Grocery Store Wars!

It's cute. :D
And it's a Star Wars parody lol...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVrIyEu6h_E

Idea's Brewing: Thus the whole house has a coffee aroma.

Ok, soooo what to do with all of this information.

Lets just say if there was ever a good time to have an autoimmune disease it's now. lol
This blog of mine here really is not that unique, this information is getting to be very popular. I've found some other pretty awesome blogs that people have written. I need to friend those people on here. It's not about, "Hey I'm awesome, look how smart I am. I'm so great I cured my disease."
Well for one I didn't actually achieve what I've achieved thus far on my own...
I had a great doctor.
I had great family support.
I had great friend support.
I was emailing others with similar sickness who were helpful and responsive.
I found information from different people who shared it, a lot on the internet.
I read helpful books that others published.
I read the research, which I was guided to by my doctor who encouraged such things.
I attended lectures that my doctor taught.
...
.....and it goes on.

Of course I am proud of my persistance and my ability to gather information. Glad I was able to put it into action.  But this whole process has been very intricate. Emotional, physical, internal, external.

There are a lot of research studies out there. I'm sure we need more, but good stuff is brewing in the medical field.

Gosh, you gotta love all of these health food stores popping up. Of course you just can't go into a health food store, load up your cart, and just expect that you are eating healthy. That's not how it works, but people are definitely more aware. :DD :))

Personally I'd like to become a tool. Just one other person who has had a crazy health experience and learned a lot. I'd like to help other people. Plus this is a life long thing here for me. Helping others will help myself. I mean there's no question about that one. Plus honestly, I enjoy talking about this stuff. If I have outlets for this passion then I can balance "work" with fun. There's more to my life than just autoimmune diseases and food. :p Who woulda thunk it?? :p

So I need to build up my credibility for one, which is just a fancy way of saying that I need to graduate. That's where my focus is going to be for quite some time now. Well in quite some time I mean until December. lol In particular September to December, which pans out to be about 3 and a half months. Of course nothing that I've leared through all of this is going to help my graduate. LOL I mean maybe a little bit, but I'm not going to be tested on this information. It'll help me in my future career endeavors, but yeah that's quite a while down the road.

Now something I can do is compile information and research about the omega 3 and 6 diet and try to get that implemented at Aultman Hospital. Perhaps patients with certain types of cancer that have been shown to be affected by the 3 and 6 diet will be required to leave the hospital with information on this type of diet. The same goes for heart patients and patients with autoimmune diseases. And also mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, skizophrenia, and depression. I mean if this happened it would feel like such a dream. But I need to compile these studies and see if number one if there is enough consistant information out there to convince a board and to actually work on patients. I'm pretty sure about this stuff because of myself, my doctor, and everything I've read...but I'm just as skeptical as the next person. I live my life constantly skeptical. I want to convince myself. I know it helped me, but I'd love to see mass amounts of research studies conviently compiled. I'm sure someone out there has already done this. For one my doctor has spent a lot of time on this. But actually getting the information to be used wide spread would be amazing, especially if it is just as effective as my doctor and many others claim it to be. How totally cool.

So this summer I'd like to work on compiling these studies.

But number one is the schooling. It seems like not much progress is possible in implementing the research without my degree. And why not get some credit in the world of academia with looking further into this research. Maybe I can take a different, cool perspective on studying the research in some thesis or something. It would be a lot of fun for me.

And heck who doesn't want to graduate, do something they're more passionate about, and as a biproduct make more money. I wanna do some traveling and such! lol I mean you have no idea...or you may if you were  one of those people who took way too long to graduate. :p To my surprise there's a lot of us out there! :)

Wooo hoo, woo hoo...
Until next time my autoimmune reader buddies. :)

I Left Ya Hangin Didn't I?? Here's an update!

So the last post was a bit gloomy. That's quite alright because this blog is meant to capture all aspects of dealing with an illness. I'm keeping it real for you guys. ;)

I remember reading about different struggles of people with autoimmune diseases when I was at my complete worst. I remember reading a blog of a woman blown up looking disfigured and not even like herself from the corticosteroids that she was taking. Paraphrasing here but she said something to the affect of: "I used to be a beautiful girl, and now I resemble nothing of my former self. I never knew what it was like to not be beautiful. This disease has taken nearly everything." The medication can really have some crazy side affects. I really freaked myself out 2 years ago when I googled Lupus and a bunch of video's popped up of blown up disfigured looking woman. Of course I'm sure all of the worst cases end up on youtube. But that was actually my biggest motivator to search for alternative treatment. Me and my idealistic self, I frequently spouted to my grandmother. "I'd rather die than to have my dignity taken away from me. I'd rather die than be some blown up half alive person." After seeing those video's I burst into tears while sitting in one of the school computer labs. Nobody else was around! I called someone who I thought would understand, my guy friend who had mild autoimmune disease problems and had been going to a rheumatologist. He let me pour out all of my fears to him. It meant a lot. Of course this whole time I was SUPPOSED to be doing school work. lol Yeahhh...pretty hard to concentrate.

So illness can really be a tough thing to go through. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. With cancer one can obviously lose their hair and such. So of course this does not apply just to autoimmune diseases.

So I'm progressing with adjusting to not being a sick person anymore. My friend April said, wow Davea you are much happier than before. :)) I am! ...the adjustment takes time. I have my days where I get down about how crazy the situation was of course. I'm planning a water skiing trip with some friends. We're going to be staying on an island up near Toledo. Physical things like this that I can do now all add into my appreciation of how well I'm doing and the satisfaction that comes along with that.

So I'm doing MUCH MUCH better than before. I can even eat dairy again. I can eat packaged gluten free items as well. I cannot do soy. No soy and no gluten.

Why the quick healing hmmm?? I stopped eating frozen fruit. That was my big change. I previously read before that fruit is one of the last things that people can usually add back in. I was eating it before because I felt like I needed something to keep my sugar levels up. The beef and rice did not seem to be cutting it and at that time I could not to do vegetables. I was just trying anything I could.

I haven't had a day where I was feeling fatigued from something that I ate in about a month. Since I stopped eating soy and started mixing up my diet. I think that I actually had become intolerant to the rice because I had eaten it so much. I started to get sleepy when I eat it. It was necessary for me to eat the same food over and over for a while until I healed enough to be able to eat more food. It's a great feeling. I also occasionally eat at restaurants. I try no to do this too much because you never know about the cross contamination. I take more bank on a more expensive place being more careful with my food. Although they are really, really considerate at Chipotle. The one off of Howe in Akron is the one I am referring to.

I need to pay my doctor in Columbus a visit for a check up. I've been pretty busy and the drive is far. Also because I am doing so well nothing feels as pressing. But that does not mean one should not keep up with the Jone's of themselves?? :p Did that make sense?? haha.

Also with being able to eat like I can...I still need to be healthy with the occasional snacks and such! See when you're not super sick it takes a different kind of discipline to keep up the healthy. Although I always have more energy when I eat lots of vegetables. I mean somedays I'll eat like a couple pounds of brussel sprouts. lol. :)

I feel like my old self again. I also work out a lot now. I can run, do sit ups, and do push ups. I'm training for my national guard physical fitness test. I haven't had the opportunity to take one in 2 years! Very excited. They also took me off of my army profile. :DDD That's big news there.

Lots of good things happening. :)) I can't believe how far I've come. I can't believe that I've had this experience! Whose got 2 thumbs and is feeling very fortunate. This ginger over here. :))

More to come...