danielle pasternak, wedding coordinator, wedding planner, scranton

Greetings dear friends and loved ones.

As you may have noticed – ok, you’ve noticed, and I heard about it from some of you – I’ve been a little absent on the blog lately. Bad danielle, I know.

Unfortunately, around the end of February I started getting some incredibly painful jabs in my stomach area. I won’t get into the crazy details (although I was, and still am, burping a lot) but one blood test led to an ultrasound, which pointed me towards a HIDA scan followed by a CT scan. Needless to say, apparently my body has managed to create a little kidney stone in my right kidney. Ok, cool. Totally passable and I will live to see another episode of SMASH. Phew.

But while they were testing for the source of that crazy pain, I also mentioned the other pains I’ve been having specifically while and after I eat. It’s been a pain I’ve had for years (not exaggerating) and have had countless tests for. I’ve been told it was IBS, acid reflux, heartburn, just flat-out gas (lovely). With each diagnosis over the years came a prescription for another medicine that I would take for the recommended duration, there’d be little to no change whatsoever to my pains and I’d stop.

Finally, a few weeks ago, the doctors performed a full HIDA scan followed by a CCK. Apparently, my gallbladder has only been functioning at 11% (a woman my age should be at 75% or better and anything under 35% is considered failing). The official diagnosis is Biliary Dyskinesia, which I have to admit is a pretty cool word to say out loud. The fix is a simply surgery to remove my gallbladder and I’m hearing SO many awesome stories of how much better people have felt after having theirs removed. Needless to say, I’m very excited about it and it will be happening in the upcoming weeks.

So, with all of this excitement going on, I’ve been prioritizing certain things and letting the less-important items sit on my to-do list for longer than I’d prefer. Clients emails and phone calls came first and the blog fell low on my list. However, we are a few days (days!!!) away from unveiling our new site and I’m going to have plenty of amazing eye goodies to look at when it does go live. In the meantime, I’m going to continue resting and eating things like pears and applesauce (fun fact: pears are incredibly good for anyone struggling with a gallbladder. I’ve managed to stay almost drug-free throughout this recent adventure with the help of my heating pad and a boat-load of juiced pears).

All of this excitement within my body has, admittedly, caused me to look more closely at what I’m eating. More importantly, what I’m not eating. I’m not a big veggie eater. I LOVE carbs and could eat a bagel, stuffing sandwich, and pasta all in one day without thinking it was that bad. But, when it comes down to it, I love my body. I need to start fueling it with the right ingredients. I’m not talking about going on a diet, I’m talking about changing my lifestyle and eating habits. Time to start eating less carbs (I could never cut them out completely) and start incorporating more REAL foods. I could say that I’m really excited about this, but in fact, I’m not. It’s not going to be an easy transition and I really like eating junk food. But, at the end of the day, I want to be healthy for as long as possible and ignoring what I’m fueling my body with is just not acceptable.

So who’s with me? Are you up for changing your eating habits with me? Do it for your family, your friends and most importantly, yourself.

{photo: Etsy}