Entry # 4: It’s Never Too Late to Educate!
On June 20th 2011, I attended what felt like my first day of school! I am currently enrolled for the Chef’s Training Program at the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts, located in NYC. I am so over the top excited about this endeavor! I truly felt like I did for the first day of school in kindergarten with my shiny new shoes and dress, only I am 43 years older and the shoes are dark and the chef’s attire totally lacks anything remotely feminine! Both excited and apprehensive about what to expect but knowing that it was going to be great!
I feel like this leg of this lifetime’s journey began a while ago when I was diagnosed with thyroid disease. The diagnosis came out of my asking to have a complete hormone checkup. I was having an extremely difficult time losing weight after the birth of my third child. I had read a book of Suzanne Sommers and found a section where she described the 7 dwarfs that were indicators that one may be having symptoms of perimenopause. Itchy, Bitchy & Witchy were 3 that I knew were in me and they weren’t going anywhere anytime soon! Poor Bob bared the brunt of Bitchy & Witchy. The kids just experienced the lack of patience and the obvious pent up frustration I was experiencing because of not losing my weight and a feeling of inhabiting someone else’s body.
Sure enough, my thyroid levels were off of the charts and I was immediately referred to endocrinologist #1 who told me there was no other avenue that she would explore then to prescribe a synthetic drug. I reluctantly followed her advice until I realized that the promised weight loss did not materialize and my body became even more of a stranger to me. I felt depressed, depleted of energy and yet jumpy and on the edge most of the time. I had asked for a bioidentical hormone that although came from the thyroid of a pig was all natural and was not synthetic like that of the only alternative that I was given. I went through 3 other endocrinologists who all also refused to prescribe the bioidentical hormone. After the 3rd I decided to explore other alternatives myself. I paid a few hundred dollars for a supposed homeopathic healer who did not possess a license in NYS but assured me that God gave her the only license she needs! I am a very open minded kind of gal, but must admit when she asked me to hold the herbs and vitamins & minerals that I could purchase from her store and then pushed my arms down to see the resistance I had a picture in my head of my husband contorting his face while he spoke the words, “get the hell out of there”! I graciously paid my bill for her services and walked away with her advice to take a few herbs and other supplements along with reading and following a book, not hers, that ordered you to diet according to your blood type. Desperately I followed, because you never know! Almost immediately after taking myself off of the synthroid my energy returned I started to lose a little weight and I generally felt great. Unfortunately, approximately 1 year later I had only lost 6 pounds and my thyroid became so inflamed that it constricted my vocal chords and I was losing my voice, I felt heart palpitations and after my visit with endocrinologist #4 had the fear of the evil things to come if I did not go back on the synthetic drug that I once again was prescribed. However, # 4 promised me that after we brought the inflammation down that he would prescribe the bioidentical if I insisted. Oh yeah, he also told me that at 47 years old I also had PCOS, polycystic ovary disease syndrome! He instructed me to remove the whole grain of wheat from my diet. This was a very hard concept for me. I keep a pretty strict whole grain home; my kids have never experienced the “wonder” of wonderbread. Bleached white flour along with hydrogenated oils are ingredients that don’t cut it in my home. It took many years to infuse my home with everything whole grain; unfortunately apx 90% had some type of wheat in them. So, I needed to become the wheat alternative seeker. Needless to say, now my home is just about everything brown rice, ranging from pasta to milk.
I once again followed the prescription of yet another crusty, educationally outdated supposed medical professional and adhered to taking the synthetic drug and a wheat-free diet. At my last checkup (or what’s up except for my weight visit!) I had an agenda to come out with a prescription for a compounding pharmacy to begin a regimen with the bioidentical hormone. Endo # 4 became quite indignant and demanded that I ask who ever filled my head with the nonsense of taking a bioidentical for the prescription. He also told me that I should start an exercise regimen. He said to start by walking. I looked at him like he had 10 heads and asked why he didn’t know after “caring” for me for over one year that I run apx. 25 miles a week! His only answer to me was that we up my medication and come back to him in 3 months. If there was no improvement he would then prescribe yet another synthetic drug that he thinks would work along with continuing the first. In my head I am screaming, you are not listening to me, I want to get off of the medication not increase them!
I left that office crumbling the paper that the prescriptions were written on and realized I was once again left with out a proper medical professional to help with this situation. In the car ride home I recalled the search I had started a while back to find the school that taught the connection between what we eat and our health and went a step further in teaching how to properly prepare those healing foods so as to make the wellness journey delicious and enjoyable. I had gone to an opening for a friend of mine’s new Chiropractic office to wish her and her husband much success and also signed up for a hot stone massage. Let me tell you, once you get stoned you will never want to go back to doing with out! Her website mentioned a wellness fair where the keynote speaker would be Andrea Beaman. After my visit with Dr. Doom I began to think of Andrea Beaman and why I had seen her name before. What was my connection? Turns out she wrote a book on how she naturally cured her “incurable” thyroid disease through eating healthy natural foods and changing her lifestyle! I immediately ordered her book and also found the school that I had been searching for, The Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts!
I ironically had just retired on 4/16/11 to pursue an idea that I have had for some time to develop a fast food healthy alternative to the toxic bomb shelters that are currently available. I left as a Senior Vice President of a wall street firm, an industry I have known and worked in for over 20 years and was my passion for a very long time.
I am excited and grateful to have been given this opportunity to pursue what I know in my heart is meant to be the next chapter of this lifetime for me. Thank you all for reading this quite lengthy diary of how I came to this chapter! I promise to savor every morsel of knowledge that they have to give me and hope to pass along what I can to help others.
