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That has not been an easy task.   No one in this family is much about Christmas this year.   How could they be?   First the baby… then Shannon and now my ex husband is still in rehab for a partial leg amputation after five surgeries and complications.   It’s been a long year.

But I am the mom here!  And Christmas has to come.  After all, there are still things to celebrate.   Sara’s pregnancy is going well.  I thank God every single day for every single day! Joey and I try to help her and Russ.   We usually take Sara grocery shopping with us and Joey pushes her cart, lifts and carries for her.   I go over every Saturday and scrub up her house and do all the laundry.   Then I come home and do mine on Sunday.   Somehow we are making it all work.

On one of those days we were riding out to Wegmans I mentioned Christmas, and I swear I heard crickets chirping in the car.  No one was much in the mood.   I told them that although I totally get it, we have to try for the sake of each other to do a little.   So we don’t need to put up every decoration, nor go crazy buying.  After all, we never were much about stuff…we all enjoy the company more than the presents anyway.

They agreed…. how’s it going?  Ehhhhhhh…….

Their dad’s simple toe removal escalated to five surgeries until his leg was gone near mid calf.   He is in rehab and scheduled home next week but that will be a job.   Shopping for Sara who can’t walk much was mostly done online.   I work my two jobs so I was limited too but we all did what we could.  I made three kinds of cookies and not many at that.   They kept saying I could skip it but I am the Mom!  And Christmas never happens without the Mom!   Do I feel like it? Not too much but I am making myself.

I remind myself every day, that I have  soooo much to be thankful for!  Soooooo much.   And nothing will change the circumstances so we have to keep moving forward.  That’s all there is to it. Life is like that, you have to just get up and keep going.   I reminded them that when I was a kid we lost my grandmother who had lived with us right before Christmas.  Her funeral was December 23….my mom made Christmas even though it was so painful to her.   Not our best year,  but it didn’t matter.  We had each other.

Well, I am the Mom now and I have to make it happen too!  So we are having dinner with my sister and her family.   Christmas Eve, Sara is visiting her in law’s in Olean, and Joey and I will be alone.  That might be best.  I invented Shannon’s mom to join us, but she is not in the place where she can and I totally get it.  It will be okay…. just not yet.

Health wise I feel much better.   I am finally off the self sabotage.   I know in my heart that I was just doing that to myself because it’s kind of like trying to cover yourself with a coat.   But my great eating habits have returned.   And my stress level, well, minus this Christmas pressure is in check.

2018….that’s going to be my year.   Hoping it’s your year too!   Take time to breathe during the holiday.   No one remembers anything I ever bought them. But they do always remember memories.   Joey and I talked yesterday about all the fun I had baking cookies with Shannon the last few years.  No one appreciated my cookies like Shannon and I miss that so much this year.

Have a great Christmas!

Hugs

Chris

Need to get healthier?  Me too!   I do a lot of breathing…  not kidding.

Everyone who reads here knows my story.  Been a rough ride for awhile and I am working harder than I ever have to just make all things in my life move toward a healthier place. I know that I absolutely have to do that to help myself.  People can give you tons of advice, but unless you  make an effort nothing will change.

The last time I wrote, I got a ton of email!  People kept telling me their stress stories, the negative people they encounter, the problems that are facing them.  We are all on the same journey, you know, just traveling different roads. And all we can do is be a kind ear, a caring listener.   People ask me what things I do to help myself. And there are plenty of them.  But one of my easiest is simple!

I Breathe…  that’s what I do…. I breathe.

Read moreBreathe……

Yeah, I admit I didn’t know what it was either so don’t feel badly.  After my summer, Dr. Jack talked to me about my sympathetic nervous system and how it had been activated into high gear and seemed to be staying there.   I had no idea what he was talking about, what it’s effects were or how to fix it.

I have always said Dr. Jack is a natural born teacher and he is.  He can take the most complex topic and break it down into language that non medical people can understand.   The first webinar of his that I watched,  which pushed me to contact him, was one where he explained what Hashimoto’s Disease actually is.   I told him, ‘You are the first person who explained this disease to me so I could actually understand it.”  This was no different.

He patiently explained how your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system is part of your immune system.  On a larger scale, it is the fight or flight response. It obviously had been kicked into high alert over summer but my body was having a hard time shutting it down.  What I didn’t realize was that although it was not life threatening, it definitely was life altering.  Your heart rate increases, your blood vessels constrict and it definitely makes your digestive system work differently by not letting food get to where it needs to go.  As he explained it further, I started thinking about changes in how I felt that I just chalked off to stress.   I read about it to further  understand it and he answered my questions, which mostly were how was it going to get fixed.

Read moreMy Sympathetic Nervous System….

Out of the dark, ugly forest of summer… a place that just has changed all of us….. that hurt us all in ways that I can’t even explain…. has come this….. a beautiful rainbow of joy and happiness…..Sara and Russ are expecting in May…..

I have known for awhile, along with Dr. Jack, and kept quiet, just continued to ask friends for prayers for my family, but have held my secret close to my heart.  When our family lost  Baby Russ, Dr. Jack was with us for the funeral.  He stood by us, there for us both physically and emotionally, a strong voice of reason in our time of grief.

He told Sara and Russ to allow themselves time to grieve, but to not give up hope.  After all, for five years they had tried and while working with him, she had three pregnancies.  Hope was here.  This is was not impossible.  It was not Sara’s fault nor the baby’s.  And now that it was known what went wrong, it was a fixable issue.

Sara listened and told me she was not willing to give up yet because of what he said.  What can I say? Like mother like daughter.

Read moreMy little secret?? Thankful for THIS!

Most people who read here know I am a middle school teacher. And many know that I had worked at Walmart part time.  Why work two jobs? Research the average pay of Catholic school teachers and do the math…. ha ha that’s funny since I am a math teacher, and you will soon understand.   I am a single adult woman and it is just hard to survive on that salary.  I have a home, a family, and all that goes with that.

I have worked two jobs since Joey started high school.  I sent my children to Catholic high school and there was no break for teaching  Catholic school.   Add in college expenses, and life…. well, I have always worked two jobs and the truth is for about a year, I worked three!   Given my Hashimoto’s, I am not sure how I did it either but I think it didn’t help it too much.  Stress is a huge enemy of Hashimoto’s.

Read moreLife after Walmart….

”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…..

Read more“If it doesn’t work, it will be my problem to figure out why…”

I am away for the night, as I traveled with my family to Syracuse for the state championship for marching band.  Internet connections being what they are in some places, my friend Cindy called, and our connection was lost. It was an unexpected call, and I was surprised to see her husband’s name pop up in messenger.   I wanted to call back but   It would not be easy to talk here, too much going on, and I would hate to have to keep,calling back, as our connection not good, but my heart is with her tonight, I keep thinking about her.

She was having a tough day.  Today was their wedding anniversary.   The sadness is that she lost her beloved husband and best friend not that long ago.  Her family has suffered so much loss, just as mine has. She was upset as she described a day I am sooooo familiar with. The day where everything is just so wrong.   She was hurting and in our short conversation, before our connection lost, she mentioned that we are such strong people, that we see all these signs that our loved ones are nearby and how much she wished she had that.

I didn’t want to tell her, that we aren’t all that strong, and where others see coincidence, well I don’t believe in coincidence.   People tell me all the time that I want to see signs, which is why I do.   I just smile…. believe what you will.   I think I look for signs.   My faith is in something much stronger than coincidences.

We are not as strong as people think we are.  Oh don’t get me wrong, we are tough stock but ……… We just doing a great job of hiding the awful days.   I try not to talk about those days.   We have plenty of them, far too many, but we just keep plugging along.   Do we cry some days? Absolutely!  We all do.   Sara was in a funk the other day as was I, because it was the baby’s birth date.   A rough day….I stood over his spot at the  cemetery and sobbed, telling him, to always know he is loved.  I just didn’t tell anyone I did.

Read moreMy friend, Cindy, needs a few prayers today…..

Today is Dr. Jack’s birthday! I really hope it is a wonderful day for him. I know that his day will be filled with sports for his boys, and I hope some time with his wife and many friends. Like most weekends, I know he will be busy.

Dr. Jack leads an extremely busy life. He has his chiropractic business, his health care business and he has the thing that is the most important thing in his life, his family. I love listening to him talk about his family. His entire face changes when he talks about his wife and his boys. His devotion to them is written in every aspect of his face, and it is his priority, as it should be. I admire that about him so much. He supports his family in all things, is constantly coaching a team, and with his wife, taking his sons to events they enjoy. He is a the perfect role model of a husband and father.

He cares so much about all his patients. He is everything a doctor should be. He gives so much of himself to others and I am so grateful to him, for all he has done to help me. It isn’t that he has helped me get my health in check, it is that he has been such a great friend to me. He has stood by me through these trying times of my life and given me permission that it is okay. That I just need to ride out the storm here and then things will get better. That on this road of my health journey, life happened. He has been kind enough to just patiently wait for me to get back up and running.

You see what most people don’t understand and never will, Dr. Jack has not just fixed the Big Bad Hashimoto’s Disease in me, he has step by step, often inch by inch cured what really hurt. And that is a gift I can never repay. He has cured what no one else could, and what I couldn’t. The job isn’t over yet, but has it been life changing? It has changed every possible aspect of my life.

I often wish I could give some gift that would mean something for all that, but what could I possibly give? If you google search, gifts for a man who has changed your entire existence in this life, not too much that is equitable pops up. I am lost as to what to give…….I could stich him up a super hero cape, but he would be way too modest to actually put it on. Ha ha…. I have considered it, ;)…

I could offer something overpriced and exorbitant but he would never accept such a thing from me anyway. And if I had told him I was writing about him today, he would have told me not to, because he is way too modest. Believe me I have tried to tell him on countless conversations. When I try to, he stops me, he changes the topic. Or he tells me that we did it together. He won’t hear it and he would never accept credit.

I wish sometimes that I could find the perfect thing to express my gratitude, but it really doesn’t exist. I suppose I could give a question free, email free day. A gift of my silence, ha ha…. but as you see, I already failed! I wish I could find the perfect “thing,” especially today of all days, but despite the search, I come up empty handed.

So I guess for today, all I can do is say Happy Birthday, and wish him well And I hope that today is a wonderful day, filled with all the things he loves because no one deserves it more! I hope the birthday wishes from friends and family make him feel “stuffed,” with how others feel about him. I hope dinner and friends are a part of his day, and that laughing, joy and a little off plan are involved, just no yucky sugar filled cancer feeding cake. I hope it is a great birthday for a wonderful man who puts everyone else before himself.

Every day I wake up and take time to thank God for everything I have been given. Dr. Jack is always on that list. He is an amazing man, an exceptional doctor, and without a doubt, continues to be a life changing influence in my life. When it comes to human beings? Definitely top shelf.

Happy Birthday Dr. Jack!

Did you think it was a blog about how to do that?  No!  I am asking you…. ha ha……

Just kidding…. sort of….

Last week, I had a  conversation with Dr. Jack about what seems totally like my inability to relax and unwind.  It was a conversation that lead to an email that i have  read over a hundred times.   It was one of those times when someone says something to you that gets in your head and you can’t forget it.   You think about it, you read it again and spot something else that registers, you think on that.  You realize that it hits home.   I am always grateful to him for those.

In thinking about it, I started to realize that way too much of my mental time is spent worrying.   I worry about family and friends.  I worry about my job.  I worry that I am not doing everything perfectly.   I worry that my weight is standing still.   I worry about how my kids are doing.  I worry …..

Because the truth is, that as hard as I am trying to get it all together here?  Yeah….. well…. yeah…. I am figuring out that the big equation has a lot more intricate details on the road to de stress.  And as I am trying to fix that, I realized that there are a ton of components to that and one of them is that I worry far too much.

Read moreHow to stop worrying…

“Don’t you get tired of not eating anything fun, like don’t you just want a slice of pizza once in awhile ?”  Hmmmmm….. do I miss stuff?  Of course!  If I didn’t I wouldn’t be very human would I?  I do miss things. Today I miss toast, and I know exactlyyyyyyy why…. But I always remind myself what those things do to me.   I will give you a crazy example that I have to start cutting out this week….because it is doing so much harm to my head and my gut and making me think about toast.  And I know it’s holding up progress….. Catholic Communion….. no lie.

My faith is important to me. After the summer I had, I doubt I would be standing without my faith.   That’s all that got me through, my faith and good people.   I was born Catholic, and our faith was always important to our family.   I go to Mass twice a week with my class and once on the weekend.  Always go to communion. Hello! I am a Catholic!  That’s what we do since the day of our First Communion.  It is the one of the most important parts of the Mass.

Read moreCatholics and Communion…..