Let me first state that I am not normally a quitter. I have, throughout my life, seen things through to the often bitter end. Sometimes that has been a good thing, and sometimes it has just taken a huge toll that was far worse than quitting would have been.
But I've been doing some thinking lately about how fat and old and STRESSED I've become, and how many things I've failed at, including keeping to a 'normal' weight, and it just seems like I have been struggling against Sisyphean odds for far too long...since I was 5 and was put on cortisone for asthma and my weight bloomed as a result, to be exact.
Now that I am suffering the consequences, also called 'side effects' of Humira that seem very like the side effects of cortisone, I feel like Paris during WW2, outnumbered, outgunned and looking at an indefinite occupation of enemy forces.
In other words, the joint pain and stiffness, the headaches, the weight gain, the fatigue and irritability and the rosecia have taken over, and I am surrendering my body because I don't have the energy to do battle against them, or the knowledge of how to mitigate them, at the very least. If I stop taking the Humira, my guts swell up and I can't go to the bathroom for weeks at a time, though I have cramps and bloating and pain, which is a miserable state to be in. But I still can't eat raw veggies (and some I can't even eat cooked, like broccoli and cauliflower) fruits with seeds, nuts, dairy or eggs, onions (including shallots, leeks and chives) garlic, meats with nitrates, peas, pole beans, or whole grains like whole wheat and oatmeal, which sends my colon into complete shut down.
So all that advice from Dr Oz and the bazillion books on diets and weight loss don't hold much hope for me. Nor can I use one of the pre-made meal diets that are so popular, (Jenny Craig, Nutra System, Weight Watchers) though I wouldn't be able to afford them anyway. All of them, from what I have seen, have dairy, eggs, nuts and onions in nearly every dish, not to mention the artificial sweeteners they put in the snacks, which give regular people diarrhea, let alone someone with a touchy colon!
Add to that the frustration of hardly being able to move in exercise class many times,because I ache all over and feel so stiff and tired, and the stress of not having enough freelance work to make a living (like most journalists, I am watching my career swirl down the drain in favor of online news sites, which are using more free content and blog posts than legitimate articles written by experienced,skilled journalists) and you have more days when I don't even want to get out of bed than days when I feel I can overcome any of this. I ask myself "Why bother?" and 9 times out of ten, I have no good answer.
I love my son, and of course want to stay alive long enough to see him get into college and started on making a life for himself, but I figure his father will die long before I do, because he isn't caring for his diabetes and drinks to excess, so if statistics are anything to go by, he will not make it to 60, and I will have to try and raise the boy the rest of the way through high school. I have no idea how we will survive without our main income, but I will have to think of something when the time comes.
Meanwhile, I think I will just kick back and try to stay alive in these rough times. Wish me luck.
Here's a funny bit about a product that I could use, as I spend a lot of time in the bathroom with Crohns troubles, and this would make it a bit 'sweeter' in there:
Via Unbridled Books: Positing that the place where people read the most
is the bathroom, the bookstore chain 100,000 Books, in Yekaterinburg,
Russia, "came up" with this very clever product: Book Fresheners
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz11278504.
The launch was part of an ad campaign
http://www.shelf-awareness.com/ct/uz3642037Biz11278505
