”If it doesn’t work, it will be my job to figure out why, not yours anymore.”
Those words came back to me this week as I talked to Dr. Jack about my ever improving symptoms but my stagnant weight loss.
When I first signed up with Dr. Jack, I asked him the biggest question of all time, “What happens when it doesn’t work?” And that was his response.
At the time, I tried to inadequately explain the history of that question. I seriously have been on every diet you can name and failed at all of them. I always gave up, and you would have too. Weight watchers, gained weight. I wrote to the “experts” who told me I needed more physical activity, to cut back on the food, all of it….. Thats almost funny now because Dr. Jack later told me that would slow things down as I physically taxed my seriously overweight self and to eat when I was hungry! I tried Paleo, paying for a membership, and again writing to support, only to be told that I obviously was not following their plan to the letter of the law.
I tried the thyroid doctor who sent me to a nutritionist who accused me of lying about what I eat. Mediterranean diet, sugar busters, diet workshop, kimkins…I almost forgot about that one, Richard Simmons, Suzanne Somers, at least three rounds of weight watchers, DASH, hypothyroid diets, a Hashimoto’s expert diet, self hypnosis cd’s ….. I have tried them all. So when I found him? I was scared, really scared. He was the last time. I had already decided that.
If this didn’t work, I was done. I would give up and try to find a way to live with who I was. I would accept that there was no way to change any of it. I would accept that I would live exhausted, with every symptom only worsening each year. But he changed all of that for me. Totally has changed my life.
And things were going great, until I hit a big rough patch last year that just escalated. The biggest enemy, Hashimoto’s has a friend backing him up, you see, a great friend called stress, which aggravates your Hashimoto’s. Stress…..
Now I can’t tell you the people that tell me all the time that it would be great if Dr. Jack was like other doctors and just wrote a book that people could just follow on their own. Like how to follow his plan, and how to de stress your self. And for some that might be great but I laugh….. I owned a whole collection of those…. I gave them to Dr. Jack to read as amusement. I mean the crazy that was written into some of them? And I tried them all…..every single one. Where did it get me but out the cash I spent, and no where. There was a lot stress invested there, let me tell you. I need a live person, in front of me, one who is an email or call away. I am a mess of junk that needed fixing and I cannot go it alone. That’s a fact.
People think I am great at handling stress. They really do! People tell me all the time, “I don’t know how you do it!” I smile, thinking I should charge admission for the three ring circus going on inside my head as I put on this dog and pony show outside, as people think I handle all the things in my life so great. It’s an act. It really is. I am no better at handling it than anyone else, I just am skilled at hiding it. And it has gotten better because I have a great doctor who isn’t afraid to tell me what is wrong and how I need to fix it.
But you see, Dr Jack is a smart man. I am not fooling him. As much as I have studied him, and learned from him, he has also studied me. And despite the show, he sees straight through. I trust Dr. Jack, also not an easy skill for me. I don’t give my trust to a lot of people. A lifetime of getting burned taught me not to. But him? I trust him with every concern. In turn, I have laid out all things for him to see, no matter how embarrassing they might be for me. I have told him of all kinds of problems, and been free enough to just talk, unfiltered. If you want help, if you truly want help, you have to be totally honest. I play my cards pretty close to the vest, so that wasn’t easy for me, but totally necessary if I was going to get help.
And he has helped me change soooooo much, so many things! I have traded stressful things for so much peace. He has cured things no one else could. But summer? Summer did a lot to me.
So last week, when we were talking, Dr. Jack asked me what I knew about the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Ummmmm…. nothing. He told me that it was your fight or flight response system, to which I just answered, “Ohhhh….” I understood that, in a difficult situation, your body shuts off the unnecessary so you can deal with the crisis. I get that. The conversation went that, my heightened state of stress, both from my constant internalizing everythingggggggggggg to the stress of summer, has not helped anything. My system is still on high alert and I am trying to get better at it, I explained, but then I had the “Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh….” moment. Despite my best efforts, and things defintely improving daily, things need some help.
And so we are making adjustments in the coming weeks! I am happy about that! That means things will kick in again! My much improved self, will get even better! Now don’t ask me to explain it all, because honestly? Despite reading a bunch of articles. I know I don’t totally get it, and I dont need to. I live by this principle….. whatever Dr. Jack tells me to do, I do it, because that has worked every single time. Not sometimes, every time.
He told me that he had been working on this for a bit and would share it with me when he had his plan ready. What did I feel when he said that? Relief……total and complete relief. Tell me again….. how do you get that level of care from reading a book? If I was out floundering on my own, reading a manual, I might be tempted to just give up, to just chuck the whole thing. But this isn’t those other times. No matter what I am never giving this way of life up. I am never going back. And although I slid back some, I am going to move forward again. This stopped being a diet a long time ago, it’s a way of life and one that keeps me feeling my best, with better only around the corner.
I ask questions…. I read what he tells me to, I follow his advice and listen. I am stubborn, and sometimes it takes me a bit to truly understand what he is explaining, but I get there. I am scared a lot that if I try it, it might not work, but his words always come back to me, “You have to trust me.”
And when something doesn’t work? Well, I have the one thing that a lot of people don’t have…. I have Dr. Jack to figure out why. Try to get that from a book, or from a group where the people leading it are only “experts” in their own journey. That’s why when anyone writes to me? I send them the expert’s contact information. You want to get cured? You need help from someone who has dealt with thousands of people in this situation.
I am okay with this hiccup in the road. Things will get better and if they don’t? It won’t be my problem to figure out why…… gosh that feels good. Besides…. when he and I put this all in a book one day that I am going to get him to write with me? This is going to make a great couple of chapters!