Getting Wiggy with Change

Well, I know in my last post, I was down on wigs.  Well, I've had a change in heart.  I was out shopping yesterday and went past a mirror.  It was then that I realized how thin my hair is.  My husband keeps telling me my hair is going to grow back and that I look fine.  Well, I don't know if my hair will grow back and I realized I don't look fine.  I look pathetic.

So time to do something about it.  After looking at myself in that mirror I drove home.  I got my wig out and finally got it adjusted to where I could stand it.  Then went out in public.  I felt better.  I am devastated about my real hair, I can barely stand what has become of it.  I have cried and cried to the Lord, only to see more hair lost.

I am not particularly wild about my first wig so thus ordering a new one.  Hoping I like the look of #2 better.  This whole journey is so hard.  Change is always hard.  My oldest grandson is going through change.  In 2 weeks he will be going to school for the first time.  He doesn't want to.  I sat holding him and we cried together because we are both afraid of changes in our lives.  At least we can tell each other "I love you".

So Very Hard

This time in my life is so very hard.  I've been through some really rough times, but for some reason this trial is a killer.  Its one thing to lose relationship with both my sons, that's bad enough.  But to find out my pancreas is damaged and lose my hair on top of that is more than I can bear.  There are some days I feel I cannot go on at all.  I am seeing a counselor and have a med to help, but still, there are no words for the pain.  Right now I am going through grief.  Some days all I can do is housework and play a Bible game on my cell phone.

 My hair loss situation is bad.  Being that my hair was thin to begin with it makes it all the more unbearable.  I have less hair than in my last photo in my last post.  I have pretty much lost the bangs that I had in that photo.  Not wanting to take pictures at this point.  Looking at old pictures makes me want to cry.  My husband is not accepting the situation well.  He loves me and wants me to have my hair and it pains him that it is slipping away.  He prays all the time for my hair to come back and believes the Lord will restore it.  I see some new growth in areas, but I am not sure.  Only time will tell.

I did get a wig, as I may have mentioned in a previous post.  I've worn it enough times that I know I hate it.  I've also been to wig shops and tried on various wigs and even ordered wigs online only to send them back.  I've watched lovely women on You Tube who wear wigs.  They love them and get confidence from them.  I don't know why I can't.  There was one day I wore the wig I have for 4 hours straight and could not wait to take it off because I was in agony.  I've not really worn it since, although I've tried to.  Plus I am a BIG fan of comfort and wigs to me are not comfortable.  But then too, I've been dealing with scalp sensitivity and there have been some sores on my scalp.  Slowly, one by one these sores have been healing up making a more calm scalp.

As an alternative to wigs, I have been looking into chemo cap wear.  There is a lovely woman named Carly Severn with alopecia and she wears caps and head wraps.  She is a true inspiration. So I went ahead and bought a few caps just in case.  Two of them I like, but the other one although comfortable, is not my cup of tea.  Plus, there are pros to cap wearing.  Caps are cheaper, more comfortable and easier to take care of. Wigs, on the other hand are a couple hundred dollars a pop and they only last 4 to 6 months. 

For right now, I am still wearing headbands as that is what pleases my hubby. Since I don't have any bald spots hubby thinks its okay.  And I've had friends graciously say they can't tell I have hair loss.  What I do have are thin spots and some that look fuzzy because there is some hair growing in.  What hair I do have is soft, shiny and lovely.  I just wish I had more of it, but right now the Lord sees otherwise.  I don't know what I am learning from all of this, but my hubby says patience.  ;-)

Always as we walk through heavy trials there are the little flowers in among the weeds. So on a happy note, Mark and I are celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary.  My precious husband took me jewelry shopping and purchased me a lovely plain gold band.  It is absolutely delightful to wear.  So thankful to the Lord for all His blessings. 

Dark Tunnel

Well, between my last post and now, things went down hill.  This has been a very hard trial and where I thought I saw light before has since disappeared.  Prayers are greatly appreciated.

In my last post I mentioned about a wig.  Well, I finally found one and got it styled and wore it out a few different times.  Unfortunately, it has come about that wigs are not quite for me.  The longest I wore it was to my ladies Bible study.  We meet at 9 a.m. and usually wrap up by 11 or noon.  I think that day we wrapped up at noon so I wore it for 4 hours straight.  Everyone loved the wig and thought it was great, but by the time I got home my scalp was in so much pain I couldn't stand it.  I haven't really worn the wig since.  So if I go bald, I am probably going to be wearing a Buff on my head.

May and June have shown more hair loss and weight too.  Down to 96 lbs even though I am eating more.  And I have been having what I call cortisol attacks.  Others might call them panic attacks.  Whatever, I began having these attacks.  One May morning after not sleeping most of the night I went and got the blood test my endocrinologist ordered for me back in February.  I had not been able to do it because of getting so ill in February.  Anyway, that test came back with a high cortisol reading and the A1C was up to 5.7.  So my endocrinologist (Dr. Kim) sent me a letter with the test results saying I need to schedule an appointment.  What alarmed me in the letter was that she said I have pancreatic insufficiency.

Back in February she had given me a prescription for a digestive enzyme called Creon.  I filled the prescription, but did not take it because of all the mess I was going through.  Finally in May I took my first couple of pills and it seemed to instantly calm my cortisol attack.  But my tummy seemed to get upset by the pills so I stopped them.  A few weeks later I was having another bad cortisol attack and decided to take the Creon again to see if it would calm the attack.  It did the same thing again minus the tummy upset. So I have been taking them ever since and it has really made a difference in my digestion.  I can eat without the pain which has plagued me for years.  After seeing Dr. Kim she assured me I don't need to worry about diabetes right now, so that is a load off.  And we decided that my pancreas most likely got damaged from the sepsis in 2007.  And she said with how sick I got in February I should have gone to ER.  She said I could have been septic.

Unfortunately, the cortisol attacks returned after a few days of taking the Creon.  And more hair fell out making my hair even thinner.  I also went to Dr. Lara, and she seems to think that if I can get some good sleep under my belt that all this will go away.  She gave me some pills that were supposed to help me sleep, but I didn't like them.  So I just been sticking with my regular Xanax to help me sleep and taking the herb Ashwaganda which is supposed to help balance cortisol and it really has been helping.  Except I think it might be the cause of my loose stools.  Sigh, always something.

Thankfully, in all this mess, one evening my sweet hubby came home with a big bouquet of flowers for me.  It was so wonderful because I had been having a cortisol attack all day.  So he took me to urgent care.  There they told me they couldn't do anything for me, but then I asked them if I could get a scan of my adrenal glands to make sure there isn't a tumor or something.  So they ordered me a CT scan of my adrenal glands.  So I am getting that tomorrow.  Hoping if there is something wrong that it will show up.  If all is well, then I will have to trod the "mental" route.  Which I have my first counseling appointment this Thursday, sigh. 

Latest pic of me with my thinning hair.

Doesn't look bad with all the hair pushed forward.

Finally Seeing some Light

Just a warning, this is going to be a novel, so grab a hot beverage and get cozy.  :-)

The last time I wrote I was working on my health.  What I failed to mention was that there were family issues going on and they were so stressful that my health was on the rocks.  The Christmas season was a little stressful, but not too bad.  We got to see our grandsons and give them gifts, which was totally a blessing of the Lord.  The key was lowering my expectations, oh how necessary that was. Instead, I placed my expectations with the Lord and waited on Him.  A better place to be I think.  ;-)

January seems a blur, but health-wise I remember my hair began thinning more so I went to the doctor to have my thyroid checked at the advice of my sister, who had the same issue going on.  My sister's doctor put her on thyroid med.  For me, that wasn't the case, my thyroid came out to be fine.  I followed up that appointment with an endocrinologist in early February, who checked out my thyroid via ultrasound.  It was normal.  At the time I went into see her, I had some swollen glands in my neck, which she checked those and said they were normal despite being swollen.  She said I must be fighting something off so best thing to do was rest.

So the next day I stayed home and rested.  Mind you at the same time this was all going on I was still trying to keep my fungal rash stuff under control through diet and supplements.  It was at the end of January my bowels began cramping and doing unusual stuff.  I thought it might be from the supplements that I was taking.  But then the day after resting with my swollen glands my bowel went crazy.  I don't know what happened, but I was on the floor of my bathroom and the pain was so bad I nearly passed out.  Then I exploded from both ends and my body went into shock.  Afterward I went to my GP and all he could say was that I had some kind of viral infection.  He seemed unconcerned.

So I went home and tried to carry on my life as normal, but I didn't feel well.  Then exactly one week later my bowels began cramping like I have never felt before and I completely emptied out.  Another week went by and it happened again, but less severe that time.  I had been missing my ladies Bible study group and I wanted to go, so I bit the bullet and went.  I thought once I was there it would make me feel better.  It was February 23rd, and I was sitting with the ladies and all the sudden I had this weird feeling wash over me.  I felt like I was going to pass out.  They prayed over me and I finally got stable enough that I drove myself home.  After that day that feeling kept plaguing me.  It was so bad I sometimes felt like I was going to die.

The feeling would plague me whenever.  I couldn't go out very often for fear I would pass out in a public place.  I didn't know what was causing it.  My arms would get a numb/tingling feeling, sometimes it would be in my legs too.  Sometimes it would last hours, sometimes days.  I basically had no control.  As for my bowel, it was doing better, but not completely.  I didn't know if the two were related.  So I went to my bowel doctor and after exam he thought I am fine, but ordered a CT scan to see for sure.  So I got that set up for March 19, but then had to reschedule it to April 2nd. I also went back to my GP's office and they ran a load of blood tests which all came back normal.

During this time, my weight dropped down to 96 lbs, which I had never been 96 lbs in my adult life.  Anyway, praise be to God, exactly one month from the time the spells started they stopped.  So thankful the Lord had mercy on me.  However on March 23rd my kitty injured herself and was in tremendous pain.  She was shaking and she had vomited.  I took her to the emergency vet as it was a Saturday night.  They couldn't find anything wrong with her they just gave her a nausea shot and fluids.

On Monday I called around and finally got Daisy kitty into a vet.  Again they couldn't find anything wrong with her on exam.  So we did blood and urine tests.  Nothing.  Then we did xrays and again, nothing.  So they sent us home with pain medicine.  Daisy did not like the pain medicine and fought it so much we gave it up.  So we just let her be, but she was in horrible pain, I couldn't stand it.  I did not know what to do, I thought of putting her down, but she was functioning and healthy otherwise.  This is when I noticed my hair was falling out again and a bald spot emerged.

Finally it was the day that I prepped for my CT scan.  I had the kind of scan where they fish a tube and wire down your nose into your small bowel.  It was nasty getting the tube and wire in, but it got done.  Then the scan wasn't bad until they injected the dye and wow!  Anyway, I was woozy after that, but I had to get Daisy to the vet since my trusted side kick (hubby) was with me.  We had noticed that Daisy was limping on her left back leg.  So the vet examined and pushed and pulled and xrayed.  They gave us a better pain med and we came home.  Well, we had been praying for Daisy and lo and behold the next day Daisy was better.  Mark and I think that she must have dislocated something in her back leg and when the vet did her exam she pushed it back in place.  I did have her on the pain meds for some days which helped her be more comfortable, but after a few days she didn't need it anymore.  Praise the Lord!  So I have my little friend back, she is sitting here beside me as I type this.  What a blessing she is!

As of right now, I got notice from the hospital where my CT scan was performed, that my bowel is fine, no blockages.  And my liver, gallbladder and pancreas are fine as well.  And thankfully as of this writing my bowel has calmed down and is working better and I have finally gained a couple pounds.  I gave up all the supplements I was taking and switched to different ones are targeted on my anxiety.  I have learned that anxiety affects our bowel is a huge way.  And I took up drinking Apple Cider Vinegar (Bragg's) in water before breakfast, which has completely cleared up the fungal rashes.  And I began taking a supplement called Triphala which has been helping my bowel return to normal next to eating prunes.  ;-)  Also switched to a high potassium diet and began using progesterone cream.  Hoping all the changes help me get back to health and grow me some hair.  ;-)

Also, another interesting thing in all of this mess was the use of alternative sweeteners.  I decided to use Stevia, Xylitol and Erythritol.  They are supposed to be natural and without much side effects.  Well, when I ran into those horrible bowel problems I had been using those for months.  I stopped them when the bowel issues came on me.  Since stopping them I am doing better.  So I am kind of thinking that maybe those alternative sweeteners are not as safe as they say.  This girl is sticking to coconut sugar, cane sugar, maple syrup and honey.  Just learning to use less of them.

As for the hair journey...you must stay tuned!  I bought my first wig on-line and it came this week.  Unfortunately, my hubby and I didn't like it, so I sent it back.  The wig companies are great about returns and make it easy.  So nice!  On April 16 I am scheduled to meet with Terry to have consult about wigs.  I am excited.  For right now I am wearing wide headbands to cover my bald spot.  Its been fun.  Been watching tutorials on You Tube about make up and having fun with trying that. I turned 58 this March and I feel I am embarking on a new journey.  Sending you big blessings for your journey...XO

Trying to keep it positive...

Well, all I can say is life has been challenging.  But then I think of friends that have had great challenges as well.  Such as my friend Cheryl who lost her sister to cancer in November.  Another friend struggled through her husband having cancer only to find that she herself has cancer also.  She is not doing well this holiday season as the brain cancer has taken away her ability to walk and she is confined to bed. She is looking forward to being with Jesus any day now.  I could not sleep well for a couple night when I heard of Helen's condition until the Lord helped me realize she is blessed to be going home.

Well, on to another topic, my health and the candida saga.  I was doing the candida diet which is very restrictive.  Unfortunately it triggered my eating disorder thinking where I began looking at food as my enemy.  (In my teens I struggled with two different eating disorders.)  Anyway, my weight dropped under a 100 pounds, so I said goodbye to the diet.  Wasting away to nothing is only going to kill me not candida.  I do still stay away from white sugar for the most part, but I have allowed bread back into my diet. Thanks be to God, I heard about the probiotic called Florastor.  There was information on the web that it can help with candida overgrowth.  So I gave it a try and I am so blessed and grateful to the Lord that it has been helping.  The rash on my face and hands has cleared up and my tummy is having less pain.  PTL!

In other news, we just had our roof redone again in less than a year.  In 2017 a nasty hail storm passed through our area in the spring.  It was a big deal because our local mall was so damaged by the storm that it was closed for many months. Many cars were damaged as well as many homes.  Every house on our street had to have its roof replaced.  Then this summer another nasty hail storm passed through and ruined our roof again.  It has been a blessing in disguise.  We were not impressed with any of our prior roofers so we decided to hire our neighbor's roofer.  We are so glad we did because he has been honest.  Mark had been on the roof and noticed some things that were not right.  Prior roofers ignored Mark's concerns, but this roofer noticed them without being told and was concerned for us.  When the old roof was removed he uncovered the shady things the prior roofers had done.  Essentially, our roof deck has been falling apart and nobody was telling us.  One of the roofers had done a patch job that they never told us about.  Its really sad that there are so many dishonest roofers out there and they prey on people in their time of need. This time the job was done right and we are thankful.

Well, the Christmas season is upon us.  Been watching loads of Hallmark movies...lol.  And surprise to us, we have our Christmas tree up early for a change.  Our two kitties, Dusty & Daisy, were very excited when the tree came.  Dusty, at the ripe old age of 16, was running around and under the tree.  It puts a smile on my face.  Merry Christmas everyone!

This is for all the lonely people...

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.  John 15:19

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12

There are times when people will exclude you, not want to talk to you, or be interested in what you have to say.  There are times when people will dislike you for seemingly no good reason at all.  When this kind of treatment happens at the holidays it can be especially painful, but if you are a Christian, please remember the above scripture verses and take heart.  Also, remember to look for the little blessings the Lord has set in your path and for ways you can bless others.  Doing so, will keep your focus off of what you can't have.

I hope this helps to make your holidays merry & bright.  God bless!

Sentencing

This past Monday I attended son #2's first sentencing.  He has another one this coming Monday.  Thankfully the Lord provided a friend to go with me.  Oh my, was it ever a hard day!  It took a lot out of me.  I just have to get through this next one and it will be over.  Honestly, I feel like it has been a sentencing for myself.  Having to face up to things I did not expect or that I saw and did not want to believe.  Also, been doing a lot of replay of the past and sorting things out.  I can't tell you how painful it is.  Not so much because of things I've done, but because of good things I wanted that have not materialized.  And too because of things lost...the agony of that brings a dark cloud.

The day after the sentencing I woke up with an inflamed face.  The rash was back and and my eyes were red and puffy and my hair was falling out.  So I decided I needed a treat day.  On top of that it was a cold, gloomy day and it started snowing.  So I went out to lunch with Mark and treated myself to gluten free sweet potato pecan pancakes with bacon and hot coffee.  It was absolutely perfect!  At the restaurant we ran into one of our old pastors and a deacon.  It was nice to say hello and be on friendly terms even if we don't see eye to eye.

The rest the week has been full of housekeeping, cooking, baking, a little shopping and resting with my kitties. Can't think of anything else to say so I will end here.  Have a happy weekend y'all!

Here is a pic from July 2018 when we went camping at Kenosha Pass.

This was after my DIL had taken the kids away, I look worn out.

I really needed this trip, had a lot of fun with Mark.

Also got bit up by mosquitoes...hehe.

Since then I have learned that mosquitoes are attracted to the color black.

So don't wear black on a camping trip like I am in this picture.