Friday, November 30, 2012

Appendicitis, or Death By Puppies

I am a self-proclaimed doctor-phobe.  So when I had a pain inside my GI tract that I could not figure out, accompanied by fever for 30 hours with no let-up I went to the ER.

Something strange is that during that whole entire time I was in pain I never drank Effective Micro-Organisms or Kombucha Vinegar, both of which I had plenty of.  Neither did I take colloidal silver.  My mind forgot that I ever knew what to do in such a situation.  I wonder if it was because of the puppies.

My mind had gone temporarily insane (again, I know, sigh) with a desire to find a little brother for our dog, Izzy.  I fantasized about a palm-sized pup, a rat terrier, that would be like a miniature version of Izzy, so that we could form like a russian nest of dolls when we cuddled.  Imagining myself with Micah and Ana in their footsie pajamas, and then Izzy with a miniature Izzy tucked in there, all warm and snuggly on the couch was a beautiful, and powerful image to me!

Erik said he only wanted a rat terrier.  So I scoured PetFinder.  But I also was looking at ALL of the dogs, especially the small ones, and the pit bull ones, and the puppies for a long time.  I felt pulled, called.  When I finally felt like I had honed in on the puppy that was "the one", I became like a bloodhound.  Each time I would think I found *the one.*  Erik could tell I was in a bit of a frenzy, and said, maybe he would consider a rat terrier.  So I finally searched late into the night and found the perfect puppy in San Diego.  But I had stayed up way way too late in the night to be able to fill out an application.

The next morning I woke up and after taking Noah to school, worked like a mad woman on the *perfect* application.  I studied the rescue organization's website, read all the profiles of the people who run it, looked at all the pictures of the animals available for adoption---which didn't include the one I was interested in!  I convinced myself that there were other dogs that they had that would work just as well.  Dogs that were young, small, good with cats and kids.  But Erik said only a rat terrier.  So that narrowed it down to the one that I really wanted (already adopted, but at the time I didn't know that) and one that I was less interested in.

All this web surfing and application filling out took time, and I was also feeding Ana and Micah in between time.  I was so focused, madly, on the puppy situation that I did not eat anything or drink anything until well after noon.  The first thing I drank was milk!!!!  I am shocked at myself!  Kefir would have been a much smarter choice.  I could already tell that a cramp was going to set in, just based on the knowledge that so much time had passed since I woke up at 7am without my ingesting anything.  I thought that if I put more food in my stomach that would help to avoid the cramp.

I ate a half an avocado and a boiled egg yolk.  I drank some water too.  The cramp started up almost right away.  I figured it was gas and it would pass as the food went down.  So I just waited for the food to go through me.  It made it out the next morning, but the cramping was so bad all night that I couldn't sleep.  Just fits of sleeping.  Usually sleeping made it go away.  Then I thought pooping would make it go away and it didn't.  THAT was when I should have realized, oh shit, you have an infection----massive probiotics and colloidal silver back and forth-----but ideally, I should have done that from the get-go!

I have a beautiful dark brown bottle of Effective Microorganisms that has been left languishing on the top shelf of my pantry.  I have kombucha vinegar, one of the most potent immune boosters on earth, the effect of ignoring my kombucha for a couple of months, and I did not take any of that while I was in pain.  Why not?

Why did I forget about any possible herbs that could have soothed my irritated GI: slippery elm, turmeric, neem, all of which I have.

I don't know.  Fear, I guess.  Fear paralyzed my brain.  I couldn't separate my pain from my experience.  Kombucha and nettles had been out of my daily regimen for so long.  Ironically, it was in neglecting the kombucha that the vinegar was produced, which is helpful for my healing now, and could have possibly prevented this whole occurrence.  I don't need any more of my GI tract removed to know that I have access to deep therapy through EM and kombucha.  I don't need to feel helpless in such a situation again.

........................

Erik and I were musing on what if someone had appendicitis 100 years ago?  And we agreed that it likely meant death.  I found out that my paternal grandmother, Mary Jane's, father died from appendicitis in 1921, down in Mexico, where he was working for his church.  I hope he wasn't doing something as trivial as I was when his got set off.  I wonder if he felt stressed out that day.  Did people feel responsible for their health back then?  Did he ever tell himself not to work so hard, to slow down, to take care of himself?

Because I certainly felt that this was my body's way of demanding space.  Now no one can ask me to do anything.  But if I had mistreated myself that way, by eating poorly and ignoring my body's signals, less than a hundred years ago, i would be dead.  I bet the same is true for you for some illness you've had.  This is profound.

"You're *just* now realizing this?  Honey!  Get with the times!" I can hear my husband say to all this.

But truly, illness is a kind of little death.  The body breaks, but the mind says, no, we can fix this.  Death changes.  Being in the hospital, you know that it is a common death conduit.  You can see how we all keep going back there, like a mothership.  And how easy they make it for someone to feel comfortable dying with them.  If I never see them again, I will be happy.  I want to learn, to be wise.  They got me this time, but I can do it, I can stay away.  I can remember powerful medicines.

Death by puppies.  They got me with puppies.  Erik told Izzy that we can only handle one of her kind at a time.  Her kind is too powerful.  They made mom sick.  It is true.  One dog is too much power already.  And one cat works to balance that one dog.  two spinning around works just right for us.

for now.  ;)

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