PUSH YOURSELF - HELL, IF I CAN, YOU DEFINITELY CAN!

FOOD/ACTIVITY FOR WED, JUNE 16, 2010 (R=Raw)

BR: 2 glasses of R green smoothie (R spinach, R banana, R grapes, R blueberries)
SN: cereal and milk: 1/2 cup granola, 1 cup kashi go-lean, 1.5 cups soymilk
SN: 2 non fat yogurts (80 cals each) HUNGRY!!!
LN: 2 boca burgers, 2 slices sprouted grain bread, tofu mayo, R lots of lettuce, R tomato, R onion, ketchup, mustard; 3 rice chips; 1 spinach Dr. Praeger veggie pattie; 1 lite skinny cow ice cream sandwhich
DN: eggbeaters, lofat laughing cow cheese, 1 tbsp parm cheese, ketchup
SN: 1 cup R blueberries, 1/2 cup R strawberries, 1 lofat yogurt

CALS: 2,395 cals
EXERCISE: 7, 814 steps (3.9 miles) (386 cals burned) which included a 40 mins walk

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Today is the first day (since i've been doing fitday.com and eating vegetarian) that i really felt like i overate, and it freaked me out. I just finished lunch and i've had almost 1800 calories, and it's not even 3pm yet. [And here i am writing and i've had almost 2400 cals and i feel like eating more.]

So, i have to ask myself, 'What's going on?'

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[Written earlier] Well, at the moment, i feel amazingly depressed. I came back home from the hospital to exercise, but now that i'm home, all i want to do is mope and vegetate.

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Mom is improved today, but the dr. said that if all goes well from now on, and there are no more setbacks, she is still facing 6-8 more weeks in I.C.U.

I'm feelin' a little weak emotionally at the moment.

This morning, i felt so strong. I even gave my dad a pep talk. And i felt much closer to him. We talked things out. I explained I never tried to hurt mommy. I explained the Dr. never told us the surgery was life or death and that it needed to be rushed.

Still, feelings of guilt rush in. A dear reader, Glenda, asked me to stop feeling guilty. She assured me that I intended to help my mother and strengthen her using raw foods. Thanks, Glenda.

I even received the following note from Dr. Brian Clement and his wife, also a physician, in response to my letter to him asking for his feedback on the situation. (Dr. Clement is the head of the Hippocrates Institute in Florida, a very respected raw retreat.)

Dear Michelle,

As a loving daughter, you should not be blamed for trying to help your mother CONQUER her disorder. With the proper living raw food lifestyle that is administered by an experience practitioner or organization, there has certainly been abundant proof that people like your mother can gain enormous benefits. With that said, she already had her condition and it is highly unlikely that changing to a nutritious diet had anything to do with her bungled surgeries. Remain committed to loving your accusers. Please do not hesitate to write if you have any further questions.

Be Well,

Drs. Anna Maria and Brian Clement, Ph.D.,L.N.
Hippocrates Health Institute

Perhaps i didn't do the diet right with her...and she needed an "experienced practitioner"??? She had green smoothies, salads with raw dressings, beans and rice for dinner. It was not all raw, it was mostly raw, but i thought it should have been healing. She was feeling so much better.

Yet, did it 'weaken' her?

In a conversation this morning, my boss, Arnold, admitted that after water fasting to rid himself of pnemonia, he was incredibly weak. He wasn't strengthened.

Anyway, Mom still did pop a thousand pills while doing the diet, so we'll never really know how that affected what might have been a better outcome. Pills can't be strengthening to the immune system, even if she was on a 'better' diet.

My father said they couldn't believe how low her electrolytes were before the surgery. I asked him, "If her electrolytes were so low, and she wasn't fit for surgery, why did they do it?" He didn't have an answer for that.

Who dropped the ball????

My father said he didn't blame me today. My father also asked me to move in with him and take care of him.

[My father is not easy to please, nor easy to get along with, so I am sincerely hesitant. If I took such bad care of my mother, why does he want me to care for him?]

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Going to see my mother every day fills me with such anxiety before we get there. Cliff feels it, too.

But, once i'm there, we're there, being with her, talking to her, comforting her, that all dissapates.

She urinated good into her little baggie while we were there today and it made me feel like she knew we were there and felt relaxed enough to let go. She's in an induced coma. Apparently, she can hear us, but just can't respond at the moment. But sometimes she shakes her feet or grimaces. I know she's IN there. It'll be a matter of days before the swelling goes down again, and before they wean her off of the meds that put her temporarily to 'sleep.'

Tomorrow she'll get the tracheotomy, so she'll be more comfortable and won't have to swallow with a tube shoved down her throat.

Distressing news to find out that she won't be able to speak with the trache in her for 2-3 weeks. I'm so distressed about how she will cope with this. But, if this is the worst of her problems, we'd be lucky.

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I don't want to move and exercise today, but i feel i have to. How can i not push myself when we're all going to expect mom to push herself...harder than she ever has? [I did walk.]

This is so hard on all of us, but such a growing experience.

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My father seemed so much less angry at me today. We had a good talk. He's struggling with his own faith that mom will get better. One dr. tells you prepare for the worst, the next says, she'll be fine. "Who do you believe?," he asked.

I answered him with the same things I say here to him. Every little teensy bit of progress, we have to rejoice for.

And we're responsible for our outlook. We can CHOOSE to be optimists or CHOOSE to be pessimists. We choose WHO we believe.

And how WE feel affects how mom will feel AND how she'll do.

I said, "If you're running a race, and everyone is cheering you on, you run faster. if you're running a race, and everyone is telling you you're doing horrible, you might as well give up, you do." People INFLUENCE each other.

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Am i worth not binge eating? When i did my cals today on fitday and saw how much i already ate today, i really felt like binge eating. A kind of a 'what the fuck?' kind of attitude. Like, "I already went overboard, so, why the fuck not...?" And now, after my snack, i feel i screwed up today, ate too much, i feel like binge eating. Dr. Fairburn's book DOES state that overeating CAN trigger the binge impulse. I have to be REALLY careful. And I know something must be going on. ALOT of emotions. Fear, trepidation about the tracheotomy procedure tomorrow.

I've gotta FIGHT to stay positive. It's a struggle.

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I'm looking so much better in the face, (so is mom), so i really can't give up right now on me, even if i wanted to. She's certainly gonna wanna give up on herself, daily.

The other day when she had the pain attack in her stomach (which was the clog, those frickin' medical idiots missed, which sent my mother reeling backwards), she kept saying to me, "i can't do this. i can't do this." [I didn't KNOW she had a clog. i kept telling her she could do it. It wasn't until the next day that they realized her drainage tube was clogged.] Her tolerance had been reached, and she felt like giving up.

There will be plenty more times when she is going to look me in the eyes, look to ME for strength and say, "Michelley, i can't do this!," and i'm going to say, "Yes, you can, mom. You CAN do this." I just pray that those times when she is just weak in spirit, it's not prompted by being truly physically ill, like she was this last episode of 'weakness.' Most of the time, when someone is feeling 'weak,' they really CAN do what they think they can't.

Hell, do you actually THINK i felt like walking today?????????? Yeah, right. But, you know what? After i started, i actually thoroughly enjoyed myself. We project what we think will be horrible distress. I actually couldn't believe what an enjoyable walk i had today. Looking at people's gardens, all of the beautiful flowers and plants, filled me with such joy.

We HAVE to push ourselves, or we miss these kinds of moments to say, "Yes, i CAN do it. And i'm so glad i made myself do it. Look at how good i feel!"

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It occurs to me just how much we ALL need each other. We can't DO this alone. (Whatever we have to do.) I can't stay on track alone. She won't make it alone without support and great care. You can't make it alone.

A baby who is left alone....will die.

We're all still babies and we need each other. Mikelle and Cosmos and Jan and Glenda and so many others have kept ME going.

We ALL doubt we have what it takes, at times. We all feel weak.

But, rest assured, we're all more powerful than we know.

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This is my life right now. And it's not easy, but i'm certainly growing alot. I need to share my pain. And what i learn daily. I hope you get something from all of this. It can't be easy to read for you. I sympathize with you!!

I'm grateful to have this forum to process my life right now. Because if i couldn't write, and process my life, i'm sure i'd weigh 500 lbs if my tendencies were to go unchecked and I wasn't on any kind of a "program" to reign myself in.

I just want you to know that i love you all, whoever is reading this, and thank you for being there for me. i really need you. This is hard. I couldn't do it without you.

Please continue to pray for my mom, Ruth.

Giant hugs.

xoxo michelle joy