Day 36 – Life Goes On!

Things felt better last night—I was feeling some of the anxiety disappear, the depression was really gone (and didn’t last that long anyway… at least yesterday) and my head seemed a little clearer.  Well… this morning was a pretty tough morning to get going, but then I noticed that many of my old symptoms had returned.  My ears felt more clogged than they have since beginning the program, I had a huge headache, I felt more anxious and my joints hurt.

I didn’t realize how bad the symptoms were before starting this cleanse, but if today is any indication of how they were then they were HORRIBLE.  I think of the relief of my symptoms as the reverse of a story most of us has probably heard about putting a frog in a pan of boiling water—if you put him into boiling water he’ll just jump right out, but if you put him into a pan filled with cool water and then start to boil it he’ll stay there until he boils to death (I guess I will say or until she boils to death—just to be fair).

Only instead of getting worse all my symptoms were slowly getting better; but, to be thrown back into some pretty serious symptoms felt like I was being thrown into a pot of boiling water and all I want to do is jump out, but the problem is I’m not positive how to jump out or where to jump out because I’m not completely sure what food caused my issue (although I am 90 percent or more sure it is wheat).

Sluggish day starting, but we did do our standard juice but added some collard greens for good measure (sweeter than kale, but a little more roughage).  Because my wife was really in a hurry and needed to get to work early we made our Cacao-Pow to go (we added steel cut oats, almond milk, cacao powder, stevia and maca powder).  CAPOW!  I know, slightly cheesy, but you’ve got to get entertainment where you can sometimes.

The morning and the whole day was rough—I felt very tired this morning (throughout the whole morning) and with the soar joints as well as a pain in my groin muscle (or there abouts) I didn’t feel like I could get much done.  One of the greatest blessings of the cleanse so far has been the anxiety I’ve felt for years disappearing.  Well it came back today with a vengeance (maybe not as bad as it was before, but definitely a lot worse than it’s been since beginning the cleanse).

All the self questioning kicks in and the fear of talking to people (which is something I’ve fought for a long time, but have always just forced myself to do it).  Today I had that same fear come back along with the shaking I used to get.  To make a long story short I had to go talk to an attorney today about the software I’m developing and before walking into the office it took me about 20 minutes to relax and talk myself into believing I would be able to do it without shaking to bad or getting too nervous. 

I HATE this feeling and really want to find out with a greater amount of certainty the cause.  I suppose the calm in this storm is that it came on so quickly that I was immediately able to recognize that something was wrong.  I can only imagine if the anxiety and other symptoms had started to re-appear slowly instead of so quickly how bad it may have been.  So at least now I know that something I ate bothered me and I will have to watch and make sure to avoid it (whatever it may be).

There is also one possibility that I have considered today… the healing crisis’s that those cleansing endure are—at times I am told—very difficult… it is possible that this is just a healing crisis which would explain some of the symptoms returning.  However, my only pause with that possibility is the number of symptoms that returned at the same time.  Headache, heavy anxiety and slight depression, joint pain, muscle pain and brain fogginess—even just mentioning the symptoms that have returned make me think something like the wheat.

My wife had a class she had to go to tonight so I was here with my boys alone and I was irritable… My poor boys probably thought they had done something wrong for me to be so ornery with them.  It isn’t so bad with my 8 year old because I can just explain to him that I am feeling a little more ornery than usual and that I’m sorry if I snap at him or make him feel bad, but I can’t really do that with my 4 year old—much harder for him to understand.

We made it through the night and had a kick-butt dinner (which felt like it took all night to prepare): lemon herb chicken with a medley of vegetables including: Kale, collard greens, onions, broccoli, red and yellow and orange peppers.  The veggies—along with the chicken—were sautéed in olive oil, basil, lemon juice, some coriander and sea salt to top it off.  It was GREAT, just a bit of preparation required.

I invited my mother-in-law over for some food tonight.  She was over here last night and we made her an egg omelet (sort of).  After she left my wife and I decided that we needed to have her over to eat more (at least at night) to help her get any kind of variety in her diet.  She gets pigeon-toed into 5 or 6 things that she eats all the time during cleanses like this, eats them at odd times and then tries to stuff almost everything she eats in at night.

She wonders why she is not doing well… well, I have an idea—she knows what the problem is as well as we do I suppose it is just a matter of making sure you don’t give yourself a choice during the day (at least for the 60 day duration of the original program), not sure what we are going to do for the remaining 1 to 2 years if necessary…  One step at a time I suppose.

We had an awesome drink for dessert tonight and I am feeling a little better—I’m not completely convinced I will be whole again (at least where I was before this huge setback) tomorrow, but I am full of hope that I will be well on my way again and with the juice part of the cleanse coming up I am excited for the energy burst that is set to accompany it.

I did forget to mention that with valentines day tomorrow I decided to purchase some beautiful flowers for my sweatie tonight while she was at her class.  I had planned to have a card all ready and to have flower peddles leading to the bedroom (wanted her to be surprised since she would be expecting something tomorrow, but not tonight).  I was able to get the flowers set up for her and had the boys help get their toy room and bedroom straightened up for her, but was not able to do the peddles or the card—there was just not enough night in my plans to make it happen, but she was pleased anyway… Gotta Love My Sweatie!!