#AIH – Page 2 – Bitsy's Backyard

The Ups and Downs

July 1, 2021 bitsybody

Sometimes in life, it would be nice to just have the same old – same old – no excitement. As I sit at Mayo today for my appts, I miss the days of once-a-year medical tests. The ups and downs of bloodwork are hard to keep up with. If you know what I am talking about, you know the anxiety of opening the new message as results come in. They never seem stable. The highs when you see they are finally normal and the lows when things are just all over the place. Today I am waiting for some more results before my scan and they are wonky so far at least my liver is holding.

At the beginning of my diagnosis, my brother told me to think of them as data points. Data that tells the doctors how to help – are the meds working? The meds can’t cure me. It is not like taking an antibiotic and you are better. You hope that they can keep the disease asleep without hurting your other systems. Putting your immune system to sleep is obviously tricky during COVID but also trying to balance all the other systems thus the ups and downs of the bloodwork. When you look at them as helpers, the anxiety drops a little – making you feel like maybe you can make it.

This week has been rainy, to say the least, and I have wanted to post some of my good recipes and projects but my energy has been low. I took a few pictures that I wanted to share through my off week. They make me laugh and they keep me going. Sometimes you just have to look at life and smile even if upside down..

Tallulah, the cat is my bedmaking helper where she helps me spread out the sheets in between the kicks and the jumps of her attacks. She loves the chance to run through the sheets. Meadow is working on not creating as much laundry but that is slow going. We have been washing quite a bit at least 4 loads a day. The girls are doing well but missing my constant treats. They run down the ramp from the coop if I come out before the door shuts at dark. They surely have me trained as I feel guilty if I don’t have any treats.

Life is a blessing – one we get to be a part of – to find ways to appreciate it. From finding moments of gratitude for the ones around your or the love of our beautiful planet, there is so much to appreciate. Happiness is not comparing your life to others because I am going to tell you that you can always find someone who has it better.

I have to remind myself to take moments to breathe – enjoy the sweetness of nature and hold the ones that walk this road with you. My goal is to get back to work on projects and enjoy what I am doing. The animals and plants right now help me smile. My cucumber experiment from the tower looks to have failed but the others are trying hard.

Keep going, get up, and face the day – you don’t know what magic awakes if you keep your head down. I sometimes think that my yelling bluejay is screaming as he approaches the feeder. Reach for the Sun. I love this picture. It was right before the big COVID lockdown.

Time to head upstairs! Time for my prayers and knowing that I got this!

Gardening

Give Life Another Chance – especially your Herbs.

June 25, 2021June 25, 2021 bitsybody

Each day is a new battle and I am not sure how to explain the overwhelming fatigue that comes with Autoimmune Liver Disease. I saw a recent post in the AIH support group about finding passions to keep your days going and I watched a few sessions of the AIH conference to help focus my energy. Of course, the backyard animals make the day and night filled with lots of excitement.

So let me begin on some distractions to save me as for some reason lately the time between 10 am and 3pm are some of my darkest hours. I could almost go back to bed, but I know that it is best to fight through the fatigue to get to a better place. It might be the medicine, the disease or maybe the rainy Florida weather. With summer vacation, I spend most of my time working on my backyard projects and some pre-planning school ideas. This year in particular since my diagnosis, I am trying to spend time on me-things.

One area that has caught my focus is recycling in all different ways. I love the idea of reusing what we have or what others can help us with. One area that I have been experimenting with is the propagation of plants. I try most every plant that we have in the backyard seeing if I can grow them from another one. I started with the easy ones like herbs – mint, basil, my lavender, and such. It is great. I recycle my yogurt pots that are glass and fill them with water. I then take cuttings and put them on my kitchen window until they start to root. Wait and watch – you might have to add water as it is used or evaporates. (The water cycle) I have tried others but will show you in another post.

Cut a top piece of basil – before it flowers – I found this the best for taste

I then move it outside to my pots or even into the ground. I love the mint but it spreads quickly if it is not in a pot. One of the benefits of having a hydroponic gardening tower is that I can easily grab cuttings and experiment. I also take the tops of my pineapple and kitchen foods and try them. It is amazing that life finds a way – just like I have to. We all have to regrow where we are planted.

I will be honest that I am not always happy with the pot that I have been planted in. I right now. I want to go back to the pot that I lived in a year ago – a life before the diagnosis. I wish I could be transplanted to my healthy, but I guess that we all can do a move in mindset. We all have challenges – chronic disease stinks as it stays with me forever. I keep trying to find ways to recycle myself and I think the best way is to find some purpose to being here. I want to be best wife, mom, teacher, sister, daughter, and friend that I can be. When I walk in the woods at night, I have to look for the stars. Disease is what it is but there are some bright points. I am aware of what each day means – I appreciate life. The growth of mint in my yogurt pot shows me that we all have a chance. We just have to believe and trust.

I love this idea of recycling in all walks of our life. My daughter and I are getting into thrifting with clothes and possible furniture. I think it is great to give life another chance whether us or the world around us. Don’t give up and look outside to find more inspiration to keep recycling yourself. Look for more recycling ideas as I post more to keep me going.

Animals

Meadow meets the Girls.

June 24, 2021June 24, 2021 bitsybody

The girls bring so many smiles to our day. As I round the corner to the coop, I always call out “girls” and they greet me at the fence with a cluck cluck cluck. My heart melts every time as Darby and Delilah enthusiastically run. It is funny to see indeed as they move as fast as they possibly can. Gives new meaning to eager to see you. Even on my worst day, those two can make the clouds around me seem less thick. A fun daily treat is taking Meadow over to see Darby and Delilah. She enjoys interacting with them and is hopeful that she will get some of their treats.

Chickens are a love and bring so much joy. Lately, it has been a few harder days as my energy is low. One challenge with an autoimmune disease is fatigue. I am not sure how to get passed it, but I know that it is not in my head or the need of a supplement. It just is what it is – the Drs. wish they knew how to make it go away but fatigue is the number one symptom. So back to the girls. They give me that extra boost of life and smile to keep going. The animals in my backyard give me peace and joy knowing that I am loved, but they need my love. They need me as much as I need them.

To their space in the backyard, we designed our coop to have a few spaces to keep them safe from predators and weather. They have two areas to roam around in. One is attached to the coop and opens up automatically at dawn. The chicken guard as it is called opens and closes by the rise and fall of the sun. The chickens have a schedule and they head inside before the guard closes for the night. We have food hanging in the coop and a self dispensing water bucket with nibblers that my husband made.

All in all the chickens are super easy to raise. We let them out of the smaller pen into the larger one if we are home. At night, we lock the outside pen knowing that the chicken guard has already locked them in safely.

I recommend chickens for anyone’s home and backyard. One for delicious eggs but also the fun interaction of nature.

Cooking

Try a Smoothie!

June 21, 2021June 21, 2021 bitsybody

When I was first diagnosed, I had a hard time eating. My appetite was low due to all of the medicines, stress and overall life challenges. I worried about my diet as I didn’t want anything to inflame my liver further. My doctor said that diet wouldn’t change the disease, but it definitely could help my overall health. Well, I had constant scary thoughts that the food that I used to eat could cause inflammation possibly worsening my weekly blood tests. For autoimmune diseases, the AIP diet, anti-inflammatory diet, is the one that I saw recommended the most. My doctor agreed that it is a super healthy diet but extremely hard to follow day to day. So 7 months later, I have adopted some parts of it with some other healthy eating tips along the way. I thought I would share some recipes along my journey as I continue to cook through my life with a wild immune system. I will note if the recipes are for the family and not on my diet as one of sons loves to cook. His recipes are fun, super yummy and must be shared.

Bitsy’s Berry Spinach Smoothie

First – collect your fruit and spinach. I tend to use fresh spinach but you can use the frozen one as well I love some banana, apple (with skin), berries, and frozen mango or pineapple. I have even added in frozen avocado as well.

** One note – fruits have a lot of sugars – natural sugars yes but still sugars. With AIH, many of us live on steroids with our autoimmune meds. Your sugar intake might be something that you have to monitor so be aware if you are making this smoothie. I found that it helped me and my sugar did not spike or crash.

Then, I add some fresh squeezed orange juice to the blender. I add enough orange juice so that the mixture blends into a smooth liquid. I like my smoothie room temperature and runny so that I can drink it easy. I found that when I couldn’t eat that the more “liquidy” my smoothie was; the easier it was to get down.

As you can see above, I do not use a lot of liquid as my smoothie are mostly made from fresh fruits. If you use more frozen fruits, you might need to add some water or more orange juice so that it will blend easily.

I love having a Go-To Smoothie when you have to get berries and other essentials vitamins into your diet. For some reason, I was able to drink this each day in the beginning of my journey and it helped give me a little strength. There are lots of recipes out there so try one out and make it your own. There are days I add honey, protein powders, yogurt, or even mint with lemon depending on the needs of my body that week.

Here’s to a great 2nd week on my blog and our time exploring together. A life journey is better with people walking along with you. Thank you to the all who are reading.

About Me

The struggles cresting over the falls…

June 17, 2021June 17, 2021 bitsybody

So, the first week of blogging was going well with a puppy, a super positive attitude and finishing a trip home from my favorite mountains .. what could change that? Well, back to reality and doctor’s appointments with test results and that portal that pops up with a new alert “letter for you to view”. Technology – Yeah! It is amazing to have instant access and I do appreciate it. It was especially great when I was healthy. Now, it has a new meaning to click and pray. So I am still waiting on some results and I am not sure how to keep focused on the good. Except – I guess intentionally doing it. Trying to stop my nerves is like standing at the top of the falls feeling the adrenaline rush through my body if I were to fall. How could someone who gets a daily dose of prednisone feel any more of the intense panic?

Why?

My plans yesterday were to post about my backyard bird feeders. I will post soon as they are one of the true happy parts of the backyard, but I thought I should keep it real – my story – as it goes up and down and possibly falls. So right now, I am focusing on the good, what I know to be true (not the what if’s) and our amazing family including sweet Meadow barking you got this – I need you.

Questions continue to rage inside my head “How will I make it through the each day?” This test might turn out ok and be something we just monitor but then there is next week and then the bigger scan the following week. It doesn’t seem to end. I can’t stop researching the tests and possible results in my portal. Yes I am one of those people who knows a little too much but not enough. Being a science teacher, I love to research but personal research is debilitating. How can I make it one more hour without shaking or screaming why???I don’t want to be whiny and have people cry for me; I want to be strong. But really I want to scream; I want to go back to work; I want to not think about what is next. My sister-in- law told me a quote from Amy Robach’s book from her husband about not dying before you die. I have to enjoy each day – from the small to the even smaller. You got this and with each step I have to believe it is going to get better.

So to bring calm to my mind today, I am looking over my journal – my thoughts from the last 7 months to keep me strong. Wild were my thoughts in the beginning but all have the same message – believe, pray, trust, and be the change for others. So I get to work on my projects, cleaning and such but most importantly I have to get outside myself. Go smell the lavender in the backyard. You are still here so keep going – keep pruning the bushes. I pray to let it all go and the truth is that my body and the medical team are working their hardest to keep me safe. So, let’s go Bitsy – keep on going. Today might be shaky, definitely coming off the anesthesia and no food for 2 days but it is time to breathe and work.

Well, I did some errands out and about. I did it even a trip taking sweet Meadow to the vet. I put on my mask and faced the world. Being away from everyone for 7 months except for my medical team and family had become my fortress with an awesome moat. Maybe it was safe there but I need to go on especially for my cheer team. They need me to cheer them on so I take steps. My best advice today is to keep it real knowing that we will all have these bad days. Days were you shake and you can’t breathe. In these moments, just remember you aren’t alone. I still have to save me from myself but I am also saving me for all the people in my life and the ones that I can help. We got this.

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