Gr8 said...
A group of frogs were traveling through the woods, and two of them fell into a deep pit. All the other frogs gathered around the pit.
When they saw how deep the pit was, they told the two frogs that they were as good as dead. The two frogs ignored the comments and tried to jump up out of the pit with all of their might. The other frogs kept telling them to stop, that they were as good as dead. Finally, one of the frogs took heed to what the other frogs were saying and gave up. He fell down and died.
The other frog continued to jump as hard as he could. Once again, the crowd of frogs yelled at him to stop the pain and just die. He jumped even harder and finally made it out.
When he got out, the other frogs said, "Did you not hear us?"
The frog explained to them that he was deaf. He thought they were encouraging him the entire time.
Profoundly inspiring. If you're a frog.
Seriously, if you think I'd yell at somebody who'd fallen down a hole to just give up and die, you must take me for a complete psychopath. I'd obviously try to rescue them or, if I couldn't do it, call a service which could - unless they were a frog of course.
Gr8 said...
Anyone can speak words that tend to rob another of the spirit to continue in difficult times.
What you define as "robbing the spirit" in this instance I define as "wanting to deny reality". I'm not trying to discourage you from following your dreams or doing whatever it is you most want to do. Crohn's doesn't make you an invalid. I'm watching The Last Kingdom at the moment; King Alfred might have had Crohn's. He had some debilitating digestive disorder at any rate, but that didn't stop him from going out and fighting battles and all sorts.
However, I'm not King Alfred and I'm more constrained by my disease than he was by his. That's my reality. I actually was in denial for quite a few years, assuming things were better than they actually were. If believing I was all right meant I really was all right, I should have been golden. But I had a real physical disease which apparently was genetically programmed to become severe. Nobody told me that, by the way, so I wasn't fufilling other people's expectations either.
The thing with Crohn's is, it can do serious damage to your intestines - like I said, it's a real disease with real consequences. If you don't want to take any meds, I respect that, but please don't just assume you're "healing" yourself without any evidence. Get regular checkups every year, make sure you are in remission.
@Martin - I've spent so long replying to Gr8, I've almost run out of time for you, Martin m8.
I reluctantly looked up David Klein, 'cos I'm really not interested in him at all. I see he's a vegan. Great, so he's recommending a vegan diet. Well, that will probably help a few with Crohn's, probably because I imagine it also cuts out dairy, most grains and sugar. Severely restrictive diets do help with Crohn's (less so with UC); the concept of gut rest has been known about
for decades. A super strict diet is just another form of gut rest. If you haven't already, look up Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall.
The thing is, none of these diets are
cures. They don't tackle the underlying causes of Crohn's or UC any more than meds do. If they really were cures, then people should be able to come off them and live UC/Crohn's-free for the rest of their life - I've never heard of that happening.