runner's Plan".



I highly suggest this plan to anyone who wants to get into running. It works.

The second decision that I have made, is that I am going to put myself on a gluten-free diet for 30 days to see if it helps control my Lupus at all. I plan to start this diet as soon as I can go a full 24 hours without a fever. Which hopefully is soon.

Anyways, it's time for my nap. Have a wonderful day!

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable...

Yesterday I went to a Support Group for Lupus and Arthritis. Yeah, that was HUGE mistake. It turned out to be a 3 hour long "woe is me" complaining session. Definitely not what I was looking for. I sat next to this old lady who looked over at me and said, "Awww. You poor thing! You're so young! You should just commit suicide, hunny. It's the best thing for you. There's no way you'll be able to handle the pain for the rest of your life. Just go ahead and get it over with. I wish I would have done that when I was younger." No lie. It's what that lady told me.

I was fuming by the time I left. The word "mad" does not even begin to describe how I felt. I called a couple of my friends and complained to them about how awful this "support" group was. Some support group...telling me to kill myself. Humph.

But then as I was talking to my best friend, I got to thinking, here I am complaining about a whole bunch of complainers. That would make me a hypocrite wouldn't it?

But I have reached the conclusion that in order to live with something like Lupus, something that causes you chronic pain is to "Get comfortable being uncomfortable".

That's the saying I lived by when I trained for my half-marathon. There were days that I woke up sore, thinking that I would never be able to run 13 miles. But I kept my eyes on the finish line. I wrote that saying down, and taped it above my training calender. I looked at it every morning when I got up, and every night before I went to bed.

Running 13 miles was anything but easy. It was hard. It was a major time commitment. I was on a strict schedule, and I didn't get to hang out with my friends or family as often as I would have liked. But ya know what? I don't regret it at all. In fact, I'm really contemplating doing another half-marathon.

That is the saying I'm going to start living by, cause all I need to do is "get comfortable being uncomfortable". I don't want to live the rest of my life popping pain medicine, and I don't want to become an addict. After all, I am only 21 years old with a life full of surprised ahead of me. All this Lupus thing is, is just another obstacle for me to overcome. I've overcome many in my lifetime, and I am sure there will be many more to come.

Am I a dumb blonde, or is it memory loss?

So funny story...

I went grocery shopping a couple weeks ago (a week or so after being put on Plaquenil) and bought close to 50 dollars worth of groceries. I had been having so many problems with fatigue and painful knees that I just had not felt up to shopping before then. I definitely was down to the bare-necessities. I somehow managed to leave all of my bags of groceries there, with the exception of two bags...

I didn't realize it until I arrived home, and started unpacking my groceries. I searched my whole entire car wondering where the rest of my food was. Lol. I felt like an idiot when I called the store back asking if the bags were there. At least he Customer Service lady was nice.

I went back to the store, got my bags, and went home. It was once I arrived at home that I realized that I had left my wallet at the Customer Service desk. *sigh* So I went back to the store for a third time, only to leave my car keys at the Service desk.

Needless to say, this has been happening to be very frequently lately. I have went from having the memory of an elephant to having problems remembering where I am supposed to be two hours from now.

I went to my doc and told him about this whole thing. Apparently this could either be Lupus causing my memory loss, or the Plaquenil. He took me off the medicine for two weeks to find out which one was the culprit.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm hoping it's the Plaquenil. THAT is easily fixed. If Lupus is causing this, then I'm going to be senile at the age of 21. Awesome.

Anyways, I'll keep ya'll posted.