Thanks for joining me!

I am starting this blog as a way for me to keep track of, and maintain, my path to health and wellbeing which began ten years ago, all the way back in 2008. I will be drawing from my past and current experiences to bring relevant content, recipes, travel tips, and, of course, my photography, in a bid to document my journey for future reference, and for anyone else who happens to be going through something similar.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

Why ten years after the journey started?

Had I have had a site/blog like this to follow or check in on every now and again, I would have had a much easier time changing my diet, changing my lifestyle, and ultimately, changing my way of thinking and living. It’s not a completed journey, and by no means is it exemplary, but hopefully through recounting my struggles, my diet transgressions, and the mental battle against sugar addiction will resonate with others, and provide guidance for the behaviours to look out for and avoid when setting out on this journey.

So thank you for travelling with me. This, in itself, is a new direction in my journey, and one which I hope will allow me to make better choices.
I have a disclaimer to make from the outset, however: I am not a medical practitioner; I am not qualified for giving medical or nutrition advice; and I am in no way affiliated with any commercial entity in presenting this blog. What you get is a first-hand recount of my experiences, thoughts, and speculations on my journey.

So, the medical issue I am faced with is Barrett’s Oesophagus. The link takes you to an easily-digestible (excuse the pun) run-down of the disease which cuts through the medical talk your GP or other medical practitioner/specialist may have bombarded you with. It is a lot to take in when you are given this diagnosis and that was especially true for me, back in 2008.

Let me begin with setting the scene: I had moved back to Australia from the UK in September 2005 at the age of 28, a few (10) kilos heavier than I had begun that year. I was 80 kilos at the beginning of the year, and then by the time of my return, I had crept up to 90 kilos. At 181 cm tall, that is well above the recommended and ideal weight range, and I was labeled ‘obese’ by the medical profession. I had been diagnosed with a gall stone sitting in my gall bladder back at the age of 19, so was supposedly following a ‘low-fat’ diet. Fast-forward to 2008 and I had added another 5-10 kilos on top. I had recognised an intolerance for dairy products and realised that that intolerance had been life-long, but that I had ‘just managed’ it – this began the second major change in diet in my journey.

I had a series of emergency middle-of-the-night doctor call-outs for intense stomach pains which had me doubled up, crawling (actually more like rolling) around on the floor trying to find a comfortable position which would ease the pain, and feeling like I’d been sucker-punched in the solar plexus. I’d noticed I couldn’t move heavy (and sometimes not-so-heavy) furniture without feeling like I was ripping out a part of my chest/stomach. I had difficulty digesting certain foods – not any that I could categorise at the time. I felt I could easily choke to death at any mouthful, which at times was absolutely terrifying and brought my mortality into sharp focus.

In other words, I had all the warning signs, and had started becoming worried, but didn’t really do much about it.

One particularly memorable (and not so pleasant) experience was when I was staying at a friend’s house in Sydney as I had a two-day conference to go to, and so we had a Sunday night dinner – roast chicken (somewhat greasy), bucket loads of plunged coffee, fresh crusty bread, chips, cola, mashed potato, oh and some green peas here and there. A couple of hours later, upon laying down to go to sleep, the tell-tale numbness/tightness started building up around my chest from my back, and I tried propping myself up on pillows to help ease it, and took antacid tablets as well as the esomeprazole tablets I’d been prescribed by the GP to take when I had particularly bad episodes. My friend gave me ibuprofen tablets to ease the pain, and little did I know that these two medicines should also not interact, so it was a mad dash to the emergency department of the (second) closest hospital where I was triaged in probably the fastest time ever.

The doctor on duty knew exactly what was wrong and, after establishing that I’d practically tried killing myself through almost everything I ate and drank that night (not to mention the two medicines), he issued a pink lady ‘cocktail’ and a shot of morphine and ordered me to rest for the next few hours in Casualty, to be discharged at 7am and not before. He also recommended I avoid white bread (and generally white flour), coffee, fatty foods, cola, and especially potatoes and peanuts, or everything I had ingested that night. It was a long night in which I discovered how powerful morphine can be, how busy and crazy emergency departments can be, and also how serious my issue could potentially be. The doctor had a team of student doctors following him around in the early hours of the morning (around 4am when I was supposed to be sleeping), and he talked to them about the severity of my situation and reiterated what he had told me, that further investigation by my local GP was absolutely vital. Even in my morphine delirium, the seriousness resonated within me.

I was referred back to my local GP upon discharge, and the local GP referred me to a specialist for an endoscopic investigation. Having had reactions to pre-medications/anaesthetics in the past, being put under a general anaesthetic was rather daunting, but I had an excellent anaesthetist who was able to avoid any nasty side-effects I’d had in the past.

The specialist then gives you a brief rundown of what has been discovered, in simple, light terms, maintaining a positive demeanour and reassuring you that ‘all went well’. A hiatus hernia was identified, and some scarring from stomach acid, that’s all. ‘We’ll go into depth at the post-procedure consult,’ I was assured pleasantly.

Nothing can prepare you for that post-procedure consult – ‘you have a pre-cancerous condition called Barrett’s Oesophagus which, without treatment, will result in the need for surgery, cancer treatments, and…’ I’d practically zoned out by this stage. He went through the images from the endoscopy, explaining as I nodded as though I understood every word, but inwardly reeling at the C word, pre-C or no. I had to make an effort to sharpen my focus as I asked what I could do to prevent that scenario.

I was not painted a rosy picture of complete recovery, which I had been clinging to, but instead was told that, unless I changed my diet and lifestyle, the changes would occur rapidly and I would then be seeing an oncologist. At this stage, it was a matter of delaying the inevitable, but it was a good thing that I didn’t smoke.

So, from this initial diagnosis, I was rocked to my foundations and set out to change EVERYTHING I had been doing previously: alcohol, overeating, indulging in sweets, not leading an active lifestyle.

So at that moment I resolved that that was exactly what I was going to do.

Ten years down the track, and I continue my path of ‘dietary redemption’, and now this blog will be my catharsis.

This is just the beginning. In the next post, I will outline my initial dietary changes and how they helped, as well as provide some handy recipes and links I found during that time.

Until next time, thanks for reading and always remember you are never alone in your experiences.