I’ve been feeling strangely positive this week. No reason in particular other than the fact that something inside of me decided it’s time to be a little bit more pro-active as opposed to feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck.
I was positive at work, despite the fact that I made several mistakes and the week sort of generally sucked major balls as far as the broader markets are concerned. I found myself feeling truly grateful simply for the fact that I have a job and also accepting of the fact that I may not if things keep heading in the direction they seem to be going. Accepting in the sense that I wasn’t panicking at the idea and frantically making imaginary contingency plans. Something inside me just went, “I’m doing what I can, the rest isn’t up to me” and I felt okay with that.
I visited another TCM practitioner, this time an older Chinese gentleman (as opposed to the barely-older-than-me white women I’ve seen so far) and he seemed to think it should be fairly simple to restore my “yin” deficiency and told me there was nothing wrong with my kidneys. At first that statement just made me feel completely skeptical about him, but I kept asking him more questions and realized what he was saying is that the root of the problem is not my kidneys, but rather my immunity. So I guess I see where he’s coming from and if he truly believes he can “fix” me in 1-2 months I’m willing to devote 1-2 months to seeing what he can do. If it works, I will obviously be kicking myself hard for not having done this sooner, but I’m also not counting my chickens before they hatch. After six years, I’ve pretty much lost faith in anyone who claims to know what’s wrong with me and how they can fix it. But that’s another post for another day (reminder to self: don’t forget to rant about Big Pharma and their stranglehold on the western medical system).
Paul is about to do a juice fast with our brand new juicer and I’ve been doing more research into how diet can trigger autoimmune issues and since western medicine seems completely baffled by it, I figure my theories are just as good as theirs. I’m really starting to buy into the idea that it is not a problem of my immune system being “too strong” as I’ve been told so many times by various doctors, but that my immune system is probably attacking something that legitimately is irritating my system….It just makes sense that the increase in autoimmune diagnosis in the modern era (which yes, I concede probably also does have a lot to with better diagnostic tools and criteria) has SOMETHING to do with all the ridiculously crappy food we are shoveling into our bodies. We’ve JUST started looking into this and cutting things out and suddenly are noticing that it’s almost impossible to avoid foods that are at least anecdotally (and sometimes scientifically confirmed) to trigger autoimmune problems. It’s going to be hard, and it’s something I actually “attempted” (I use that term VERY loosely) to do when I was first diagnosed, but I admit, it was just easier to swallow pills and my doctors didn’t seem to think it would make a difference so I never really pursued it. Obviously now that I’ve come to the realization that doctors don’t really have any clue at all what’s going on with chronic issues such as mine, it’s time to take things into my own hands and do what it takes to heal.
It feels good to think that there might be another way out than swallowing toxic substances for the rest of my life.