I can't believe it's been 2 years!
Where did all that time go? Oh, yeah, I know....I was sick: in bed and nothing going on in my head. Thank you Lyme's Disease for that lesson in empathy and & suckiness that is old age. The really amazing part is that I was walking w/ a cane on and off for a year and a half before I was even diagnosed. I was on antibiotics and antimalarials for a year and a half.....I still have migraines from time to time, but thankfully my knee pain is mostly eradicated.
The last two years are so HAZY though...It only seems like a couple months have gone by, yet logically I know it hasn't been that short of time b/c I've had two Halloween Parties and one that didn't happen. There have been 2 Drink Oympics and graduations for friends while I sat by & watched and waived and wished them luck. It's like I've been stuck in some sort of sub-space distortion where time is different & I exit it for a few hours at a time and then reappaer days, weeks, or even months later for a few hours of another event. For a man who up until these past two years remembered everything with a clarity of thought and mind that I could paint a mental picture of any event for you, to have that kind of swiss cheese memory for a such a period of time is really infuriating. Not to mention I've been having trouble remembering things that happened directly before that, like necessary Geology info that I have to painfully re-learn to drudge it back out of the depths and form new pathways in my brain to reach that info that's still in there.
But I guess that the most difficult part is trying to move on with life and relationships. I can't remember a lot of what happened in the last 2 years. Some, I can w/ some promptings from a person's story or an object (my memory tools, as always), but some just seem to be gone. Mayhaps they will return over time as I rebuild brain pathways, but maybe not. And of course the only things I significantly remember are things that were very traumatic, and often negative in nature...profound psycho-trauma events that have tons of emotional passion linked to them. It makes it hard to put both the good and bad of a relationship into perspective when all you remember w/ your old clarity are really bad things, lots of things are fuzzy, both good and bad, and some's just gone. When the Lyme came out of my joints and attacked me, it really did a number, that's for sure. I know I was in bed for 23hrs. a day for a least a month and a half....yet that seems like 2 maybe 3 days in my mind. See how crazy this was with my internal memory clock? Ughh...
Anyway....I'm thankful I'm better! Enough with that rant, it's all anyone wants to talk about when they see me for the last 2 years...
Mostly I'm better than ever thanks to a change in not just my diet, but my lifestyle. I've embraced a more pH oriented style of living and it's really helped. I eat soooo many more vegetables and occasionally fish and lots of cold pressed olive oil....mmmm....Monounsaturated Long Chain Fatty acids.....yum! I used to eat so much meat. As some of you may know, I was on the Atkins diet hardcore for a year an a half (that seems to be a re-occuring time interval here) in high school and well, I never really cut back on my meat and cheese intake until in the last 5 to 8 months or so....But since August I've been really incorporating this pH stuff into my diet (but I started gradually in like late may/early june...this kind of a change takes a while) At first, I was like "Food Combining! Oh, no! But if I can't have meat and bread together, how can I eat a sandwich?! or pizza?!" haha - Well the answer was, I could, if there's no meat on it....& I was like "what?! no meat!" . But yes, I started eating more salads, that way I could eat meat, & only having sandwiches with veggies. Eventually I discovered new ways of eating and cooking & found there are so many other options than meat that I'd never really been aware of prior to this. So, you might be wondering if I'm mad and have gone vegetarian then....and the answer is no....If you would insist on giving me a label, it would be pescatarian, because I do eat fish on a regular basis, but I don't consider myself that either. It's not a diet, it's not an identity....it's just a more pH balanced "lifestyle" that focuses on eating more alkaline or basic foods and less acidic ones (in addition to food combining). If I felt like having a burger, i wouldn't stop myself, but I just haven't felt like having Red Meat since Agusut. I have 2 brautwurst, i McDonald's Double Cheeseburger, and 1 lamb burger since then...and I had some steak on a salad twice...otherwise just vegetables with some fish and bread thrown in....I've drastically reduced my cheese intake too...I'll have some pepperjack on a sandwich every now a then and fresh mozerrella and fresh goat cheese on a veggie pizza or paired with some vegetables, but that's really it. I used to go through 2 to 5 lbs. a cheese a week.... Now I don't think I've gone through half of that since August.
I first heard about the concept from Tony Robbins & I admit I was resistant to it at first. When my mom got his green drink, I wasn't too enthusiastic, but I tried it...it wasn't bad, but it didn't taste great & that's where I left it, but I came back to him & his concept some 8 months or so later and reviewed it again....and then I reviewed Dr. Robert Young and his book the pH Miracle...I got half way through the book and I was already determined to try and see if it worked for myself and let that be the judge like Tony Robbins said. I did. It's been splendid for me. I feel so much better. I have more energy, It's easier to think again. I get less migraines. And as an added bonus I lost all that weight I gained from being bedridden with Lyme's Disease. I've dropped by down from 225 lbs. back down to 183 lbs. which I haven't been since early 2008. I'm still losing weight, I'm still getting stronger, and I'm still gaining more energy...'tis truly amazing to me. The alkalinity focus really does help. And with my personal belief of "Nothing too much" (like the greeks said), by gradual implementation has really worked for me. I got Juliann to try it as well and it's worked for her too....(though of course, she has a way of taking some things too far and others not really at all, but I'm sure she will figure out what's best for her). I got my mom on it as well back in Auaugst (she was the first I converted - haha, I don't really like using that term, it has reliegious implications I'm not really trying to convey here). She's lost a ton of weight and I even got her to stop drinking coffee (and then she really lost weight). I'll tell you something: Even if you do nothing else, stop drinking coffee and soda & your whole life will change for the better. Both are highly acidic and non-hydrating. Drink water instead or fruit juice on an empty stomach. Coffee held my mom back from her personal goals for years and now she is free. It's not to say you can't have something on occasion, but no one would say that only drinking beer would be a wise thing to do, yet so many people do it w/ coffee and soda. Hydrate. Drink a couple liters of water a day and you'll feel so much better. I mean caffeine is a neuro-toxin (I don't think I spelled that right, I'm writing on a blutooth keyboard from across the room and can't really see the screen that well and just typing while I'm thinking here, so excuse the misspellings) and that's why you get that rush of energy, as your body speds up to flush it out, also why soda and especially coffee are diarhetics (wow....okay moake you go to the bathroom a lot).
Anyway, now I'm 23, almost 24 and I'm back....not totally, but SO much better than I was. This experience has given me so much to look back on and think about though. I feel like I have a lot more empathy for people now. People my age just don't understand what old age is like or what sickness is really like or forgetfulness. I had friends just accuse me of being lazy or a bum...no one understood. There's no awareness out there of Lyme's Disease, everyone just thinks if you get bit by a tick, you're all good with a few antibiotics from the doctor for three weeks. Well maybe if you're lucky enough to catch it early b/c you see the bull's eye target on your leg or something. But they think I first got it in 2005 and then maybe was re-infected again in 2007 or 2008, which would account for how tired I'd always been and then how much worst that tiredness became. For awhile there, I really thought I was a goner, but thank's to God, my old piedetrician, some open-minded doctors (and I should probably mention intelligent enough to test for it, instead of just keep testing for mono and aids, neither of which I had, despite repeated tests for it, thank God again) and the change in my diet and lifestyle, I feel like I have my old life back again. I'm not 100%, but I haven't felt this good since high school and I'm thankful I get another chance at life, although I am kind of sad I was held up for so long...I feel lkind of like I missed being 21 & 22....I had just a brief taste of wild and crazy times and experimentation and then puff I was sick. And although I tried to keep up w/ everyone, it seemed the only thing I could keep up w/ was drinking (at least when I was awake enough for it) b/c all those lil yeast that went out of control inside my body were yammering for more beer (since my immune system was busy fighting the lyme orgainism and unable to check them (that is also coincidentally what prompted all the weight gain) (and on that note, going glueten free totally is really hard, just look in the aasle in Wegmans, which by far has the biggest one of all....it's only like half an aisle on one side of like a 3 aisle section, it's so small in that big store w/ everything.....Doctors recommended doing that, I tried, had failed, the pH approach is so much easier to maintain and gets better results))).
On another note, my Dad died in late June of 2006. My Mom has been widowed for some time now. She just started dating this new man John in August. He asked her to marry him and she said yes (I guess this was late October). I finally met him a few weeks ago....he's pretty nice, but it's still really weird. She's spent almost every weekend w/ him. It's weird, things aren't awkward when he's around, but just sometimes when he's not, but she's talking about him...I don't know, maybe it's just me getting used to the idea of it that's awkward. Anyway, my Mom has been lonely for a long time and she seems genuinely happy and that's a good thing. I want her to be happy, so I'll do what I can to support her & he better treat her right or I'll have something to say about it *nods*
I do miss my Dad and his advice in times like this though....
I think I'll go have some water and maybe a beer w/ dinner b/c I feel like it! I deserve one after this much writing - geeze it's like I'm back in hgih school again....writing hours and hours in this stupid thing....well at least it's not the blurty account. =P I wrote a poem in my dj as well, go check it out....it's sufficiently stupid for having just been written on the spur of the moment in 4 min.
Time to cook dinner, listen to Xmas Music and Watch some more STAR TREK!!!!
G'Night Neverland!
~Lee
PS: just watched hook again over the weekend b/c it was on TV, go watch it, it's fun! *crows like Pan*
The last two years are so HAZY though...It only seems like a couple months have gone by, yet logically I know it hasn't been that short of time b/c I've had two Halloween Parties and one that didn't happen. There have been 2 Drink Oympics and graduations for friends while I sat by & watched and waived and wished them luck. It's like I've been stuck in some sort of sub-space distortion where time is different & I exit it for a few hours at a time and then reappaer days, weeks, or even months later for a few hours of another event. For a man who up until these past two years remembered everything with a clarity of thought and mind that I could paint a mental picture of any event for you, to have that kind of swiss cheese memory for a such a period of time is really infuriating. Not to mention I've been having trouble remembering things that happened directly before that, like necessary Geology info that I have to painfully re-learn to drudge it back out of the depths and form new pathways in my brain to reach that info that's still in there.
But I guess that the most difficult part is trying to move on with life and relationships. I can't remember a lot of what happened in the last 2 years. Some, I can w/ some promptings from a person's story or an object (my memory tools, as always), but some just seem to be gone. Mayhaps they will return over time as I rebuild brain pathways, but maybe not. And of course the only things I significantly remember are things that were very traumatic, and often negative in nature...profound psycho-trauma events that have tons of emotional passion linked to them. It makes it hard to put both the good and bad of a relationship into perspective when all you remember w/ your old clarity are really bad things, lots of things are fuzzy, both good and bad, and some's just gone. When the Lyme came out of my joints and attacked me, it really did a number, that's for sure. I know I was in bed for 23hrs. a day for a least a month and a half....yet that seems like 2 maybe 3 days in my mind. See how crazy this was with my internal memory clock? Ughh...
Anyway....I'm thankful I'm better! Enough with that rant, it's all anyone wants to talk about when they see me for the last 2 years...
Mostly I'm better than ever thanks to a change in not just my diet, but my lifestyle. I've embraced a more pH oriented style of living and it's really helped. I eat soooo many more vegetables and occasionally fish and lots of cold pressed olive oil....mmmm....Monounsaturated Long Chain Fatty acids.....yum! I used to eat so much meat. As some of you may know, I was on the Atkins diet hardcore for a year an a half (that seems to be a re-occuring time interval here) in high school and well, I never really cut back on my meat and cheese intake until in the last 5 to 8 months or so....But since August I've been really incorporating this pH stuff into my diet (but I started gradually in like late may/early june...this kind of a change takes a while) At first, I was like "Food Combining! Oh, no! But if I can't have meat and bread together, how can I eat a sandwich?! or pizza?!" haha - Well the answer was, I could, if there's no meat on it....& I was like "what?! no meat!" . But yes, I started eating more salads, that way I could eat meat, & only having sandwiches with veggies. Eventually I discovered new ways of eating and cooking & found there are so many other options than meat that I'd never really been aware of prior to this. So, you might be wondering if I'm mad and have gone vegetarian then....and the answer is no....If you would insist on giving me a label, it would be pescatarian, because I do eat fish on a regular basis, but I don't consider myself that either. It's not a diet, it's not an identity....it's just a more pH balanced "lifestyle" that focuses on eating more alkaline or basic foods and less acidic ones (in addition to food combining). If I felt like having a burger, i wouldn't stop myself, but I just haven't felt like having Red Meat since Agusut. I have 2 brautwurst, i McDonald's Double Cheeseburger, and 1 lamb burger since then...and I had some steak on a salad twice...otherwise just vegetables with some fish and bread thrown in....I've drastically reduced my cheese intake too...I'll have some pepperjack on a sandwich every now a then and fresh mozerrella and fresh goat cheese on a veggie pizza or paired with some vegetables, but that's really it. I used to go through 2 to 5 lbs. a cheese a week.... Now I don't think I've gone through half of that since August.
I first heard about the concept from Tony Robbins & I admit I was resistant to it at first. When my mom got his green drink, I wasn't too enthusiastic, but I tried it...it wasn't bad, but it didn't taste great & that's where I left it, but I came back to him & his concept some 8 months or so later and reviewed it again....and then I reviewed Dr. Robert Young and his book the pH Miracle...I got half way through the book and I was already determined to try and see if it worked for myself and let that be the judge like Tony Robbins said. I did. It's been splendid for me. I feel so much better. I have more energy, It's easier to think again. I get less migraines. And as an added bonus I lost all that weight I gained from being bedridden with Lyme's Disease. I've dropped by down from 225 lbs. back down to 183 lbs. which I haven't been since early 2008. I'm still losing weight, I'm still getting stronger, and I'm still gaining more energy...'tis truly amazing to me. The alkalinity focus really does help. And with my personal belief of "Nothing too much" (like the greeks said), by gradual implementation has really worked for me. I got Juliann to try it as well and it's worked for her too....(though of course, she has a way of taking some things too far and others not really at all, but I'm sure she will figure out what's best for her). I got my mom on it as well back in Auaugst (she was the first I converted - haha, I don't really like using that term, it has reliegious implications I'm not really trying to convey here). She's lost a ton of weight and I even got her to stop drinking coffee (and then she really lost weight). I'll tell you something: Even if you do nothing else, stop drinking coffee and soda & your whole life will change for the better. Both are highly acidic and non-hydrating. Drink water instead or fruit juice on an empty stomach. Coffee held my mom back from her personal goals for years and now she is free. It's not to say you can't have something on occasion, but no one would say that only drinking beer would be a wise thing to do, yet so many people do it w/ coffee and soda. Hydrate. Drink a couple liters of water a day and you'll feel so much better. I mean caffeine is a neuro-toxin (I don't think I spelled that right, I'm writing on a blutooth keyboard from across the room and can't really see the screen that well and just typing while I'm thinking here, so excuse the misspellings) and that's why you get that rush of energy, as your body speds up to flush it out, also why soda and especially coffee are diarhetics (wow....okay moake you go to the bathroom a lot).
Anyway, now I'm 23, almost 24 and I'm back....not totally, but SO much better than I was. This experience has given me so much to look back on and think about though. I feel like I have a lot more empathy for people now. People my age just don't understand what old age is like or what sickness is really like or forgetfulness. I had friends just accuse me of being lazy or a bum...no one understood. There's no awareness out there of Lyme's Disease, everyone just thinks if you get bit by a tick, you're all good with a few antibiotics from the doctor for three weeks. Well maybe if you're lucky enough to catch it early b/c you see the bull's eye target on your leg or something. But they think I first got it in 2005 and then maybe was re-infected again in 2007 or 2008, which would account for how tired I'd always been and then how much worst that tiredness became. For awhile there, I really thought I was a goner, but thank's to God, my old piedetrician, some open-minded doctors (and I should probably mention intelligent enough to test for it, instead of just keep testing for mono and aids, neither of which I had, despite repeated tests for it, thank God again) and the change in my diet and lifestyle, I feel like I have my old life back again. I'm not 100%, but I haven't felt this good since high school and I'm thankful I get another chance at life, although I am kind of sad I was held up for so long...I feel lkind of like I missed being 21 & 22....I had just a brief taste of wild and crazy times and experimentation and then puff I was sick. And although I tried to keep up w/ everyone, it seemed the only thing I could keep up w/ was drinking (at least when I was awake enough for it) b/c all those lil yeast that went out of control inside my body were yammering for more beer (since my immune system was busy fighting the lyme orgainism and unable to check them (that is also coincidentally what prompted all the weight gain) (and on that note, going glueten free totally is really hard, just look in the aasle in Wegmans, which by far has the biggest one of all....it's only like half an aisle on one side of like a 3 aisle section, it's so small in that big store w/ everything.....Doctors recommended doing that, I tried, had failed, the pH approach is so much easier to maintain and gets better results))).
On another note, my Dad died in late June of 2006. My Mom has been widowed for some time now. She just started dating this new man John in August. He asked her to marry him and she said yes (I guess this was late October). I finally met him a few weeks ago....he's pretty nice, but it's still really weird. She's spent almost every weekend w/ him. It's weird, things aren't awkward when he's around, but just sometimes when he's not, but she's talking about him...I don't know, maybe it's just me getting used to the idea of it that's awkward. Anyway, my Mom has been lonely for a long time and she seems genuinely happy and that's a good thing. I want her to be happy, so I'll do what I can to support her & he better treat her right or I'll have something to say about it *nods*
I do miss my Dad and his advice in times like this though....
I think I'll go have some water and maybe a beer w/ dinner b/c I feel like it! I deserve one after this much writing - geeze it's like I'm back in hgih school again....writing hours and hours in this stupid thing....well at least it's not the blurty account. =P I wrote a poem in my dj as well, go check it out....it's sufficiently stupid for having just been written on the spur of the moment in 4 min.
Time to cook dinner, listen to Xmas Music and Watch some more STAR TREK!!!!
G'Night Neverland!
~Lee
PS: just watched hook again over the weekend b/c it was on TV, go watch it, it's fun! *crows like Pan*