It’s been a tough week for me.  Last Sunday, a whopping 7 days ago, I made dinner for my two brothers and my hubby.  But since my brothers were coming over, that meant I had to clean the house too.  Plus, the grocery shopping.  I was a whirlwind of activity and I paid for it big time.  My right arm started aching on Monday, by Tuesday, I couldn’t blog – what no blogging?  I’m sore from my shoulder to my fingers, I don’t know how I’ve survived.

I’m using NT Factor and D-ribose to try and overcome this outrageous muscle fatigue.  I don’t usually complain of Fibromyalgia as my primary symptom, mostly it’s fatigue.  But this week has been one long trial, with extra doses of Advil to eeek through the week.

Since I can’t work a real job, I did manage to create some new websites this week, even with my difficulty typing.  My new pages are all about the Holidays: 

Chocolate: The Greatest Food Gift

Spectacular Outdoor Christmas Lights

Amazon’s Million Dollar Necklace

Inflatable Christmas Decorations

I really feel like I’m working when I make these pages.  It’s a great forum for developing my sense of achievement and self-sufficiency when I’m stuck in a world where I can’t do much else.  In my struggle to overcome my chronic fatigue, I imagine it will take me until next June to start feeling better.  This illness brings with it such an uncommon sense of failure and hopelessness.  These sites help me feel more normal, like I’m living some portion of a real life, instead of feeling like a shut-in or invalid. 

It’s pretty rare to run across an article or web-site that discusses the psychological effects of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, it’s like we all have to work it out for ourselves.  I don’t like negative thoughts or negative moods, but when the fatigue is combined with nagging constant pain, life can be difficult.  My motto: Onward, Forward, To the Future.  I finally have hope and now I have something to keep myself busy, even though my blogging arm is killin’ me.

I had a new landscape client meeting last Saturday.  Typically when I have a meeting in the morning, I don’t sleep the night before.  This happened on Saturday too.  So already at half mast, I trudged off to my meeting and things went well.  I measured her deck, her gardens, her yard for my upcoming garden design and then hubby took me to the Whole Foods Market.  I struggled through the store, but I did pick up some Quinoa pasta which I love and it’s on my diet.  That store too, is positively filled with a million yummy things that I can’t eat – sadness.Sunday was a good day, I attended to my hubby’s needs and otherwise goofed off in splendor. 

But today has been one severe Ouch.  I woke dead tired.  I’m on a colonix 30 day cleansing program and only just now at 5pm have I gained enough energy to mix & slurp the morning powder drink.  That is the sum total of my accomplishments today = mixed one gooey fiber drink.   I hurt all over from bending & stretching to get that lady’s measurements on Saturday.  I’m exhausted from not having slept on Friday night – still.  I want to go back to bed.  I never let myself do that though,  I let myself sit on the couch instead.  If I did go to bed, I’d wake up at some terrible hour like 1am and then I wouldn’t be able to make any noise and I’d end up needing food.  Can’t make food while hubby is sleepings.

Usually  I like to work on my little marketing webpages.  Today I just don’t have the energy.  I’m hoping my little webpages will make enough money for my Christmas shopping.   Deep down, I don’t really think they will, but for some reason I enjoy deluding myself.   It’s good for me to think that I’m being productive somehow.  It’s easy to get caught up in all of the “You can work at home and make money!” websites that you find.  I think it really translates to: “Carrie can work at home in her pajamas, take naps, feel miserable and still make less money than ever imagined possible!”   Maybe I could write an e-book on “How To Not Make Money” and market it for $29.95!  I seem to excel at that

For those of you curious enough, here are my at home marketing sites.   Think I can make $30 by Christmas?

Coffee World: A Place For Coffee Lovers

Tibetan Jewelry

For the Love of Acid Cigars

Is Chronic Fatigue Killing Me?

Chronic Fatigue and NT Factor

Treat Your Depression Naturally

Something truly amazing has happened to me during the past 30 days.  I have no craving for sugar or junk food! none!  When I first starting this program, all of my friends and family were encouraging me with kind words and cheers of support.   The forefront of their encouragement has been: “As long as you can stay off of sugar, you’re sure to succeed.”  The underlying inference is the constant threat of sugar craving.  It’s true for many of us.  Most “diets” fail because sugar cravings and the sense of personal deprivation becomes overwhelming. 

In the past, when I have been on diets to lose weight or improve my health in general, my sugar cravings have been outrageous.  I constantly struggled with a huge sense of self-pity, the seeming loss of all the things that made me “happy”.  In some specific location in my brain, my psyche was telling me that ALL of my happiness was derived from chocolate cake and soda pop.  I couldn’t shake my feeling of tremendous grief over the loss of all the goodness in my life.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true nonetheless.  It’s amazing to recognize how our cravings can manipulate our brain, re-routing our logic pathways, subverting our impulses, directing us toward failure.  Just how powerful are these yeasts and blood sugar fluctuations? Powerful enough to continually overcome any logic, any commitment, willpower, my dreams, my health.   Time after time, diet after diet failed under my body’s screaming toddler-like tantrum for sugar.  This endless sugar feeding cycle has kept me in a stupor for years upon years.

In the past 30 days, my mind and body have gone through an astounding transformation.  I no longer have even a twinge of sugar craving.  I believe that this is 100% attributable to a change in my psyche.  My brain realizes that I’m not dieting :  I’m detoxing, cleansing, becoming healthy.  The psychology of this process is so interesting.  It’s as if my focus on this treatment program is coming from a completely different place in my brain.  I don’t have any sense of deprivation or denial.  I have no feeling of loss or mourning.  There is no food in my mind (other than lemons, oddly enough) that spells ‘happiness’.   I don’t even think about food much anymore,  now my body responds to the sense of hunger and the need for sustenance. 

I’m absorbed in positive thoughts of improving my condition.  I’m entirely focused on only those foods that afford the best nutrition while killing off the nasties that grow inside me.  It’s a different consciousness altogether, a different synapse pathway,  my logic is finally in control.  My mind now recognizes when it’s being manipulated by my blood sugar, or the yeast crying out for carbs or sugar.  Moreover, I smirk because I know that my diet is killing them off and they’re crying out in pain.  They’re not gonna win this time.

I am so happy to be relieved of that constant heavy burden of cravings.  That sense of “woe is me” has vanished.  Happiness does exist without chocolate cake, dr. pepper and pizza.  I’m filled with anticipation for the time when my days can include rigorous exercise, fishing, metal detecting on the beach and some serious housecleaning    Those days are coming, I know!  I finally have hope!

Thanks to: http://www.palmyria.co.uk/art/art.htm for the Dawn photo. All rights reserved.