Gallbladder Cleanse

Apparently after you have kids, your body falls apart....

No one talks about life after pregnancy. Everyone loves telling the details of the 9 months of carrying your child, the pains of childbirth, and the immediate aftermath of the birth, but no one tells you how your body changes 6 months...1 year...2 years after having the kid.

One possibility I've noticed is that your immune system can just randomly start attacking things. My doctor described it to me like this: your immune system goes into a 'hibernation' mode during pregnancy to keep from killing off the fetus. When the baby is born, some women's immune systems go into overkill mode. I imagine mine looked like Al Pacino in Scarface after he says, 'say hello to my little friend,' and then kills everything in sight. 

So about 6 months after having Knox, I discovered my thyroid was pretty much non-functioning. A couple months after that, my liver started failing, but magically healed itself. My body's got skills, people.

Now, almost 2 years after having Knox, I am still feeling the effects. I've not been to a doctor, but webmd and I diagnosed my problems, coming to the conclusion that my gallbladder is not doing so hot. I wanted to just do a blood test, confirm it wasn't working, and have the thing removed, but apparently midwives and health professionals don't like to see organs removed from the body without a fight to keep them there.

So I was told to do a gallbladder cleanse. I decided to document my 3-day journey. Here we go...

First, the cleanse looks like this:

Day 1: eat only apples and pears, drink water and apple juice. Also take several supplements 3 times a day. 

Day 2: same as day 1, but right before bed, chug 4 oz of olive oil mixed with 4 oz of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Immediately lay down and in the morning you should pass any gallstones. 

Day 3: same as day 2, but you can eat something light, like soup, in the evening. 

Here is my account of the cleanse: 

Day 1: 

7:00 - Wake up, dang. My stomach is growling. I'm never hungry in the morning. My body must know I am not allowed to eat a good breakfast and is already fighting back. 

8:15 - Time for breakfast. I eat one apple and a little applesauce. I feel a decent amount of full. I take my supplements. GOODLORDALMIGHTY! What did I just swallow? I attempt to drink enough water to get rid of the aftertaste. No luck. Next time, I'll take them before the apples in hopes the apples will push them down.

9:00 - the taste is still lingering. I chew a piece of gum. I question whether this is cheating or not. At this point I don't care. 

10:00 - I'm wishing I waited until I was not teaching to do this. I can eat as many apples as I want, but can't eat while I teach. I feel like I would be happier if I were at home constantly munching on apples. 

10:45 - I feel bad for my students. Picture your teacher turning green saying, 'you won't like me when I'm hungry!' 

11:00 - finally! Lunch time! NOOOO!!! It's taco salad day! I reluctantly eat 1.5 apples. 

12:45 - I pass Cody in the hall. Almost ask him what he wants for dinner. Remember that the most interesting reply would have been, 'apples dipped in applesauce,' and bite my tongue. 

1:12 - I realize Pinterest will be off-limits for the next few days. It may as well be one big picture of tasty desserts and delicious foods. 

6:00 - finally home and ready to eat my weight in apples. Hoping to find something to keep me busy. 

7:42 - I muted the tv when a commercial for Sonic came on. Can I just go to sleep now?!?

9:21 - read Cody my recap of the day. Knox laughs at me while I read it. I proceed to tell him he did this to me. He laughs in my face. 

Day 2: 

7:00 - I'm up and around...feeling pretty good. I have a feeling today's going to be much better. 

8:00-4:00 - Work, work, work. It was pretty uneventful really. Today was a lot easier than yesterday. I drank more apple juice today, which I think helped keep me full. 

4:00 - To keep some sort of mystery, let's just say I'm glad I'm home....the cleansing has begun. 

9:00 - starting to dread the olive oil/lemon juice mixture. 

10:00 - the time has come. As advised, I mix the lemon juice and olive oil with an ice cube in the blender. Pour it into the glass... Wow, 8 oz suddenly seems to look like a gas station big gulp. I get up the courage to drink it. Tell myself it's lemonade. Here we go...holy burning esophagus, Batman! The taste? Not horrible. But the burn? Like I swallowed a match. I finish, just before I feel the urge to vomit, and lay down in bed. 

Not sure what time o'clock - I continually wake up throughout the night, running to the toilet to puke. Nothing comes up. At some points I'm not sure which end it'll come out (tmi? Possibly.). When I do lay down, my gallbladder feels 10 times bigger than normal and it feels like the lemon juice is just resting in my esophagus. I toss and turn, and at 7:00 decide to move to the recliner. And I thought today was going to be uneventful...

Day 3: 

Morning - I feel like I have the flu. Cody feels absolutely fine. This is so unfair. Apparently I needed this cleanse more than him. I thought it would be rough to not eat today. It's Saturday. Without work to distract me, I thought I would be tempted by the pantry all day long. There's absolutely no way that will be a problem. I feel like throwing up at the mention of any food. 

1:00 - I take a nap with Knox. I wake up feeling better and get busy cleaning windows.

4:00 - sweet relief! We can finally eat some soup. I enjoy part of mine...although Knox ate a good portion of it. We are almost done!!

9:00 - I rock Knox to sleep. I refuse to put him in bed. I know that when I put him down, I have to drink the lemon juice and olive oil again. Please, for the love of God, don't make me do it again! 

10:00 - everything is mixed. I put some apple juice in mine to make it sweeter, hoping to ease the sourness. Big mistake. It doubled the portion, only prolonging the misery. And the apple juice didn't make it sweet enough to change the taste by any means. I choke down about half of it. Keep in mind I have felt nauseous all day. I hit a mental block.  I can't tell myself to do it any longer. I take two more drinks and dump the rest. I'm afraid if I drink any more I will puke it all up. I lay down, dreading what may come tonight. 

Day 4:

7:00 - I wake up. It's light out. My stomach feels fine. I MADE IT!! I'M FREE!!! Cody and I happily eat a little breakfast, just happy to eat anything but apples. 

Last thoughts: 

This cleanse was really not as bad as I thought it would be. The worst part was definitely drinking the lemon juice and olive oil. I probably would have been ok with drinking it again if the first time didn't make me so sick. We started on a Thursday, which was a good choice. If we had to do it again, I would wait until summer when I wouldn't have to be at work at all. The apples and apple juice make your stomach all gurgly, and just really uncomfortable. I wasn't as hungry as I thought I would be. I'd recommend it to anyone who thinks your gallbladder is acting up. 

Weekend Getaway

Although the majority of our Spring Break consisted of track practice, check-ups, and a couple visits to the chiropractor, I did manage to get away for a couple days. 

I met up with a some friends in St. Louis  over the weekend. It was nice to have a just-girls weekend. And even though we enjoyed good food, good company, and lots of catching up, perhaps my favorite part of the weekend was having a bed to myself and sleeping in a little. It's the little things in life, right? 

We made a stop at Carter's. I have been looking for a quality pair of sandals for Knox and can't find any for his fat foot. They happened to be having a 50% off everything in the store sale. I snagged some jammies and sunglasses for Knox. I found the sandals on the way home at a different store. 

As always, it was great to finally get home. I missed my boys! I gave Knox all his new gear. He l.o.v.e.d. his sunglasses! 

 

When I put his new pajamas on later he wanted ALL of his new things on....

Then, when an impromptu trip to the in-laws arose (after he was in his pajamas of course), we had to keep him warm somehow. I don't know how you can look so ridiculous and so cute at the same time...

I guess he just wanted to show off his new gear :) 

SOOO now that we have some summer gear, we are ready for the warm weather...bring it on! 

Yet Another Update

I glanced over at my phone this morning, refusing to open both eyes. If I opened both eyes, then I would be admitting I was truly awake. I knew it was early, the sun wasn't up yet. I managed to find the button on my phone. Dang. Way too early. But with a stuffy nose and a sore throat, I couldn't find a comfortable position to get back to sleep. Don't you hate waking up early on the weekend?

I'm going to use the opportunity to give a much-needed update. I don't remember the last time I was Knox-free and work-free at the same time. He typically gets up when I do, and then falls asleep after me at night. To say he requires little sleep would be an understatement. 

So what have we been up to? Well! Cody has started track season. It's been interesting. You see, at the end of January, we sold his truck (following Dave Ramsey's advice). We decided to take the rest of the school year to save up for another vehicle. SO we are down to one vehicle, which isn't too bad considering we work at the same place. We forgot about the times when Cody has morning practice. Or when he has to take kids home from practice and there's a car seat in our back seat. But really, we are saving $300+ a month so those problems are minute in the grand scheme of things. 

As for me....I've been doing some projects around the house (I'm working on a 30 days of organizing post...very close to finishing), working, and enjoying the beautiful outside weather with Knox. 

Speaking of Knox (see what I did there??)....he has been learning so much! The kid still talks like Boo off of Monster's Inc. but he Is learning lots of new words. We started keeping a list, but it got to be too long. He knows well over 50 words by now, and attempts to talk in complete sentences (hence the sounding like Boo thing). 

Things Knox is working on at the moment...

-he has been riding his tricycle. He can make it go a couple times forward and backward before he gets frustrated. 

-anything sports and/or physical! We think he's going to be a basketball star because he can make some pretty good shots, but he could also be a quarterback because he has quite the arm on him. Then last night Cody decided he may be a baseball guy. Cody was holding the ball in his hand and Knox was smacking it with his bat, and not even hitting Cody's hand. 

-tools! Knox loves 'fixing' things. I think we make people nervous because he plays with real tools (not a table saw or anything) but he's always been really good with stuff like that. 

-WE are slightly working on potty training still. We don't want to push him because he's not showing he's completely ready. But he has made the choice to sit on the potty a few times and has gone in it several times too.

Here are a couple of stories:

One night, Cody was out late picking up pole vault poles for the track team. We have been trying to get rid of the pacifier, and I thought I would try the cut-off-the -nipple trick. My sister said her friend did it and her daughter never wanted it again. Sounded easy enough. He only has one good binky left, so I got one of the newborn pacifiers that he never used, and SNIP! He put it in his mouth, took it out, put it in, took it out, and gave me a dirty look. Then came a 10-minute lecture (God only knows what he was saying). I did hear the word 'da da' several times in there. I just kept explaining that it was broken and he needed to throw it away. Then he grabbed my hand and pulled me to the top of our stairs. I opened the baby gate, followed him down....past alllll the toys....and into the work room. He pointed to the tools. I gave him a small electric screwdriver. He marched right upstairs with it and spent a good 15 minutes trying to 'fix' his pacifier.....

I think this kid is too smart for us. 

Next story....picture this. I have been working for a while to get Knox to 'show me his muscles.' I hadn't tried it in a while so I gave it a shot the other day. 'Knox! Show me your muscles!' Knox smiled real big to show me all his teeth. Hmm. That's weird. 'Knox! Show me your muscles!' Again, he smiled and showed all his teeth. So I called Cody into the room to see what he was doing. Cody decided to give it a try. 'Knox! Show daddy your muscles like this...' I look over and Cody has his arms up showing his muscles and, for lack of a better word, was growling, bearing his teeth. SO I came to the conclusion that Knox was trying to do the same. So. Funny. Now he shows his teeth like that and puts his hands way up under his armpits. 

I have video of both of these stories. I couldn't get it to load on this blog, so I may have to just post it to Facebook. 

But I do have some obligatory cute pictures. The first is Knox and I taking a nap. The second is Knox in a hat my sister made him for his newborn pictures.  He found it somewhere in his room and came to me wearing it...so silly!