My Long Journey Back to the Raw Lifestyle

For a few years I was “Ravishingly Raw” bringing myself back from the brink of ruin physically. I was one of those unlucky people that was struck with Lupus. My sister and I both got struck with it in the same month of the same year only hers was severe and mine was mild in comparison. I was also unlucky enough for the ANA blood test to show a very low presence of anything auto-immune, but it had the Rheumatologist baffled. I had tremors, then lost some of my ability to walk and I was so embarrassed by the fact that as a result I was also incontinent. I was tested for everything under the sun neurological, but in the end I was given a diagnoses of fibromyalgia and Lupus. The doctor explained to me that in some people, Lupus can actually not show up on a blood test, but because I also had a family history of it, that he gave me a diagnosis of both. It was quite strange having both, and he explained both of them to me, and differences between the two different disorders. I was given an extremely high dose of prednisone, and I was told that the prednisone was for the Lupus and it would not help with the fibromyalgia. So double the pain, until the day when my legs started getting numb and feeling really heavy. Then I didn’t feel any pain at all in them. I also had a hard time moving them…the pain was gone, but so was all feeling from the waist down.

After a year of dealing with the medications and the fact that there was no cure for either disorder, I decided to slowly transition to a raw food diet. I started by taking out things that I really didn’t care for anyway, and then started removing other kinds of cooked and processed foods from my diet.

During the transition to the raw diet, I didn’t notice any thing changing in my body or feel any better. But! when I finally took the leap to a raw food diet, within six weeks I lost sixty pounds and felt better than I ever felt in long time. I maintained it for another few years until I started getting tremors again. Being raw, I sent the Lupus into remission for a few years. At the time I didn’t know there were other “triggers” for bringing Lupus out of remission. When my hair started falling out, I thought it was due to my diet and I felt defeated thinking that maybe the raw foods had nothing to do with me getting better and that my diet was making me malnourished. But that wasn’t the case! I wouldn’t find out for another year and a half that I had become very allergic to mold. (That is a good story for another time.) It was at that time that the doctor told me that it was actually the mold allergy that is a trigger for my Lupus. He wanted to pump me full of steroids again and I let him, much to my horror, that course of prednisone brought on drug induced Cushings Disease. Fun huh?

So now that I am moving to New Mexico I am planning on transitioning back to a raw lifestyle. What that will look like is any one’s guess! It is supposed to be very dry in NM (not the place I dreamed of being, by the way!) and if there is no more humidity and mold spores to occupy my airspace, I may be able to take a bash at being raw again.

This blog entry was an introductory of sorts to bring everyone up to speed on what my journey has been to this point, and the rest of my postings will be my journey forward…my struggles and my victories. I will also be posting recipes and my “take” on the raw food lifestyle.

My Beautiful Son

Our family has been through the ringer over the last five years. My family and I had just move to PA from Michigan, and we had to try to fit the contents of an 8 bedroom house into a house that only had three bedrooms. Most of the stuff ended up downstairs in the garage. When we first moved in, we could smell a strong chemical smell in the basement, but we never asked the landlord what the smell was…as long as it didn’t smell like a musty basement we were happy to be there. Over the course of that year, my children were always sick, I got a nasty flare up of Lupus, I was partially paralysed again and I had just gotten married. What the heck was my new husband thinking? LOL
Here he was, married for the first time to a woman with four children, and now he was taking care of her because she could hardly walk, blew up like a balloon because of the steroids, and on top of it all, was going bald…not a very good start to a new life.
It was a hard year, and just as quickly as we moved in, the landlord decided that he was going to sell the house, and we had to leave. We found a new place, and started moving stuff out of the house…but when we got to the garage, we noticed that there was a very thick layer of mold all over our beautiful furniture. I had no idea that I was allergic to mold, so we did our best to clean it all off, and we moved out.

Two weeks after moving in to our new home, I stopped breathing. There was no warning signs of pneumonia, no fever, or even coughing. I just stopped breathing. I was rushed to intensive care where my new husband was told to say what he needed to say to me because I probably wouldn’t make it to see tomorrow. My husband and children were terrified. I did make it through the night, but it was a fight! I was determined to live.
They treated me with really strong antibiotics, and a week later, I was back at home. When I started feeling a little better, I went out to our new garage where we put all the stuff from the previous house, and all of the sudden I stopped breathing again. I was rushed back to the hospital, and we asked if it could have to do with the mold that was all over our furniture. The doctor said to get rid of all the stuff, and that I was probably allergic to the mold.
How could I do that to my family? We didn’t listen, and I went through another year of reoccurring pneumonia. My husband finally said we have to get rid of all our things and move. The new house was contaminated, and if I wanted to live to see my family another day, we needed to get rid of it all.

We had a big garage sale, and sold or gave away almost everything we owned. Over that next year, my children, my husband and me slept on blowup mattresses. My husband was constantly cleaning everything because when I went to the allergist, we found out that I was allergic to a whole host of things…not just mold.

I felt so bad for my children though. They lovingly sold all their belongings. Books, toys, treasured keepsakes, and things that they had for a long time. We had kept most of our clothes and a few other items, but that was it.
We have been slowly purchasing new things, and I say slowly. We started with the kids, so that they wouldn’t have to sleep on blow up mattresses anymore, and my husband and I put what we wanted or needed aside.
We are still recovering.

The other day, my son says “mom, when was the last time you went shopping for clothes or something nice for yourself?” I asked him why he was asking that question, because he knows what we have been through and why my husband and I don’t purchase things for ourselves. I told him there are bigger priorities than me buying clothing right now (even though my husband wanted to deck me out with a new look just last weekend) and that I had turned down my husband’s offer to get me some new things.
My kids have always been “savers”. They have their own bank accounts, and when someone gives money for their birthday or if they got their allowance they always put it in the bank. He told me that he wanted to take me shopping. I refused, and wanted to drop the subject. I loved his gesture, but I didn’t want him spending his money on me. I rejected a love offering. He pushed harder, (He’s 11 years old) and told me how much he loved me and wanted to get me out of those old worn out clothes. I started to cry. I realized that he wasn’t going to give in, and I finally agreed.

He chose to forget about the past and what he had to lose and instead chose to embrace the present and move forward to a better future. He wanted to give to me from his heart. I can’t imagine how it might have hurt him if I kept refusing his gesture to me. He has always thought long and hard and scrimped and saved to purchase things for me for my birthday and holiday’s…Gold, Jade and rubies…but the most precious gift I have ever received from him was his absolutely stunning heart! What a treasure. What a gift.
What a beautiful Son.