Honesty and the Newbie Blogger

Hello friends and family!

I am a blog newbie, and I suppose the most sensible thing to do would be to chronologically tell my story. But that would make too much sense, and I am more inclined these days to follow where my heart leads in a given moment.

My thoughts today are leaning towards honesty and how important this is to our general well being.

Honesty. We all know what that is, right? Tell the truth. Simple.

Well, somehow it's not always so simple when you are talking to yourself. And it's really hard when you are facing difficult situations, things where it may be easier to suppress the honest reality and soften it, and brush by it for another day.

Most of us can relate to this in the form of weight loss. I mean we all start the week, day, meal off with good intentions when we decide "the time is now!". But how easy is it to get derailed? One brownie set within a hundred yards, and soon you are running to gobble it up and left wondering what the hell just happened.

Medical? Yeah...that one's a kicker too. How many times do you feel some sort of way and you "neglect" to mention it to your doc...too embarrassed? You don't want to hear the truth? You're not ready to change?

I have had many "I know I need to do this" moments in my life, and I've successfully navigated doing them to some degree...several times, but each time I was able to convince myself that continuing was no longer necessary...or gotten too cocky and derailed thinking I'll just continue on tomorrow or later today, then a year passed (or seven).

Where am I going with this? Well this year there came a day when all of my little lies to myself had to be faced. When I first learned something might be wrong, at first I tried to say, ahhh, it's nothing, the doctors got this wrong, I feel pretty good for the shape I'm in, so it can't be true, right?

So when I first heard I may have NAFLD AKA, Fatty Liver...and didn't know what that was, I thought, ok...lose the weight, girl. And that alone scared me. I still didn't know the full diagnosis, but I had found Dr. Google and that (NAFLD) was bad enough. So I am glad I looked in the mirror at that moment and said, enough is enough.

I didn't know much but I knew that if I didn't do something I could end up getting Cirrhosis and liver failure, and possibly a transplant list...little did I know that I was already at Cirrhosis level (only 15-20% capacity), which is stage 1 liver failure. Everything I read said if your liver is struggling, you have to drop everything that makes it work too hard, and give it a chance to heal. I didn't know that every year I had a 5% higher chance of getting liver cancer, and that it is cumulative, so the next year is 10% and so-on, and so-on. Now I will be checked every 6 months to catch it early should I develop a tumor, or cell changes.

The liver is more the boss than I realized, friends. And mine was 17CM at the time, (it is now 14cm...way to go less fatty liver!!) and super angry. I did not know that the liver is like your car's carburetor. And here's where my "honesty" to self comes into play.

I had pain in the right side of my chest on and off like a knife for several years. Told the doc about it once, thought it was anxiety, didn't want to face what else it might be. The liver has no pain receptors, but the casing around it and any things an inflamed/enlarged liver presses on will hurt.

I have had severe intolerance to heat for several years. Thought, Susan, you're just too overweight, lose weight and you'll be fine...never considered that when the liver is not functioning well, it's overworked and it...overheats! Thus losing the ability to keep me cool.

Many foods including alcohol went right through me for several years. Fun, fun, fun! Symptom of liver not processing foods right? Bingo! Tell anyone about it? Hell no!

So in short (as this is getting really long), had I not brushed off just those two symptoms, and dug a little deeper, maybe, just maybe I would have caught this before it tipped to Cirrhosis.

Honestly, listen to your body, don't mince words with yourself about what you are feeling, it may be nothing, but it could be everything. Don't sweep stuff under the rug, or something minor could become something really scary. All of my symptoms seemed unrelated. But boy were they all. Hindsight is crystal clear.

Liver Disease is most often a very silent issue, until it's too late. Don't wait for your too late...no matter what the problem may be.

Love, Sue Pryde