Monday, September 3, 2012

Let me catch up a little

No, I'm not dead.

In mid-August of last year, I began hitchhiking toward Maine to begin a 48-state walk. I began the walk on about the last day of August, fully expecting to quit after maybe a day or two because I pretty much could not walk more than a few hundred feet at a time. The only reason I even started was because if you're going walk the route I had planned, you have to start in Maine in late summer in order to make it to the south by about December. So I figured I might as well give it a try.

Even though I could barely walk when I began this trek, by late September I somehow managed to walk 15-20 miles a day. In less than a month, I had managed to walk 350 miles through Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Then, only a few miles from Connecticut, I was harassed by cops and thrown in jail for 16 nights. (Long story, and I'm not going to tell it right now.)

Before I even got out of jail, I already knew I wasn't going to continue the walk because: 1) There's no doubt I would end up in jail again somewhere down the road, without even breaking any laws; and 2) After sitting around in jail for over two weeks, I was no longer in the kind of shape to walk 15 miles a day. (And I don't mean physical fitness; it felt more like my body was falling apart.) Plus I was at least a few hundred miles behind schedule, which meant winter would arrive before I could make it to a warmer climate.

So I did a little more traveling when I got out of jail. First I spent a week wandering around New York City, sleeping in places like Central Park (in my tent). After that I visited a friend in coastal New Jersey. Finally I stayed a few weeks with my best friend, near Washington DC, before returning home to Ohio in time for Thanksgiving.

Early this year, in about February, I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist, regarding vision disturbances I had been experiencing constantly in my left eye for nearly a year. I already knew the problem was optic neuritis (inflammation of the optic nerve, which typically goes away after a month or two), but the doctor couldn't see anything using his equipment. So his office set up an appointment for me to get an MRI, as well as a follow-up appointment to discuss the results of the MRI.

A week later, when I returned to the ophthalmologist's office, he let me know that the MRI confirmed my suspicion of optic neuritis, which is often the presenting symptom of multiple sclerosis. Consequently, his office scheduled an early-April appointment for me with a neurologist.

Between appointments I went to southern California for about a month to try to help a struggling pizzeria. When I returned home from California in early April, I went to my first neurologist appointment. Based on the MRI, as well as my condition and history, the neurologist suspected multiple sclerosis, so his office set up an appointment for me to get a spinal tap, as well as a follow-up appointment.

In early May, with the doctor having analyzed the spinal tap results, I was officially diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I guess the diagnosis had probably been made almost a month earlier, but the neurologist did not confirm it to me until my next appointment.

So I have multiple sclerosis.

Although I guess you could say I was diagnosed on May 11, 2012, I knew a long time before that. In fact, it's something I had been thinking about for 15 years already. I think the only reason the neurologist didn't reveal the diagnosis to me earlier is because he figured I had added it all up on my own (which I had).

I've left out a few things that might be important details if you're trying to make sense of this story, but it's hard to recap this whole thing in one blog post.

Anyway, I have a really difficult time walking now--I need to use a cane if I leave the house--and I don't think I'm ever going to walk normal again or be able to run.

So what's all of this have to do with Candida?

To start, you may remember a post I wrote a while back, titled 'What's the Cause?'. Well, one of the many illnesses I listed with no known cause was multiple sclerosis. I haven't re-read that post lately, but I probably said something indicating that I suspect all those illnesses may have something to do with Candida.

Are those illnesses just symptoms of Candida overgrowth? I really don't know. But one thing I feel pretty sure about is that most of those illnesses are the result of lifestyle choices.

Yeah, I suspect I helped do this to myself. But even if I did do this to myself, I had a lot of help from doctors prescribing me dangerous drugs (such as antibiotics) throughout my life. I also had a lot of help from the US government, who allows poison to be sold as food, and who is complicit in keeping the American public from knowing most of their food is poison.

You are what you eat. When you consume shit, you become shit. The way I see it, that's what has happened to me.

I think it may be possible to beat MS, but I think there's more to it than just sticking to an anti-Candida diet. I think Candida is just a part of the bigger picture. And the bigger picture involves eating the kinds of foods that helped us evolve to what we are today. It's not an accident that we are what we are, and it's not an accident that our immune systems go haywire on us now that we mostly eat food that isn't really food.

So if I haven't really said it yet, I don't think this blog is about Candida anymore. I think it's about consuming only what the human body has evolved to consume.

And you know what? I haven't really been focused on any of this stuff for a long time. Right now I'm focused on making pizzas every day and sharing my pizzas on the forums at pizzamaking.com. Right now I don't have what it takes to make a commitment to eating only food that my body needs.

And no, I'm not taking any prescription drugs for multiple sclerosis, nor do I ever intend to. It sure would be nice to have a big bag of weed at all times, though, because it would probably help me.