21.05.2014

I got a private msg from ITSAN from a mother asking me to call her as she was in Auckland too. She wanted to ask about the clofibrate ointment and I offered to give her a small tub to try and I drove her her house and had a good chat with her. I just got back from the visit. The 5 year old girl going through TSW in month 6 and her mother who is looking after her sweetheart 32 hours a day. Yes that’s right, that’s what she said 32 hours. Her daughter was 5 and was wrapped up like a baby in a swaddle. I felt so guilty and bad. I mean my face was still red and flaky and shit but seeing that girl was just heart breaking. I also had nostalgic feelings of my early TSW days. I felt bad cos I felt more ‘normal’ than her. That guilty feeling of “I can’t do anything to help you” felt soooo bad when I was talking to the girl’s mum. This type of guilty feeling must haunt the mum and many parents of children going thru TSW every day.

I wanted to take off my hat and show the girl my face and my old picture on the blog to prove that healing does happen. But obviously she was in so much pain she did not pay any attention to anything other than the iPad which kept her irregularly occupied for moments to distract her from the intense itching and pain while I talked to her mother. The girl didn’t even look at me. I felt so bad, I felt like I couldn’t do anything to help her. How can we help children get through this? How? How do we give them the resilience when parents themselves are about to breakdown? How??!!! Children are too young to understand it mentally. They don’t fucken care. They are in pain and it’s all that matters. Parents suffer significantly from the obligation to care constantly. The pain, the mental struggles, the house work, the f-ing ignorants (the medical ppl who don’t understand), the madness in the house!!! Just typing this list out sound daunting.

After I hand in my thesis I’m gonna see what other ways I can support this family. *heart broken*

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13.06.2014

So I have been extremely stressed out with finishing off my thesis and eating junk food for comfort.  And since I read about Mary’s post on healing the gut in TSW, everything just clicked!!! And since then I had been eating healthy and avoiding foods that damage my gut. There is clearly a significant difference in the itchiness and healing when I eat anti-inflammatory foods.. I was making smoothies and green juices, not eating any carbs, no sugar, no caffeine, eating cooked food and kimchi. However, as time started to ate me up again with thesis writing, I picked up the FUCK IT attitude again. I’m not gonna stress out over what to eat and what not to eat on top of my thesis stress, motherhood stress, wifehood stress and TSW stress (even tho the diet helped TSW). I will do the diet thing after my thesis is handed in. I know I bloody suxxxxx balls but fuck it seriously (for now) I am already tired by duties of a mother, and I do have to be pretty organised in preparing vegetable and fruit and meals, snacks etc ahead to do the leaky gut diet properly… that itself is already a stress and very time consuming. So I want to just focus on thesis writing and do whatever that comforts me. And once I started eating not so healthy again, I started mini flares again (the stuff I was eating were strong earl grey teas, I would drink up to 6 cups a day, a bit of rice, sometimes sugary drinks), my energy levels decreased, I still did occasional smoothies and green juices, kimchi and ate more veges whenever I felt like it, and some junk food. Clearly the itch came back stronger and I was flaring on hands, and tummy which were areas that were very calm already.

What I also noticed was my cravings actually decreased. Since I started the leaky gut diet (for about 2 weeks), I had carb cravings, which was expected, and then when I went back to eating not-so healthy again, I noticed I craved less for junk and unhealthy food like potatoes, pizza, pasta, rice, chocolate….etc I think my body was getting used to healthy foods! That was good. I am hopeful of retuning my body or brain… back to the healthy road after this month!!!! I also started drinking bone broths more. I made a huge pot and just drank that a lot until the pot finished. It wasn’t a lot as my husband shared it too. Broths heal leaky gut greatly. So that might have filled up some of my holes in the gut? :P