Where do I start......

I have endured, I have been broken, I have known hardship, I have lost myself.  But here I stand, still moving forward, growing stronger each day.  I will never forget the harsh lessons in my life.  They made me stronger.

I was awake all night.  Partially due to 2 straight days of Iron Tribe work outs that killed my knees (damn you power clean squats and back squats) but largely in part to how totally shocked I was at how my Thursday went.  Honestly, the only reason I am even writing about this so early on is because I desperately need to clear my head and I don’t have enough followers that I felt like I should hold off on announcing anything.

Anyone close to me knows that I have dealt with a few blows over the last 3 years.  I joined Iron Tribe 3 months ago after a long battle with myself and an even longer battle with CFS.  There have been a lot of benefits to starting CrossFit and I am so grateful that I found this outlet and this community to help me, especially given that during the last few months I have started having even stronger symptoms.

I had a friend who introduced me to “gut health” so by the time I started at Iron Tribe I was already practicing the 80/20 rule with Paleo but I wasn’t super stressed about being perfect on it. My goal was just to eliminate certain things that might be hurting the CFS flare ups- so basically switching to clean eating. 

Over the years my stomach has started giving me problems so it felt like a good solution.  I was already mostly off dairy and zero red meat so it wasn’t a far stretch.  Then, I had a severe and violent reaction to nightshades 2 weeks ago that kind of prompted me to finally have some allergy testing done. In all honesty, I knew I was very sensitive to certain foods, I was just avoiding the testing because of Mo and everything that she found out when she went.  BUT I bucked up and put on my big girl panties and finally set up the appointment after getting REALLY sick from tomatoes.  (I’ll spare you the details but lets just say that I was super grateful I had moved home so that my mom could help me because it was terrible.)

2 weeks later I am sitting with the allergist going over all of the problems I have preparing for the worst, which in my mind is that I am severely allergic and might need an epi pen and just need to avoid those foods.  Instead he told me he didn’t think these were food allergies at all and that I had all of the symptoms of Crohns Disease.

Not going to lie, it had never even dawned on me that it could be something worse.  I was in no way prepared to be told this. 

So here I am totally preparing for what I considered to be the worst case scenario when the whole time my worst case was actually my best.

“I’m sorry- Crohns??????”

“yes crohns.”

“wow. Wow. Um ok. Wow. What does this mean?  Where do we start?”

“Well first we are going to rule out allergies and do the testing.  So you need to be off all of your sinus and allergy medication for a week.”

“A WEEK WITHOUT SINUS MEDS?!?!?!?!”

“A week.”

“grumbles something inaudible and very inappropriate”

“Next when the tests come back negative- and they will aside from some usual allergies I am guessing- we will send you to a gastrointestinal doctor to start those tests.  In the meantime you need to go off of all dairy, gluten, red meat, and no alcohol.”

“NO ALCOHOL??????? NONE, Like not even the occasional jack or glass of wine with friends?” 

“None, it’s very bad for your gut.”

“grumbles another inaudible and inappropriate comment.”

And that was that. In the span of 5 minutes, I went from trying to control CFS to not knowing if I even have it OR if I have more than 1 autoimmune issue.

I left and went to Iron Tribe for a meeting I had already set up to help me prepare for the power challenge that was coming up.  And I cried. In front of my trainers. They were kind and gracious and comforting and they 100% think I am nuts, no questions about it.  Then we did the measurements and talked game plans to help keep my food good and most importantly making sure I was actually eating during the challenge because lately nothing has been settling well so I am NOT getting the nutrients I need.  After we talked, I knocked out a third work out for the week and tried to leave it all at the gym but we all know that is basically impossible for me.

For a woman who thrives on control I have had NONE over the last 9 months.  I am learning to be ok with that but I am definitely not great at it yet. I am really trying to keep a good attitude since that is basically the only thing I CAN do for myself at the moment.  Everything else is up in the air.

I went home, cried a little more on my mom’s lap and went to sleep.  It’s funny how life works out.  I moved home largely in part to help her out with Granny and to get the house fixed up a bit and the longer I am home the more I realize that maybe this was to help ME out.  I honestly do not think I would have handled it well had I gone home to an empty house on my own last night.  And the reaction I had a few weeks ago would have been a lot worse had she not been there to help me.

Life has a funny way of working out.

At this point I am still trying to absorb everything and not freak out because honestly I have more questions than answers right now. I’m tired and angry and just genuinely feeling pretty bummed about things right now.  I am also trying to be extra grateful for the small things I have at the moment.  Family.  An amazing support group at iron tribe.  A few vacations coming up to help me get away (and I already put a deposit down so I can’t change my mind). A wedding where I get to see my best friend say I-do to her high school sweetheart. Another best friend moving back to Memphis.  Honestly I am just finding joy wherever I can.

Life balances out.  I just need a few prayers in the meantime because all I want during this time of change is to do the right thing, be graceful about my problems, to have a few solutions I can bring to the table, and hopefully come out the other end stronger.  I started out this journey trying to be a stronger woman to help out my family.  I had no idea it was going to lead to more problems than solutions before coming out on the other end.

One step at a time though right?

“For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but of Power, Love, and Self Discipline”

2 Tim 1:7