Week 9....reflections of how the raw food diet saved my life eight years ago.

[Tamara Jenkins]

 So I am on week 9 of my back to raw journey. I have had a lot of emotions coming to the surface. I am juicing still and eating green leaf salad, my chips, occasional fruits and herbal teas.  I will say that my skin feels amazingly soft and clear. But I am feeling impatient with the progress of some other things even though there is slow improvement. I feel like Baronca off of Willie Wonka..I want it and I want it now.

 I was hesitant to return to  juice fasting because eight years ago,  even though it saved my life, it was very difficult and I lost so much weight and it was very intense. At the time I was fighting for my life and didn't even know it.   Eight years ago I had been vegetarian for two years and had had my fifth child, didn't want a hysterectomy and allowed a doctor to push me into getting an IUD.  Not realizing that after having five c sections, that was the worse thing I could have done. My uterus was to weak to hold an IUD let alone, I really didn't understand what it was. So I had it implanted and unknownst to me it, the doctor projected it thru my uterus into my body. After blood shot out of me, I was very afraid. I asked him if that was normal and he said oh yes. YEAH RIGHT> anyway I went in the next day and said I thought it was "lost" and he checked me and said oh no, it was there and it was fine.

So I went home, trusted him and began a two year journey of hell.  I began to feel strange, ill, like I couldn't breath, like I was going to die. So I began a juice fast. I went to the doctors several times and described my symptoms and they said it was stress, low on potassium, etc. Well I was low in potassium because even though I was juicing, I hadn't learned about how the sugar in carrot juice can flush your minerals out if you arent careful.

A year later I began to hemorrhage.  I went to the ER and found out I was pregnant and that I was having a miscarriage and they assumed that the IUD came out with the baby. Wrong again. I lost half my blood and had a molar pregnancy which means my uterus had become deformed from the IUD and that the placenta tissue was growing like crazy. A DandC was performed and  I lost half my blood in the ER. It was insane. But in all of this there were evidences of my raw food diet. They tested me and every test was a testimony of health. Lungs super clear, blood work all normal, except the anemia from losing my blood. Three weeks later I was back in the er again. My uterus contained a grapefruit sized benign tumor that had grown from my placenta. I had to have an emergency hysterectomy as a result of this lost IUD.  It took a year of monitoring me and then I was clear of all of that or so I thought.

We were in a car accident a that year later and I had an x ray and was called into look at it with everyone else on staff at this clinic. There was an IUD in my side. It had been there now for two years. Why didn't they do a full body xray when I went with the miscarriage. Why would they assume it had just passed. Again I had naively trusted the doctors.  So I was scheduled for exploratory surgery which took four hours. They couldn't find it and so they went piece by piece thru my intestines feeling for it and there it was.  It had embedded into the sigmoid colon. The most toxic part of the intestines.

Here is the absolute miracle of the raw food diet. I knew that first year something was wrong but no one would listen because I looked so healthy. When I felt like I was dying and was juice fasting...the IUD was perforating and going into my colon. I should have been in intensive care, I could have died. But the raw food diet kept my body healthy enough to handle a perforated colon.Of course I was having MAJOR detox symptoms but it was detox and I did not become septic as one can become with a perforated intestine.  And also when the doctors did the intestinal surgery removing the IUD< they actually took pictures of my intestines, they were clean, no black fecal matter on the walls. The doctors told me that they had never seen such clean intestines. And they were also amazed that I had very little scar tissue from the hysterectomy they had done the year before. The doctor asked me what do you do and I said, I drink carrot juice. He said he was going to try carrot juice if it could do that for me. One more surgery after that, I had an incisional hernia from all the previous surgeries. This put me at my fourth surgery from the lost IUD. That on top of five c sections.  So I had hernia surgery and a mesh put in.  I try to look at the lemonade and call it my internal girdle.

As I have said before, I let life get to me..one part was the baby I lost that is now in heaven  and strayed away from the raw food diet, turned back to what used to be my main source of comfort growing up-the SAD diet minus the meat . But now I am back on track..AMEN!

 

Then I read here about juice feasting and that you can continue to take care of your life and family and still heal and cleanse.  So I have decided I am going to begin a juice feast. I have downloaded the e book from the raw reform. I am also looking into juice feasting.com. I will be making a list of what I will need for the week. I am figuring at Sam's Club, it will be 50.00 a week.  I feel confident that I have slowly transitioned enough to be able to do this without the detox I had years before, since before I was newly vegetarian and had a lifetime of bad eating to get out of my system. Transitioning to 100 percent raw has been wonderful since I learned how to use my dehydrator. I have my raw flax chips as my back up and always have an apple in my bag. Everywhere I go, I take my mason jar of spinach, celery, and carrot juice. My beautiful daughter makes my juice for me every morning. I am so blessed to have her and all of my children that support me on my raw journey.

[Marie-Paule]

Wow Tamara, what a story, thank you for sharing it without drama, just the facts, you are a real survivor!! I study osteopathy, and from what I learned, the connective tissue from a scar can grow internally and connect itself to other organs, having for consequence a diminution of mobility. I recommend you try 'Internal organ energy transformation" from Gilles Marin, just to keep everything mooving adequately in conjunction with your juice feasting.

and good luck, we are with you all the way

MP

[Ida Ratherberaw]

What an incredible journey you have been on. Thank you for sharing this personal information with us. You are very strong, and I pray your journey will be safer and saner now with raw foods. My mother had a saying about doctors: "M.D. does not mean Medical Deity" Thank God I heard that a few times growing up. Does that Dr. have any idea what he put you through? Don't they take an oath saying "First do no harm?" OK, my rant is over.

[Jean]

Raw does the body good.

[Karen Sands]

Wow GF! you are a strong woman! You are amazing! You can do this :)

[Faye Ketola]

Oh my, Tamara, you've been through a lot. Thanks for sharing your story here, and all the best with your juice feast.

[Linda Ann]

What a journey you have been on I am so so glad you are here to share it with us!  Thank you for sharing

[henrietta zielinski]

Tamara what courage you have to keep going and to feel the blessings of your children and vision of hope.  May to continue to grow strong and love life and thank you for your story.  Everyone has their own battles and your's has certainly been a difficult one.  All-ways :  hands of friendship to you.  May the green light show you the way. 

[angela usher]

Thank you Tamara for sharing your amazing harrowing story. My daughter has a chronic illness but she isn't open to the raw food diet so I must get her to read your story to try and open her eyes to the wonder and magic of this lifestyle. Thank you again and I wish you all the happiness and good health in the world you soooo deserve it!

Love Angela XXX    PS I don't have much faith in alopathic doctors : (

[sharonsoars]

Wow, Amen is right!  Thanks so much for sharing your amazing journey!  Is the mesh doing ok?  I have one friend who's body rejected it.  Thank God you are all right!

[Jacqueline Rooths]

I thank God that you shared this with us.  How much a blessing you are.   I believe your sharing your testimony is part of your healing.  Blessings and ((((HUGS)))).