CHANGES

I cried in the shower this morning.

I was washing my new cute haircut, listening to some of my favorite songs from the date with destiny playlist and I was just so overwhelmed with joy that it brought me to tears.

Let me see if I can try to put this MASSIVE thing into words for you to understand just the sheer level of incredible-ness that it truly is.

This morning after finishing my breakfast I realized that I ate the whole bowl of oats in less than 10 minutes.

I was reading while I was eating ( a tool I adopted over the years to take the focus off the food so I could actually get something down ) so it took me a minute to realize what had just happened.

You see, usually it would take me nothing short of an hour to choke down breakfast.

Ya, you read that correctly. I would take me close to an hour to basically force feed myself a bowl of oats. And every bite was a struggle. I would have to talk myself through it. I’d have to fight the constant nausea with small little bites, chewing as little as possible, and just trying not to think about it.

I know this might sound dramatic but that has been the necessary steps for the past…. Oh like 25 years.

You see, I’ve been chronically nauseous for years. Nothing helped. No one could figure it out, or was willing to look beyond a general blood test (which always came back normal) or a critique of my diet and then they would send me on my way basically telling me that this was something I was manufacturing based on my eating habits.

Um- how is it based on my eating habits when I can’t eat without gagging bro?

Insert an extremely long list of methodologies tried, diets, blood sugar monitors, supplements, treatments, tries anywhere I could find something. You name it, I tried it.

But the only thing that kept me alive all of these years was my ability to push through it and pretend like it wasn’t as bad as it was.

Now please hear me when I say that it is much more complicated than I’m writing it here and I don’t wish to discuss your ideas about what might be happening inside of my body so please keep that to yourself. That’s not the point of this share. The point of this share is to explain how something that to the rest of the world probably seems small, almost even insignificant like eating my oatmeal in less than 10 minutes with no struggle is seriously a sign of a LIFE CHANGING thing for me.

And when I realized it happened today I realized that it happened yesterday too.

My appetite still doesn’t exist, I’m still using a timer to remind myself to eat. But when I do eat, it isn’t hard anymore. It’s not a struggle. It’s not a game of fooling myself into taking the bites and actually swallowing it down without having to talk myself through the urge to puke as the nauseated feeling would be worse after I swallowed. It was a chore to eat food. Which sucks because I LOVE FOOD.

I did it though. I got food down. But I did so by fighting myself. A necessary fight for so many years but still, a fight. And theres not a lot of things that are worse than force feeding yourself 80% of the time because you’re constantly nauseated.

So what changed?

After back to back strings of REALLY hard episodes where I was puking for 4-5days straight and keeping nothing down but pedialyte- I surrendered to it all in a deeper way than I ever had before.

I told everything. I told about the way my days are typically difficult to get through and all of the parts of that. Instead of pushing it down and just dealing with it like I have done most of my life- I let it all be FULLY FULLY shown and see and I chose to FEEL it all..all at the same time.

And I chose to SIT IN THE DISCOMFORT and in a way accept that it really IS that bad. Because you guys, trust me when I tell you that even my own family didn’t know about a quarter of what I dealt with every day and have for years.

So I started talking about it and I called in every favor I could think of to get a doctor to see me that might actually listen this time.

I found one.

He heard me. Gave me REAL information. Confirmed that this had nothing to do with my diet (I knew it this whole time but no one would listen to me) and that it was something that even if it took sending me to the Mayo Clinic, he would stay by my side until we figure something out.

He validated something that no one else really ever had in my life….

He got me into a specialist that cared as much as he did. The treatment I’ve received has been unlike any I’d experienced in my 30+ years dealing with doctors.

We don’t have answers just yet but we’ve narrowed things down to a certain area of my body and I feel good about that.

For the first time EVER someone offered me something to help with my symptom while we’re working to find the root of the problem, then heal it.

Help with my SYMPTOMS?!

My jaw must have hit the ground when he did.

I was shocked and I’m not going to lie, I did not believe it was possible or that it would work. I’m still not totally sold that this is real and will last.

But I’ll tell you what, it looks like it might be working. I’ll continue to keep you posted but as of today, roughly 4 weeks in- I feel less nauseated than I have in 25 years.

Yes you read that correctly.

For the first time in 25 years, so basically for the first time I can actually remember- I’ve woken up feeling good, not nauseated and without a sharp pain in my stomach.

I literally have NO idea what life looks like without nausea, being hyper-prepared for any possible situation that might make my nausea worse at all times, having a pain in my gut, having no appetite at all, and without having pain in my back.

I don’t know what that looks like but I’m starting to actually believe it might be possible.

Stay tuned. I’m just keeping my eyes open and my heart grounded as I navigate through this new normal (fingers crossed it is that, the new normal)

 Jamie Thurber

Life & business coach

Thank you for reading along. At my core, I’m a creator first. These pages are filled with my stories, my experiences, and my heart. My hope is that you can walk away from each post feeling better and with things you can implement right away.  I appreciate you being here. 

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