Recently, I read a couple of posts from a blog called Conglomeration of Joy. The blog is written by a mother who has a very young daughter who is battling cancer. As I perused her recent entries my heart ached for the pain that this mother and all of her family experience. My heart ached for the little girl, who battles the cancer every day.
I do not have cancer. And if I ever related SIBO to cancer, I think someone might scream at me that it is not the same. I agree. SIBO and cancer are not the same. But sometimes the journey that SIBO takes you on, that chronic illness takes you on, is very similar to the journey that cancer takes you on. The drudgery of tests and waiting for results. The destruction of treatments. The joy of conquering an illness. The fear of the return of the dreaded disease. The hours of research. The stealing of life. The skimping and saving for treatments not covered by insurance. The lifestyle changes. The diet changes. The heartache of hours, days, years of work put into the ideal of health with no promise of success.
After weeks of thinking about the next capsule of posts for Journey Through SIBO, I dove back through my own journal of notes, thoughts, struggles, and battles with SIBO. I was devastated to read some of the words that I had written, and awed to have forgotten exactly how difficult my own struggle has been. My heart ached so terribly for the journey that I have been on, for the girl who began her own Journey Through SIBO on a wooden park bench by reading Breaking The Vicious Cycle in the cold, winter air of the Rocky Mountains with sun streaming through the trees, and for the now woman who walks on, stronger and more alive than ever before. SIBO has changed my life. SIBO has changed me.
My goal with Journey Through SIBO was never to be one of those writers or bloggers who is constantly bitching and moaning about how terrible life is or how hard a struggle is, and especially to never write from a place of hopelessness. But looking back over the last two years, I think it may be worthwhile to share the many struggles, joys, fears, failures, and accomplishments through a series of posts pulled directly from my own journal entries.
Over the next few weeks, I will be taking a break from posting recipes to open up my journal from the last two years to share the nitty gritty details of the journey that I have been on. As I open up, I ask that you be gracious to me. I am simply a woman who has walked a tough health battle in which very few answers were known or even existed at the time. It has taken years for me to gain my current level of understanding of SIBO and digestive health, and to develop a community of hope and inspiration. My hope, my prayer, is that your journey through SIBO is so much, much easier than mine.
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