I haven't done much with the blog in a long time. We had a lot of health problems and house repairs in 2012. April 2012 I was rear-ended at a stop light, totaling my husband's car and putting me into 8 months of physical therapy. It could have been much worse. The day I was hit was the 1 day a month I am kid free. I was very thankful for that. Last summer was very boring for my kiddos. I was injured and couldn't do much besides sit around. In addition to the accident, I was having very bad menstrual pain both before and during my cycle, while a week after my cycle I was fatigued from low iron. So, in the midst of physical therapy from the accident, I also had to schedule exploratory surgery to find out what was wrong. We figured my Endometriosis had returned. My surgery ended up being the first week of school starting up, which was interesting to say the least. So, fast forward a couple weeks and I talk to the doctor about the results of exploratory surgery. He said not Endometriosis, which I was thrilled until he said but. Turns out I had Adenomyosis, which is similar to Endometriosis, but can lead to hemorrhage during cycles, prolapse uterus, and emergency hysterectomy. We had already decided after hemorrhage after the birth of my daughter that we were most likely done having children. I was told 8 years ago that I would never have children and we have a beautiful son and daughter now, so I'm thrilled at the blessings we do have. The doctor really didn't think my uterus was strong enough for another pregnancy anyways, so we started talking options. Option 1: birth control. Nope, been there and tried that, and it was a horrid experience. My body is way to sensitive for those options. The only other thing we could do is he could prescribe powerful pain medications and I just live with it, knowing it will progressively get worse until I most likely have a emergency surgery, or just do the hysterectomy now. We decided, I didn't want the risk of complications later on in life and I'm still young enough to recover from a surgery quickly, so go ahead with surgery now. Bam! Slab leak in between surgeries. No worries, fix the leak and get the claim put in to insurance. Buy all the new flooring, sinks, etc. for the bathroom, and plan on my husband fixing the bathroom while I'm conked out after surgery for a week. Mid October, we had our surgery and I had a reaction to anesthesia leaving me unable to breath on my own for most of the day. I was finally able to breath on my own after 9pm that day when surgery was at 7am. I had to be on a monitor that sent off alarms every time I tried to sleep, because I would stop breathing. It was pretty scary, but they still sent me home next day without any diet restrictions, even though my digestive system still hadn't woken up. Fast forward three days and I can't even keep water down, and I feel like my stomach is going to explode. We go to the emergency room and they pump me full of anti-nausea meds so I can keep this contrast drink down long enough to do a CT scan. Go do the scan and find out I have a blockage in my small intestine. They admitted me to the hospital for 4 days, 2 1/2 of those days I was put on full intestinal rest, which meant they stuck a tube up my nose, down my throat and into my stomach where they pumped even the bile my body was producing out of my stomach so that there was nothing going in at all. The sucked up 2+ quarts of stomach acid out and half digested food over those days and it was disgusting. The worst part is they had to unhook this tube any time I needed to get up and they kept spilling it on me. I had to change gowns 5 or 6 times over those two days, and I finally told them to bring my a portable toilet because I didn't want them unhooking that stupid tube anymore. After I get to go home from that, I can't eat anything. Dairy made me sick. Breads were making me sick. The only thing I could eat was smoothies and very small meals. Fast forward a few months. I'm losing weight and fast. Nothing is sticking and I'm getting very pale and very thin. I was fatigued constantly and can barely get through a day. I started working with a nutritionist and did a very strict diet and supplement routine to sooth my digestive tract and get it working again. It is now July 2013 and after 7 months working with the nutritionist, I am finally back up to my normal weight and digesting foods again. I can eat dairy again, but still avoid it, because too much and I'm sick again.
So now, I can get back to focusing on the store, and I'm studying to be a master herbalist. I still deal with a lot a fatigue, but that gets better as time goes on. I'm going to attempt to dust off the cobwebs of my blog and post more often, but the best way to get updates for the store is to visit my Facebook page. I'm excited that I'm no longer in pain 3 weeks out of the month and we can do fun things as a family again.
So, that's been my crazy year. :D I don't normally share much about my personal life, but it was quite the adventure!
