Kelly Azuma

Last week I won a free double in season pass to the movie The Ghost Writer starring Pierce Brosnan, Ewan Mcgregor, and Kim Cattrall.

When I looked online at the cinema near us it was the last week it was being shown so last night Yasu managed to get off work early and we went to see it.

There were some projector problems which delayed the showing for about 20 minutes but it was ok and started in the end. It was kind of a slow movie at first but gradually the story unfolded and it ended up being a kind of crime thriller. I didn’t think Yasu would like it but he said he thought it was good. I loved all the British accents and thought Ewan was a bit of a babe.

We got this *huge* big box of popcorn and a drink and Yasu managed to eat most of it, despite saying in the beginning he didn’t want any. Afterwards I was hungry, my god at 9pm no less – but Hungry Jacks (Burger King) was open so we stopped in there for a burger. I just had a whopper but Yasu had fries and the new bourbon whopper which has cheese, bacon and crispy fried onions. Lots of grease!!

It was good for the soul, I felt like I had been transported back to my teens almost, out late, eating burgers after a movie… not something we usually do…we are boring old married farts haha.

Well, this is strange. Today I woke up feeling, well, not exactly energetic but less lethargic than I have been the last 3 months. It’s so weird…that all of a sudden it should change like that. I still feel tired but I don’t feel like I’m trying to walk through mud. I haven’t even had headaches for the last two days either which is good. But for some reason I am so hungry all the time. I just eat and then I’m hungry again… I feel like such a guts. But I guess whatever is going on in my body needs food, maybe.  At least I’m eating healthily.

I’m kind of tossing up whether to go out today as I felt like I could… probably need the exercise too. But it just started raining outside so, I guess I will get ready and see if it passes. It’s so nice to be able to have the energy to be able to *think* about going out.

:)

There’s a spiritual festival on from this Thursday to Sunday and a friend of mine who does Louise Hay “You Can Heal Your Life” workshops is going to be there and she gave me a half price ticket, so I have really been looking forward to going but on the same token worrying if I would have the energy to go. I hope I do! There are so many great events that are free which I hope to participate in and which would be good for healing. :)

It seems to have been the longest 4 days of my life. I’ve got absolutely no energy, I’m so exhausted all the time…feel like sleeping. I am having trouble being near the computer because the energy of it just seems to be too strong for me…my energy level is so weak these days.

I stopped taking one of the herbs because it was making me feel worse, now I’ve stopped taking it I feel much better, well at least I don’t have the lump in my throat. So the acupuncture and herbs are working, but I just feel so exhausted now. I told the acupuncturist and he gave me some extra points but it didn’t really do anything.

I have been having the weirdest dreams and experiences. At night I’ve been having the weirdest dreams, and when I try to sleep people start talking to me all at once. On saturday night I went to bed and I had a dream that I was in a forest and Shoko Asahara was meditating in the forest and then he saw me and his followers tied me to a tree and were chanting all this stuff and Shoko had a plastic bag with a hose and was spraying this liquid. When I woke up I was sweating and screaming and then when I went back to sleep I was stuck in the subway and there were newspapers filling up the station, they were floating down from the ceiling and gradually piling up so we couldn’t breathe. Yasu insisted on putting salt in four corners of our bedroom after that and thankfully I haven’t had the people talking to me or the dreams about Shoko. It was so weird. I haven’t seen anything about Aum for years…why all of a sudden I would dream about him??

So bizarre. Maybe because my energy shield is low or something I’m an easy target. Who knows.

Anyway my diet has totally changed as well. I can’t eat spicy foods, sweet foods, lollies or chocolate really really makes me sick, so it’s not worth even eating them at all, tea, coffee, milo, they all make me sick, fried or oily foods make me sick too.

So basically I’m on a very simple diet. I have bran cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and maybe a fruit cup for afternoon tea as I can’t eat raw fruit, it seems to be too acidic. And for dinner just something like chicken and vege, usually with potato mash to make it go down smooth.

I can’t eat salad like tomato or cucumber as it really upsets my stomach, and also orange juice and citrus foods are a no-no.

I kind of keep to drinking water and occasionally apple juice. It’s a bit limiting but I’d rather feel okay than eat those other foods and be sick. I realised that feeling like that is just not worth it, even though I was devastated in the beginning to not be able to eat chocolate.

Yasu has been as patient as ever thankfully, and he spent most of the weekend just spending time with me though he did escape sunday arvo to baseball training which I don’t mind. :) He cooked and washed up all weekend which was very nice of him. But now it’s back to me…haha…gotta summon up the energy from somewhere!

So September is nearly over…that means only 5 more weeks to wait to see the specialist. I hope it goes fast…

Happy to report in only 5 days of treatment I’m experiencing lots of progress. Last Thursday I had to sleep 4 pillows high and even then couldn’t really get any rest, now I’m happy to report that last night I only needed one pillow and slept through the night without waking up.

The main thing was that the pressure in my throat was so bad and was burning, so it was very difficult to lay on any angle than sitting up, and even that wasn’t nice.

The pressure in my throat has reduced significantly, and the burning is not there at all. I haven’t had any pains in my stomach since Sunday and I don’t have any acid pain in my throat or stomach either.

The only thing is I have to watch the food I eat. I can’t eat raw fruit like apples, oranges, or tomatoes because they seem to be too acidic and upset me. I can eat fruit in syrup or juice though without problem.

I also can’t eat cucumber, capsicum and onion. I can’t eat hot foods, can’t even eat pepper on my food. I also can’t eat chocolate as something about it makes me feel really bad. Really unfortunate as chocolate is what I use when I have a bad head day – when I have less seratonin that normal, but what can you do? Luckily I haven’t had any of those days lately so I’m doing okay without chocolate.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat those foods above in future. It’s a real pain as I love fresh fruit and veggies and I’ve been craving biting into a big juicy apple for weeks! But we’ll see what happens.

I’m really happy to have made such great progress this far. My quality of life leading up to last week was really awful, such that I thought it would be better to be dead than to have to live every minute of every day in agony like I was.

Thankfully, I found something that works and a doctor that knows what he’s talking about.

I talked with Yasu last night and we decided for me to still see the gastro specialist because I think it’s worth still having a scope, who knows if the acid has done damage to my stomach or not. I would like to at least get the all-clear on that.

So today I’ve done the washing, and I’m about to clean both bathrooms and toilets. OMG, how good does it feel to get back to doing every day chores? I mean just having the ability to do normal things… :) Thank you TCM.

Sorry for keeping you all in suspense. I haven’t been near the computer at all this weekend as it makes me feel worse when I am near it.

Friday morning when I was in the shower I had a sudden epiphany that my problem could be to do with my thyroid and I checked online and the symptoms seemed to match. Anyway, I went off to the chinese medical centre and spoke to the doctor there and when I described all my symptoms he said that is a thyroid problem.

Can you believe that my doctor and the hospital doctor didn’t even pick up on this? All this time I have been pointing to the exact place where my thyroid is and no-one even guessed. (I think they all need to be shot)

Anyway, the energy in my body is meant to run from head to toe but in my case it’s running from toe to head which is why the gastric juice is flowing back up to my throat (so he says) and so I had acupuncture for my thyroid. 2 of the acupuncture needles were actually stuck in each side of my neck, and 2 on either side of my cheek bones, 1 between my eyebrows (for sleep), 1 each in the inside of my elbow and wrist, 1 each in between my thumb and forefinger, 1 each in my knees, 1 each in my inner calf, 1 each in my ankle and 1 each in between my big toe and next toe. This is the meridian for thyroid and is how the energy runs, so by sticking the needles in those points it’s getting the energy back to normal.

By the end of the 25 minutes of laying there I was sooo sleepy. I couldn’t stop yawning! It was great to be able to get a good night’s sleep after nights of tossing and turning!

The doctor said my not having a period for 78 days was due to the thyroid problem as it has to do with the regulation of hormones so I got given herbal pills for the thyroid and for my menstrual cycle. The pills for menstrual are small round balls and I have to take 50 of them twice per day! haha…it’s not so much fun counting them out though.

Anyway, I felt a bit better after the acupuncture and on saturday after lunch I noticed a difference, I didn’t have the intensity of burning that I usually do in my throat, so it seems to be working.

At the moment I’m battling extreme exhaustion and fatigue, I am so tired and just want to sleep, sleep, sleep. I’m sure it’s another sign of the thyroid having problems, I just hope I will be able to right it somewhat through this chinese medicine.

I am having acupuncture again at 11:30 am today so I hope that gets more of the energy moving about.

This weekend was nice and quiet. I shouted Yasu lunch as a kind of pre-birthday event on saturday and saturday afternoon we wandered around a new shopping precinct, had a look at some homewares stores, found this really unique porch light which we bought and is getting sent over from Melbourne.

Then on Sunday it was Yasu’s birthday (a big 35!) and he was happy to receive some different varieties of cup noodle (cheese curry, meat king, and spicy grilled chicken) which he hadn’t had before, and some of his favourite Japanese snacks like Takenoko no Sato and Chocoball and he also got some no alcohol beer – Kirin and Bar Bi Can. We tried the beer last night, the Kirin was nice, but the Bar Bi Can was so watery we ended up pouring the rest of the can out.

For dinner I made roast pork with really crunchy pork crackling (I finally found the way to make it good after watching someone do it on tv) and roast veggies, and for dessert we had Vienetta which Yasu chose and it was yum! He hadn’t had it before and I hadn’t had it for years…

Anyway so it was a good weekend and thanks to the acupuncture I didn’t have to dwell too much on the way I was feeling. Even though I felt sick, it wasn’t right there in my face annoying me, I was able to do other things.