I am really grateful this Thanksgiving for so many things. I am blessed with a great family, and friends who are like family to us. I could go on for pages. I have sooooo much to be grateful for.
And this year, especially, I am even more grateful for what Dr. Jack has done for me. At this same time last year, I had been with him two months and I lost a bit of weight. But more importantly, I was feeling so much better. I had to work Thanksgiving day at Walmart. I wasn’t too happy about that, haven’t been happy about it for the last nine years, always hate missing my family on Thanksgiving. My son was going to be spending the day with his fiancé and her family. My daughter was cooking her first Thanksgiving turkey and having her husband’s family for dinner.
I got up early to help her chop, cut, prepare foods, make stuffing, and clean the turkey. We got the whole meal going and her husband was so proud of the beautiful meal she prepared. She invited me to come back to at least eat before I had to go to my job. I went home and got ready and returned. I ate within my plan, turkey, some veggies and salad, and off I went. It wasn’t easy, I won’t say it was, and like every year I cried in the car because I just want to be with my family. I realized I wasn’t missing the holiday stuffing in me, I missed the real stuff that filled me. The people…. my people….
This year, we are all working the holiday, sighhhhh, againnnnnn…… but I am unwilling to settle any more. So on Saturday, I am making a modified meal, Turkey, a few sides, not the whole thing, but enough. My daughter is making desserts and we will at least share in some holiday fun as a family. I could care less if they show up in pajamas or dressed up. I just want them there.
Like every year, I try to keep my focus on how much I have to be grateful for. And there is so much that changed this year. This year?? Wow….. just… wow…..
Gosh, it feels like I am living a totally different life now, mostly because I am! I have lost over a hundred pounds. I have lost every single Hashimoto symptom I ever had. I live my life…. if you are a healthy person you may not totally understand just what that means…how profound that is! I live my life!! I want to shout it!!!
I can do things. I don’t worry about how physically hard they are, I don’t worry about how long my stamina will last, I live. I don’t worry about the pain that follows it. And if I asked myself who is responsible for that change, well, the truth is it’s Dr. Jack.
Dr. Jack saved my life. He really did. And it isn’t just weight or symptoms. It is also that I have been freed from so much more than anyone can understand. People tell me all the time, “You did the work.” If Dr. Jack were here he would say it was a team effort. And although that is true, he really did most of the work, and it would be lying if I said otherwise.
You see, his moral and ethical code of conduct would never tell you the other parts of the story. And even if they did, he is far too much of a gentlemen to tell about the huge boulders he had to blast through to help me… the emotional hurts. I used to hurt inside all the time. That fun, smiley, upbeat face I always showed the world was not really true. Inside, there were way too many things that needed to be detoxed. The feelings that I wasn’t worth much, the idea that my weight loss failures were all my fault plagued me. I would get so caught up I what others thought of me that I never had time to think or worry about what I thought of me. If I lost a pound I blamed myself for not losing three. I hated the relationship I had with food, I hated the way I looked, I hated how my body betrayed me all the time, I hurt about my divorce, I hurt about my mom’s death, and about a million more things I could write here. If I am grateful to Dr, Jack for the things he has really cured, than those have to be on the list.
Any time I have read an email from him or listened to him talk, or watched a video of his, or talked to him, I have learned something. And all those little somethings have added themselves up into a great big something. And somethings lead to changes! Not just wright but changes in how you view yourself, how you value yourself. A hugeeeeeeeee change has happened inside me, in every possible way a person can change. I often think that is why people tell me that facially I look different. Yeah, that is relief looks like. That’s what feeling so peaceful inside looks like.
Every Thanksgiving I am grateful for all I have. This year, I am grateful that Dr. Jack took a chance on helping someone who had no hope left, who was going to be a tough case. He has never given up on me for even a second and that has pushed me on through difficult times. It has given me courage to change all kinds of things about myself, not just outside but inside, because he believed in me, when I couldn’t believe in myself. He has not let me settle for anything less than the best. He has been extremely kind but also the tough, just as stubborn as me, unwilling to settle doctor I needed him to be. He is my inspiration! Truly!!!
Happy Thanksgiving sweet friends! Enjoy your family and friends!!
Hugsssssssssss to you all!
Chris