ok, so i have this little issue called ulcerative colitis. had it for a while, it comes and goes, usually a bit of an inconvenience but nothing more. far from glamorous, it is not exactly a condition one wants to chat about. however, today, i am going to break the silence -- just once, i promise.

when i was pregnant, the colitis flared at the end of the pregnancy--it was not painful or anything, but apparently it had a huge impact on my overall health--basically my blood registered nothing in it. ok, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but my labs were quite low. i was not terribly healthy.

so then i had the baby, and everything suddenly was better. it was great. i was full of energy, happiness, and so on.

then a few months ago, i had a weird almost fainting spell, and turns out i was still anemic. ok.

then the colitis flared again. and this time it came back with a vengeance. for the last few weeks i have been in utter misery. i mean total, absolute, "i am going to die" misery. i had all of the blood loss that i had had before, but much much worse, and this time it hurt. everything hurt. my belly was a symphony of pains, i ached everywhere, and i had no energy. this is very difficult with 3 young children. i managed it by not lying down. if i were to lie down, i would not get up for the rest of the day, so i avoided that entirely.

i was waiting for the flare to subside like it usually did, but it was not, so finally, after one particularly excruciating day -- at the end of which i was sure i had no more blood left in my body -- off i went to the doctor. got the requisite steroid prescription and a follow up appointment to schedule a colonoscopy when my "colon is not so angry" -- tell me about it -- in 3 weeks. this was all well and good, and i went on a wild goose chase to find the medicine (let's just say not many people are lining up at the pharmacy for this particular remedy), but i continued to suffer, hands on belly, bent over, trying to smile and make meals for the kids. it really sucked. excuse me.

in desperation, i re-researched dietary advice for my condition. if you have ever researched this topic, you know that "conflicting advice" does not even begin to describe it. if i made a list of all of the food out there, every last one would be on both the don't eat and the eat with abandon list. however, after sorting through a lot of the literature, i finally decided to go with an elimination diet. rather than cut out one thing and seeing if there was an improvement, i decided that the way for me to do this was to follow the advice for people with food intolerances/allergies and eliminate everything except the most non-allergenic foods out there: bananas, rice, lamb, chicken, pears, apples, and some veggies. no dairy, wheat, chocolate, sugar (!), nightshades, corn, nuts, processed foods, etc.

i did allow black coffee. i am not completely insane.

this is obviously a huge challenge. i survive on nuts, i always have a bite of chocolate in the day, and i love cream in my coffee. not to mention all of the corn products i eat, and all of the sandwich crusts and last few bites of mac-n-cheese that i survive on. oh, and the survival bag of wheat thins in the car.

today was the first day. i practically starved to death because all i had in the house that i could eat was rice, but here's the thing: today was the first day i have been pain-free in WEEKS. i cannot believe it. i will eat nothing but rice, chicken and kale (and black coffee) for the rest of my life if it means that i will not have to go through that agony again.

until now, the motivation has not been enough--i was happy to have cream in my coffee and chocolate in the afternoon even if it meant that my condition might suffer, because frankly, it did not hurt--it did not incapacitate me. this time, as i realized that this could go on for a very long time, and that it was getting quite serious, and i was looking at a lifetime of prednisone unless i figured something out, i bit the bullet.

i have no idea if this will continue to work. but it worked today, and i am very grateful for that.

hopefully carter can stop worrying about me. the other day, he asked me if i had enough blood, and where i was getting more.