Don't Take your Health or Love for Granted

Disclaimer: This post is not meant to host a pity party.

This post is not all sunshine and roses.

As upbeat and positive as I want this blog to be, 

I equally want it to be real. Thanks.

Dear Crohn's Disease:
I hate you.

I don't hate many things, but you are one that I loathe.

You make days that could be good, turn bad.

You cast an evil spell over the one person 

who means more to me than anything that walks this earth.

You've ruined 4th of Julys.

You've ruined some wonderful meals.

You've made me miss my girls night.

Worst of all, you've caused such pain and suffering, in my love,

I can't bear to watch him go through it.

I thank God daily that our wedding and honeymoon were not affected by

your hideous effects and awful atrocities.

You've taken away the ability for those affected by this disease to enjoy

caffeine.

Can any of you imagine a world without 

Coffee?

Espresso?
Iced tea?

Red Bull?

What about soda?

No carbonation.
No Champagne. 

No pop.

No bubbly water.

No alcohol.

No wine.
No Vodka.
No Jack & Cokes.

I know these aren't good in high doses,

but even a 'once in awhile' really causes such problems, 

to him it's not worth the risk.

He has to take caution in every bite.

I try so hard to control everything that goes into his mouth,

but it's so hard to judge,

when is too much?

So many questions...

Will this fruit bother him?
How many veggies can he eat and be ok?

How long should I cook the veggies?
Should he even eat the vegetables?
My man LOVES vegetables.

You name it, he'd eat it, if he could.

Which sucks, because I know people 

who don't eat vegetables because they don't like them.

How evil.

Corn on the cob.

Such a simple and silly summer staple.

He can't have an entire ear of corn.

He gets violently ill.

Can I cook with wheat or will it trigger something?
Can I leave a bowl of cherries on the counter without him devouring them all?
Can he have Chia seeds in his salad?

Sesame seeds on our sushi rolls?

Pumpkin seeds?

Will it be passed along to our children one day?
Can we have children?
We've all had our fair of stomach aches and pains.

I don't have Crohn's, but I can tell you, it's described as

"A disease that doesn't kill you, but makes you wish you were dead."
As my eyes fill with tears, as I type this post, I can't help but

wish there were something I could do.

Pray it's not a long bout of a flare up.

I will say that my menu will change and we will be eating more pasta...

for some reason his body digests that so well.

If you've been reading my blog for awhile, you may know that one of the

reasons why I chose to stay home from teaching this year, was to see if we'd

{hubs, dogs, home, me}

would be better off if I were here full time.

Up til now, it had been working like a charm.

Sadie has had no seizures, and Joe had no flare-ups.

I also looked back through at the last 2 times he was ill;

both fell on the first of the month.

Oddly, his "last few days" of each month are most stressful in the car business.

Late nights, not a ton of down time or sleep.

Late night meals.

I will take this into account and hope he recovers from this quickly.

His worst flare up was when he turned 21.

He lived in Boston and worked crazy hours making that cheddar.

He was 120 lbs.

He's 6'2

He was almost dead.

Thank God he some how pulled through and made it home 

and was nursed back to health.

Because of this experience, he has learned to really live life to its fullest.

He doesn't take life for granted.
He's never in a bad mood or grumpy for no reason.
He works harder than most people I know, and I take my job

as "Just a Housewife" seriously.

I try to run the house by myself, cook, clean, organize, etc.
So he doesn't have to.
So when he's laying in pain,

I feel so helpless.

Since we've met, we've made many changes to keep him healthy.

He also decided to go off all his prescription medicines so we can one day

have a family, a healthy family.

I've been wanting to do a post on what we are doing holistically to keep him healthy.

Well, I'll tell you, not eating a large meal before bed is one way.

The hard thing with CD is that every person is so different.
Each body reacts to foods so uniquely. 

It's really all about trial 

and unfortunately, error.

We take our health seriously and it breaks my heart my love is in so much pain.

Instead of silly favors at our wedding that most people throw away anyway 

we donated to the Crohn's Colitis Foundation of America.

I hope that one day they figure out what truly causes this.
I truly believe it's our food; processed shit that wasn't nature made.

If you're still with me, lovely readers, and you have an extra prayer laying around,

please send positive thoughts our way.

I'll be trying to get Gatorade to stay down him, and keep our dogs quiet...

Two very tricky tasks...sigh.

What do you do when your loved ones are sick?
And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

Enjoy your coffee and take care of your health.

It's the only body you've got for the rest of your life.