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I’m still on GAPS. Haven’t fallen off the wagon or anything like that. I just took a major hit to my adrenals due to becoming emotionally distraught over something that triggered memeories of a devastating childhood event.

I was very upset for two days, crying at the drop of a hat, I was heartbroken. I would think about the situation and big fat tears would just fall out of my eyes. Until I read about adrenal fatigue, I always wondered why an emotionally distressful situation would wipe me out physically for days afterward. Now I understand better what is happening.

Since asthma is connected to adrenals, it makes sense that my asthma symptoms have escalated. I’m using my Albuterol rescue inhaler as much as four times a day. I thought on Wednesday I was getting a cold because my eyes were aching and red and swollen, my sinuses were clogged and running all at once, and I kept sneezing.

Finally I made a phone call, which resolved a lot, but also I realized I had been triggered. You see, I “lost” my mom when I was sixteen years old. She didn’t die, she didn’t move away… she gave me to our woman pastor.

The woman pastor had persuaded my mother that I was starving myself to death – anorexia was just beginning to make an appearance in the news and I had always been naturally thin. I was not anorexic. But the woman pastor was convinced that I was not eating enough, and bullied my mom into letting me go live with her. She had been our pastor for eleven years by that time, and my mom was scared to disobey her.

I realized the heartbroken feelings I had this week, the sobbing, crying, depression, were almost certainly flashback emotions to that time in my life.

Eventually I ran away – at the age of 21. I finally regained contact with my mother, but she was still scared of the woman pastor and so we couldn’t resume our relationship at that time. It took a couple of years until my mom finally broke away from the abusive pastor. My mom still feels some fear talking about the past and that situation, and it’s been almost twenty years!!

At any rate, the situation has been resolved but I think the person involved probably thinks I’m a nutcase.

I did find out that there is a version of Albuterol that does not contain GMO corn (ethanol). It is called Ventolin. I asked my doctor to give me that, instead of the Pro-Air that he originally prescribed. I am still waiting to hear back from the drugstore as to whether my insurance company will cover the new medication.

I have had my broth this morning. I need to go get something for breakfast as I am very hungry.

Maybe more later. Thankfully I have four days off and hopefully I can recuperate from the terrible stress I went through on Tuesday and Wednesday.

I am trying not to feel stressed about how often I was away from home this weekend. Friday was spent away from home, and yesterday I went to work with my husband in a small town about 100 miles away. I went to work with him partly as a favor to our son, who had an opportunity to work with his tech guru, and also my husband has wished I could come along. The couple he was working for, he’d met the wife (and I actually met her also one day when she came by to buy some of our raw goat’s milk) and just knew we’d hit it off.

So even though I have such a hard time leaving home I decided to go with him. The work I would be doing wasn’t difficult but it would make the job infinitely easier for my husband to have a second pair of hands and feet to grab items while he was crawling around in the attic.

About ten o’clock my husband got a phone call. He gets off the phone and says, “That was L, he says M is hoping we can come by for lunch, she’s made turkey soup.”

My eyes widened and I probably glared at him, with a multitude of thoughts running through my head. “Oh great, now what do I do. I can’t eat hardly anything that I don’t cook myself. Wait. He said turkey soup. Hmmm… well, you can’t get turkey soup in a can that I know of, and he said she made it. Maybe this will be okay.”

Around noon I called M and let her know I was on my way over. When I walked into her kitchen, the first thing I spotted was Perfect Weight by Jordan Rubin. Having assumed in the past that a person was on the same wavelength as myself by seeing a book in their home which turned out to be quite far from the truth, I thought I’d make sure and asked, “Is this your book?” M said it was, and then I asked, “Is this the guy that almost died of…” and she answered, “Crohn’s Disease” and we were off! We spent the next three hours chatting and laughing and talking about traditional foods and healing our bodies. She has been on a path of nutritional healing for two years and has experienced a lot of healing.

I told her about GAPS and she is interested in reading the books. I’d told my husband that I would only be gone half an hour or an hour, if that. You see… I don’t often meet people who are on the same page nutritionally and I thought I’d bow out after an hour and be back to help him. Instead, I found we are pretty much on the same wavelength! She is also a Christian, which is wonderful because that means we are sisters in Christ.

Finally I got back over to help my husband and about fifteen minutes later her husband came by and he said M was going to pick up their organic veggies at their CSA, and he asked if I wanted to go with her. He told me they always have extra vegetables for non-members to buy. I was torn… I didn’t want to leave my hubby stranded, yet I was very interested in seeing if they had any great veggies that I could buy.

And they did. OH boy… I found my beets that I was planning to have for our Valentine’s Day picnic. Today we realized our 20yo is going to be out of town for a church conference, so we will be bringing our 22 year old with us on our picnic.

M also told me about nitrates-free bacon and hot dogs that can be had from Whole Foods. It was so great talking to someone who knows exactly what “SAD” means, and she referred to Whole Foods as Whole Paycheck. 😉

It was great meeting you, M! She has done so great in locating her organic foods, joining a CSA right in her neighborhood, she supports a local goat farmer who also sells organic grain whole wheat bread and eggs [affiliate link]. It makes me want to move to her small town.

Now on the update front. I guess nothing much to report, although I did remember something else today that I used to be plagued with and that was a chronically stuffed nose. Sometimes so badly that I could hardly sleep because I cannot breathe through my mouth when I sleep, it wakes me up.

Last night I put together some meatloaf patties and boy were they ever delicious!! These is a version of the same recipe that my husband referred to as institutional-tasting. Well, even YS loved these patties. So I made them again for dinner tonight, along with steaming the organic spinach.

I was thinking maybe tomorrow I would try juicing the carrots with some fresh Swiss Chard from my garden.

The days blur by. Today I had to leave home around 6:00 to go into town to attend a ceremony for one of my coworkers who became a United States citizen today! I am so proud of her and it was such an emotional event.

I had to work late yesterday so by the time I got home I just ate and went to bed.

Today I had my broth for breakfast, and brought almonds [affiliate link], two oranges and some of my Red Pepper and Cabbage Stroganoff left over from the other night. The event lasted for about three hours and I had almonds and a few sections of orange taking my coworker to her house so she could get her own vehicle. While there I ate my leftovers (cold).

Then we (my younger son and I) were invited to the luncheon they were having for my coworker. Well, of course there was all kinds of “delicious” SAD food there, like macaroni salad, deli sandwiches, soda, potato chips and a red, white and blue cake. Not even one thing there that I could eat and maintain GAPS.

However, I managed to do it. The ladies there were coaxing me and my son to eat but we just politely declined. My son, even though he is enjoying himself with eating only SAD foods, rarely eats at food gathering events.

It looked good, but I didn’t touch one piece of anything.

Tomorrow I am working with my husband all day long and we have to leave at 6am. It is now 10:17, so that means I am only going to get about 6 hours sleep. Maybe I can sleep on the way there. This is going to be a rough weekend on me.

My breathing is not going good at all. I am having to use my Albuterol three times each day. Unfortunately, the new canister contains ethanol, which I know is GMO corn.

I am not sure what to do. I am distressed by my breathing not being “right”.

I was thinking of telling my doctor that I want to stay off the corticosteroids for six months and just use Albuterol, and what is the difference between being on Albuterol and using it every day, or using the Flovent every day?

I should have spent time tonight getting food together for tomorrow but I got sidetracked on the computer.

How are you doing on your GAPS journey?

Yay me! I find it hard to believe I’ve been eating this new way for 60 days. And it honestly hasn’t been all that difficult.

It is a bit of a challenge at work some days. Yesterday my son made Pizza Casserole, a bread pudding type casserole made from pizza. We get food donations at our job so he has to work with what comes in. It smelled very wonderful, but I know from my past experience with it I would have engorged myself on it and then felt drugged and sluggish and exhausted.

Yesterday and today there was some type of fluffy cheesecake that looked divine. Today I took a tiny dab and tried it. Maybe a half teaspoon. It wasn’t as delicious as I’d imagined it.

I talked with one of my coworkers today. I mentioned the almond pancakes, and how I haven’t been able to enjoy pancakes for years. She said she had experienced the same problem. I think one of these days I’ll make her a few pancakes and take them for her to try. She is one of my best carb-eating buddies, the two of us were always enjoying carbs together. 🙂   We also both LOVE mashed potatoes; I told her about the whipped cauliflower Faux-tatoes that are so divine and taste so amazingly similar to mashed potatoes. I think I’ll bring her some of those, too.

My sweet husband turned off the television last night before he went to sleep. I appreciate that so much and love that he did that for me.

I took my detox bath last night and was in bed around 7:40pm. I am sure I was asleep by 8pm. At 4am my hubby came in to wake me up and I was so dead tired and it was horrible trying to wake up. So I fell back to sleep and he came in again at 4:30 and asked me if I was getting up. I had to because I had to go to work and have to leave by 5am in order to get there by 6am.

I used to get to work at 7am, but I had to leave at 5:30 because of all the traffic at the later time. So it is worth getting up earlier so I can get there sooner.

Yesterday at Savers I found the coolest dishes and had such fun looking over their eclectic selection. If you click on the Red Pepper and Cabbage Casserole link, you’ll see one of them.

In spite of being tired this morning I had an okay day – hubby made my broth for me so I could have it when I got up. I was in a better mood than yesterday, and thankful for the bad mood of yesterday because it reminded me of the foul moods I used to get into before GAPS. Lunch was leftover chicken breast and asparagus; both leftover from Monday night. I also brought almonds [affiliate link] with me. They really help me to keep from feeling hungry.

And of course tonight was the aforementioned Red Pepper and Cabbage Casserole.

Earlier today I found Chef Rachel’s site, she bills herself as the Healthy Cooking Coach. Here is a tiny blurb from her About page:

I am particularly skilled at helping people with special needs follow special diets, such as wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-and/or casein-free, corn-free, grain-free, peanut-free, egg-free, or preservative-free diets. Do you have a child on the autism spectrum, with ADD or ADHD, or frequent respiratory infections? Do you have Celiac Disease, food allergies or intolerances, an autoimmune disorder, migraines, PMS, acid reflux, excess weight, or other health challenges you would like to deal with wholistically?

She sounds awesome! I’m amazed she doesn’t mention GAPS on her site just because of that little blurb. I found her while googling for restaurants that are gluten-free and she has done several reviews for places in the Phoenix area. My hubby and I like to eat out once in a great while, so I was just curious if there is ANYPLACE in town that we could try sometime. There is one restaurant she reviewed – True Food – that is having a special Valentine’s Day dinner – $25 per person. But we are already planning to go on a picnic that day.

Chef Rachel recently did a great review on Elana Amsterdam’s Paleo Cooking from Elena’s Pantry and is giving one away so go on over and check out Chef Rachel’s site and enter the contest. Whoops! Sorry I guess I lost a month there already, I thought we were still in January! The contest already ended on January 15th. Sorry!

And now I must get off this computer and go to bed. I’m pretty tired again. Thank you for visiting my blog.