Most of the people close to me know that I have been living with a very serious health condition for the past few years. My GI tract was heavily damaged after complication to a gastric reduction and duodenal switch operation in 2001. The surgery removed three quarters of my stomach and rerouted my intestines - leaving me with common channel of 50 ( Read more... )

I stumbled, tripped and fell off the twisted path only to roll down the hill, across the greener grass and impale my soul on the white picket fence . . . and it was my own damn fault. Last time installment had me working through detoxing from a year and a half of overcoming bone pain with an arsenal of opiates. It took two months to work through ( Read more... )

So for the past two years I have been living with the severe chronic pain or metabolic bone disorder. My body, unable to absorb Calcium and Vitamin D from the food I eat, is leaching calcium from my bones. Healthy bones are made of a dense matrix that looks like a honeycomb and as we age the spaces in the matrix become larger as the bones lose ( Read more... )

I can tell you - having a serious health issue, changes you, in all ways.  When pain becomes your constant companion - it makes you long for the normal days, the days when you just woke up and went to work.  I was waiting in the car while Jeff walked into the Walgreen’s to pick up my latest pile of pain killers and intestinal paralyzers.  I kept ( Read more... )

The one true blessing that I have learned through all this pain and brushes with death is that every day I wake up breathing is glorious.  That every day is wonderous and a chance to tell those people in my life that I love them.  Time is too important to worry about embarrassment or shame - the most important thing we do in this life is give and ( Read more... )

Pain changes everything.  Pain, especially chronic pain touches every part of your being: your muscles, your bones, your nerves, your personality, your self esteem and your soul.  Pain leaks into your life and begins to make all the colors run like a spilled glass over a watercolor painting.  Pain deforms the landscape around you and bends the ( Read more... )

Ye Gods! I’m done so very done.  Went back to the doctor today - the super vitamin specialist it took 2 months to get an appointment with - we had the blood test results.  Go figure - my vitamin D levels are so low they are undetectable, yes can’t be reported by the lab it is so low.  My calcium is 8.5 - the normal range is 8.4-14.6 - but here is ( Read more... )

 
It has been a little more than a month since I got out of the hospital.  It was the second time this year I ended up in a hospital with a doctor telling me I should be dead.  I seem to be making a habit of almost dying.  I was admitted for Colitis; a severe inflammation of the colon.  Eleven days of trying to figure out what had made me so damn ( Read more... )

So one of my greatest lessons in this life is know, understand and become comfortable with the idea: “To Be Silent”. The words are taken from the element of Earth, and direction of North - and are part of commands of each of the four elements. East/Air has the command, “To Know”, South/Fire has, “To Will”, West/Water has, “To Dare”, and North/ ( Read more... )

The Keys to Your Heart
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