Not So Skinny Girl

A few weeks ago I really thought I was just weeks away from remission. I was only feeling sick in the mornings and usually by about noon I felt completely normal and could really enjoy the rest of the day. There was hardly any bleeding and there was starting to be more form to my movements.

But then I had a couple days when I was extremely sick again. Going to the bathroom 20+ times a day, and feeling sick all day and night. My doctor called them "episodes". It was like I had started all over and no progress had been made.

There was something different too... I also had this queer queasy feeling. Like I'd eaten too much sugar on an empty stomach (possible, it was Halloween recently). Or maybe kind of a seasick type feeling.

That was odd. I hadn't felt that with my UC before. Perhaps it was something else. Swine flu maybe? Regular flu? Then I had another thought. When I ate, I had my regular UC type sickness. When I didn't eat, I had the seasick type feeling. Hmmm....

That's right! I'm pregnant! Baby is due July 9, 2010.

I am excited and happy and scared and worried and every emotion in between!

After I found out I was pregnant the bathroom issues calmed down a bit, not as good as before but not much worse either. I kind of feel like the "episodes" were my bodies attempt to get my attention. "Hey Skinny Girl! Something's going on in here!"

In a recent post I wrote that I was feeling terrific, and I am, but it isn't because my UC is better. In fact the UC symptoms are a little worse (but I'm still hoping remission is right around the corner! Maybe by Christmas). But I have just been in such a darn good mood lately that even feeling sick with UC and morning sickness can't bring me down. The morning sickness is new to me, I didn't have it all when I was pregnant with my son. So that is my big news! Like I said we are really, really happy! And I guess I won't be Skinny Girl much longer!

Stinky Experiment or The Power of Love

Okay, I'm not posting my good news yet. After I wrote my last post I remembered something I did quite a while ago and wanted to share it with you. So I'll just tell you about it and then I'll give the thoughts on the mind a rest for a while.

Some time ago a friend of my named Katie showed me two jars she had. Here they are:

She told me that both jars contained rice and that she had labeled one with positive and good thoughts and the other with negative thoughts. The first week she put the rice in, she would open the jars and talk to them. To the jar with the positive label she would say things like: "You are beautiful" "I love you" "You make me happy" "You are so smart".

To the jar with the negative label she would say things like: "Why are you so stupid?" "You never do anything right." "I hate you." "You are so ugly." She also said if she were having a bad day she would give the negative labeled jar dirty looks.

She sealed up the jars. This picture was taken of the jars three years later. Katie wrote, "The 'positive rice' is still white and fluffy and otherwise unchanged from the years before (other than being jostled around by moving. The 'negative rice', on the other hand, continues to deteriorate and discolor." Nasty, right?

I was amazed when I saw the jars and told my husband about it. He was...skeptical. And so we conducted our own experiment. I however did not have any jars on hand so I used brand new Rubbermaid containers. Here is a picture after two weeks:

Now unlike Katie, both of my containers eventually grew mold and they started smelling so after a couple months, I threw them away. I don't know if I didn't do the experiment right, or if the difference was in using the Rubbermaid containers instead of glass jars or if I was because I kept in my laundry room where it is quite humid, but Katie has documented pictures over the last three years of her rice.

HOWEVER, it was clear to me that the one I labeled hate and spoke unkindly to had significantly more mold and rot and developed it much faster than the one I labeled Love and spoke kindly too.

The thought I had yesterday after my last post was, "What if the unkind words we say to ourselves are literally causing our bodies to break down." When I berate myself for making mistakes or not measuring up...am I hurting my body?

From our experiment I have tried to be much more careful about what I say to myself and to others. We can be a positive influence or a negative one. The choice is ours.

If this is interesting to you, I would invite you to participate in the rice experiment. (Do a google search to see more.) If you do try it, I would be very interested in your results, so let me know!

A man is but the product of his thoughts what he thinks, he becomes. --Mahatma Gandhi

In my last post I wrote about a memory I had and about how it made me think about the powers of the mind. I am not alone in experiences like this. Is it intuition? Premonitions? Inspiration? Coincidence?

I personally feel we have yet to harness the real power of the mind. My question now is can the mind heal the body? And if the mind can heal the body...can it also make the body sick?

There are myths and urban legends that suggest this. There are also scientific studies about placebos and how if the mind thinks it is getting better, the body responds. And this article from Time magazine tells that it has been scientifically demonstrated that if a child younger than 11 has a finger sliced off, if nothing is done to it medically, it will grow back on it's own.

Is this because a child under 11 would believe that it is possible? Or is it because they are growing so quickly that there body just has that capability at younger ages. As we enter the teenage years do our experiences in life cause us to become jaded and disbelieving, thus making healing more difficult? Is faith the real secret to our health, for better or worse?

Can a conscious belief that we are healthy, cause a body to heal itself? And if that is true, how does one with illness come to fully believe they can return to full health? Just some thoughts from my wandering mind...

HEALTH UPDATE: Feeling terrific, and I've got some good news! More on that next post.