From Sickness to Health: New Diet and The Drug Dealer

This post is part of a series of blog posts about my mom’s journey from sickness to health. My mom is a 78-year-old woman who was sick and whose doctors could not help her. Everyone was just waiting for her to die. She came over for a visit in Australia for 5 weeks and healed. The posts I share here are the ways we helped her. I hope they will encourage you to never give up, so read the whole series.

It was the third week of my mom’s journey from sickness to health. This time, when I suggested we go to see “John the Wizard” again, my mom was very happy. John was extremely impressed by her choice to stop taking Lyrica “cold turkey”. He said to me in English, which she didn’t understand, it takes months to get people off this medication and the withdrawal symptoms are horrible.

My mom did it in one day!

On her second appointment, John demonstrated to her the huge improvements in her mobility. She could move parts of her body she could not move the previous week. He checked her shoulder and said that the ligament had moved back to the incorrect position, so he moved it again. That time, my mom was able to lift her arms even higher. John said the place was inflamed and talked about getting rid of the inflammation with organic bone broth.

The swelling on her feet was totally gone. I wasn’t sure if she walked straighter or I just imagined it. John showed me that her back was stronger and her legs were balanced (there was a 2-centimeter difference between them in the first session).

My mom told John that her legs had been swollen for 40 years and the doctors never found out what it was. John told her there was nothing to find. He said that our bones are not meant to carry too much extra weight, so it is hard on the back to be overweight. She told him she was overweight since my brother, who is now 57 years old, was born. He made it sound natural and not a big deal.

John suggested changing her diet. He talked about vitamins, which my mom was totally against. It was weird that she had total trust in prescribed medication but zero trust in vitamins and supplements. After John’s suggestion, she was willing to take some supplements.

The fat, fat diet!

My mom was addicted to carbohydrates. She had to check her blood sugar level every day and I don’t know who she went to see, but her blood sugar was managed by tablets. No one, except my older sister and me, had ever told her that she needed to eat differently. She kept saying she wasn’t eating much and wasn’t using too much sugar, but she was addicted to carbs and sugar.

My older sister suggested a low-carb diet a long time ago. My mom, who for years had high cholesterol without any improvement, was totally afraid of eating proteins and fats. She was convinced that fat and proteins would make her fat and sick. She ate eggs, cream, cheese, meat with fat, chicken skin and butter with fear.

Since both my sister and I had very good experience with the Ketogenic (Keto) Diet. While she was with us, we encouraged her to eat plenty of proteins and healthy fats. The Keto diet is a health regimen that limits carbohydrate intake (20 grams a day), and combines medium amounts of protein with a high dose of fat. And when I say “high dose”, I mean really high!

My mom had eaten about 500 grams of carbs a day (on good days) and sometimes even more. Since she was in so much pain, I could totally understand how extra carbs and sugar comforted her.

We didn’t think she could switch to a full Keto diet, because it requires a big change of mindset and she was still in a lot of pain. So, the idea was that the more protein and fat we ate as a family, the less carbs she would eat. We found out she loves lamb, so we stocked the fridge with lamb and encouraged her to eat butter and eggs and kept telling her she would be fine.

[In case you are wondering about eating fat, I ate fatty meat, cream, butter, fatty cheese, coconut cream and nuts for several months and lost 15kg. Go search about Keto. It worked for me! It’s the easiest diet ever, because you are never hungry.]

During the second session with John, he talked about a change of diet and he suggested my mom eat more good fats and good proteins. She was surprised when he said that, but afterwards, she ate butter freely.

By the end of the second session with John, my mom’s blind trust in doctors broke completely. On the way home, she said, “And to think that the doctors said the ligament was torn and only surgery could fix it. It’s an outrages”.

On the way out from john’s place, we saw a very old man walking with a cane and his back was bent so much that his face almost reached his belly button. My mom looked at him and said, “I think John the Wizard could straighten this old man”.

I felt over the moon. It was a mixture of joy and frustration. I wanted to cry. The drive home from John’s place was only 5 minutes. My mom trusted john so much that when we came home she agreed to reduce the dosage of the Fenta patches as well.

Every drug addict has a dealer

At that point, when I saw my dad putting the patch on the back of her shoulder, I realized that my mom was a drug addict and since she could not think properly, my dad had to administer all her medication. She was so confused that he had to put the medication in special containers (some of them 6 a day), so that she could just open and take one at the right time. She didn’t even know what she was taking.

At that stage, I realized that my dad was key in this process. My mom was the drug addict, but my dad was her drug dealer.

I had some chats with him when we were alone. He said she was in pain all the time. She was not friendly at all and refused to walk even 5 minutes from the car to the theatre to see a show. He volunteered in 3 different places and she was upset with him for leaving her on her own, while she refused to go on any of the outings he suggested.

When my mom wanted something to happen her way, she pulled the miserable card, and my dad complied.

In the next post, you will find out more about the dynamic between my mom, the drug addict, and my dad, the drug dealer.

See you next week,
Ronit