After having tons of blood taken and submitted various other bodily fluids for testing, the results are in. I went to an appointment last week to meet with Dr. F to go over the test results. Mom accompanied me to the appointment for moral support. Wow, did I leave that appointment with mixed feelings!
I have been able to open my mind to alternative treatments over the past 10 years. I have had success with acupuncture, chinese herbs, meditation and yoga, and have had some negative experiences with traditional Western medicine. My mother doesn't believe in taking a lot of medication either, but her feet are both firmly on the ground (where my head may be up among the clouds a bit...).
Dr. F presented us with a lengthy list of test results, and as he walked through them he jotted down supplements that he felt would work to remedy the problems he came across. We ended up with a pretty big list, and that was just the beginning.
We started discussing my food sensitivities and started off with a bang - "Do you like cherries?" he asked. Mom and I look at each other with wide eyes, as not 5 minutes earlier in the waiting room we had just been raving about how much we loved cherries and sharing our stories of the times we had stopped at side-of-the-road fruit stands and gorged on entire bags of cherries. "Well, yes, I do like cherries" I reply. "Well, you are extremely allergic" was the reply.
*shock*
I was prepared to come to this appointment and hear that I should cut our refined sugar, dairy, fried and processed foods etc. But cherries? Ouch. That's just mean.
Dr. F continued to go through the results, and he found some serious issues in my gut. Words like "fungus" and "parasite" were mentioned. Joy. The good news is that, although the stomach issues were fairly severe, they are an obvious and treatable problem, so fixing them could be a big step in the right direction.
So, that pretty much sums up the appointment - today we were just reviewing the results, we'll discuss the treatment plan at the next appointment. I was pretty shell shocked, and mom and I went out to the car to talk things over.
I was pretty floored by all of this. It really felt like I was diagnosed with a whole bunch of new stuff on top of the lupus and I just wasn't in the mood to hear that I was *more* sick! But after I had a chance to sleep on it, and talk it over with a few folks, I started to wrap my brain around it.
I'm at a fork in the road, and although turning back in 6 months or a year is not out of the question, choosing this alternative path is a fairly weighty decision. I'm the type of person who likes things in black and white, so it's really hard for me to deal with all of this gray.
I need to set up an appointment to go over the treatment plan with Dr. F in the next week or so. I'm hopeful that I'm beginning a path to better health.
