Ramble On

I didn't set out to be a success story for any diet or lifestyle or anything like that. I started on this journey to get better and to reclaim my life. I'm so happy that SCD is working for me thus far, I'm happy with how far I've come comparing my life now to my life before the diet, it's so much better. So much better in fact that I now refer to my life before diagnosis as my "previous life".

I've mentioned before that I've suffered from depression for many years as well as carpal tunnel syndrome. Now that I've been on the diet for a considerable amount of time those symptoms too have lessened, which is amazing to me. My wrist pain kept me from doing things that I wanted to do, it kept me from knitting, it kept me from cooking, writing, and picking up my children. That pain is gone now, just gone! It took months for this to happen but as I continued to follow SCD it has gradually diminished. I now can knit for several hours a day, I'm cooking a lot (obviously!), and I'm picking up my kids, well at least the ones that I can lift (the 5-year-old is teetering on the edge of that right now, 9 year old is nearly as tall as me so..).

As far as my depression. I can say that it's less sever than it has been in years. It's still there, lingering, I know it's something that I will struggle with for the rest of my life but now that I'm reclaiming my digestive health I feel like my mental health is also improving. I go outside and play with my kids now, something I never did much of simply because I was too tired. It was a vicious cycle. I was tired, so I didn't go out and play with the kids, then I felt bad about it, so I'd cry, and that would make me more tired. No good.

I went on this diet and started this journey to lessen my Crohn's symptoms. I had no idea taking care of my gut would improve the rest of my health. I'm so grateful that I took the chance and tried the diet. It is hard but it's doable.  I'm so grateful for the people who've gone through this before me that showed me that it could be done and now hopefully, I'm showing others that they can do it as well.

Here's what I want to say: It's easy to get upset, to beat yourself up, to stop taking care of yourself, of your family, your finances. It's easy to give up. Facing a diagnosis, whatever it is, is hard. But please, please try to find the positive in your situation. Don't let your diagnosis take you, you're more than just this disease.

Tomorrow, I will be posting a guide to French Toast including a SCD legal batter recipe. I will post links for breads that will work with it (I also think my banana bread would be really good as French Toast as well but it's not something I've personally tried yet, adding it to my list!)