Story-Time Tuesday - If Good Health was Easy...

I'm making myself write this story.   Partly because my Naturopathic Doctor just published a very interesting book and I want to share it with you.   Partly because I'm pushing myself to write more.   And partly because I think this story might be YOUR story.  And sometimes reading makes pain hurt a tiny bit less.  This story will be pretty candid...I'm not attempting 'the glass half full' philosophy here.  I know it could be worse. 

I'm using the Story-Time Tuesday format for this and each week I will be doing a giveaway for "A Different Kind of Medical Care" but Dr. Tina Marcantel. 

You can read about this book by clicking here.

Giveaway Information:   Enter to win a copy on this post today or you can purchase at that link.   10% discount code is 'healthy1'.

I will have Mr. Jenny select a random number from all the comments on this post.   Feel free to enter any time before Monday.

Winner will be announced next Tuesday along with the continuing story.  Autographed book will be mailed out on Wednesday!

The winner of last weeks book is this comment:

Ms. Asaid...

So many of these symptoms sound exactly like what happened to me, when I was on medications that my body couldn't seem to process like it was intended to do!

November 20, 2012 2:18 PM

Congratulations, Ms. A!   If you could e-mail your snail mail address (jennymatlock at cox dot net with the words BOOK GIVEAWAY) and I'll get the book out to you  before Friday! 

 

PART FIVE - IF GOOD HEALTH WAS EASY, EVERYBODY WOULD HAVE IT!

Within a few days we were at the new doctor’s office.

 

I had been physically sick with anxiety in the hours leading up to the appointment.

 

“Will she help me? Will she hurt me? Will this just be a dead end? What’s the point?”

 

Unanswered questions that tumbled in chaotic repetition through my pain-pill addled brain.

 

When we were kid’s we learned fire safety as, ‘Stop! Drop! And Roll!’ During especially severe pelvic and leg bone cramps, I would mutter that to myself as a distraction. The bone cramps did that to me. Literally. The attacks would be so sudden and so intense that I would stop whatever I was doing, drop whatever was in my hand and drop to the floor where I would writhe and roll about in pain trying not to scream. I didn’t always succeed in the not screaming part…especially awkward while in public or in close confines such as a car.

 

My poor husband would turn pale, try to rub my head while I shoved his hand away, get me cold washcloths or whatever he thought might help. Nothing ever did. Usually partway through the bone cramps my heart arrhythmia would get involved and by then I’d be praying that a heart attack would kill me.

On the way to the doctor’s office for that first appointment, I had an especially horrid cramp in my pelvic bones. By the time we got there it had subsided, but I was left shaky and weepy and sweaty. My skin was a lovely, flattering greyish green and my clothes were damp and wrinkled.

During those months I could not get in or out of the car unassisted. Mr. Jenny helped me out and then helped me walk inside. I was in my early 50's but I felt like I was 95. And NOT a young 95! I was shaking with exhaustion by the time we traversed the short distance to the office door.

Mr. Jenny helped me sit on a long, plush couch. I closed my eyes and just cried while he checked me in.

 

I didn’t look around. I just sat there hoping to die.

 

“She’s not gonna help me, she’s just gonna hurt me more,” I whispered to

He hushed me.

 

If you know anything about me, the fact that I easily followed his direction is an indicator of how badly I felt at that moment.

 

A woman’s voice called my name a short time later.

 

I cried harder when Mr. Jenny helped me to my feet.

 

I hobbled the short hallway back to the exam room and sank into the chair.

 

I can tell you today, years later, what the doctor looks like and what her offices are like, but that day all I could truly do is sit in the chair, crying. I was hopeless, helpless, broken.

 

Mr. Jenny and I have talked about that visit many times. To be honest, I don’t remember much of it. I had done all the paperwork prior to the visit from home and answered a multitude of questions.

The only thing I recall clearly is looking into the very kind golden-brown eyes of the doctor and feeling afraid.

 

She felt like my last hope.

 

That probably sounds dramatic. It probably IS dramatic, but I was truly at the point where I couldn’t keep living as I had been. I wasn’t sitting around thinking…hmmmm…pills or razor blades. I was just praying to die…in a passive way…that wouldn’t make my family feel bad…and wouldn’t actually hurt me.

The Doctor asked a few questions and then left the room. She came back a short time later with a large glass filled with some milky liquid. “Magnesium,” she said before we could ask the question.

“Let’s start with the magnesium and potassium. Let’s get your heart issues and the bone cramps under control.”

We left her office over an hour and a half later with a big shopping bag filled with at least twelve different bottles of supplements and support potions. The bag also contained a flat blue box filled with small empty vials for saliva testing, an order for precise blood work, and a diet listing specific foods and where to buy them.

Once all the testing came back, we would jointly develop a plan to improve the quality of my life.

 

I don’t remember this first hand. I remember the kind eyes, crying in the office and drinking the milky liquid.

 

My husband tells me that during the exam he learned my blood pressure was quite low, I had extreme dryness in my ear canals, that my heart arrhythmia was quite possibly caused by hormone depletion leading to marked magnesium/potassium deficiency. She told my husband that many of the problems I currently had were decades old. She talked about estrogen imbalance and cortisol production, and yeast overgrowth (okay, this is probably way TMI but yeast overgrowth is not necessarily yeast infections. I had never had one of these infections in my life) caused by the surgeries, illnesses and related antibiotics over the years.

 

While we were waiting for the tests to come in, I was to follow an extremely limited diet (Candida diet), take all the supplements EXACTLY as ordered, minimize and try to eliminate the use of narcotic painkillers and I was supposed to rest, rest, rest.

 

She told my husband which supplements might help with the bone cramps, which support mixtures would probably make me feel sicker before they made me feel better, and gave him multiple pages of instructions.

 

I’m sure if I had been able to look beyond my own suffering, I would have seen a scared, bewildered husband. It makes me sad to this day to think of all he suffered with my health issues.

 

We went home and organized all the bottles on the kitchen counter.

 

We read the saliva testing instructions together.

 

Mr. Jenny scheduled the blood tests and went to the store.

 

I lay on the couch waiting for the next bone cramp attack and for the arrhythmia to start up again.

 

TO BE CONTINUED NEXT TUESDAY

Part one - linked here.

Part two - linked here.
Part three - linked here.
Part four - linked here.

PLEASE READ BOOK GIVEAWAY INFORMATION AT THE TOP OF THIS POST.