Welcome!!

Welcome to Hope For Wellness!!
Finding Strength From Within

Thank you for visiting Hope for Wellness. My intention is to share all that I have learned through my journey of battling chronic illness with you. I lived for over four years of fighting chronic health problems that left me undiagnosed and in living in chronic pain. I invite you to READ and SHARE my story with the hope that one day I will overcome this condition I suffer from and will regain the ability to live my life again. I hope to reach as many people as possible with my story to inspire others to find to discover a healthier and happy lifestyle.

Whether you have a specific goal for yourself, are looking to improve your overall health, well being or another area of your life, or if you are living with chronic illness yourself, I invite you to follow my Hope For Wellness blog. I plan to share any and everything wellness related -- recipes, yoga, pain management and meditation, alignment and body awareness, and much much more! I will also share any progress or updates on my condition.

I strive to assert my suffering in a positive direction to have a positive impact on others' lives, especially those living with chronic illness, chronic pain, or undiagnosed conditions.

Visit the "About Me" page to get to know more about me and be sure to read "My Story" to learn more about the journey I have endured.

The End of My Road at Hopkins

The worst is over now and only good times lie ahead....

The end of my stay at Hopkins came at the end of October 2015. During my last two weeks at Hopkins I got to come home for a weekend, and then for 5 days, to start the transition back home. The program does this to ensure you can maintain your weight on your own. That was not a problem for me! But I was ready to be able to eat a normal amount of food! 

Before I came home from Hopkins, I got to go out to eat with Kenny to an Italian restaurant in Little Italy, eat delicious Italian pastries, go shopping for a day at the Inner Harbor with my Mom, and again with Ashley! It felt wonderful to start doing normal things again! 

Best of all, I got to see my saving grace GI doctor from Hopkins before I came home. My Mom came down with me to see him. He was beyond impressed with my progress in the program. He was thrilled to hear that I was back to a healthy weight any my body was tolerating food again. He even explained that the SVT episodes of my heart were happening as a part of the re-feeding process. He gave me hope from the very first time I saw him and when I thanked him for saving my life he told me, "YOU are the one who did all the hard work, I can't take credit for it." Best of all, he agreed to see me every 3 months for the first year and that he'd still see me even though my insurance wouldn't cover it.  I left that appointment that day feeling like all of my prayers had finally been answered.

I was discharged on 3000 calories. My calories were only lowered to this one week before I was discharged. It's different for everyone, but I STILL was not at the weight they wanted me at after a month of 4000 calories a day. 

 

I followed the 3000 calorie plan as I transitioned home and then my cardiologist and primary doctor watched me gain 4 more lbs the first month I was home, so my calories FINALLY went down to normal,  2000 which is maintenance. There may come a day where if I am dancing 20+ hours a week my body will need 3000 to function, but right now as my body continues to heal, I am on 2000. 

Upon coming home, I was still very fatigued. I didn't push myself to jump back into anything too soon. I had been extremely fatigued through this whole process: being direly underweight, putting back on the weight, and now starting to live life again.  

Although my journey at Hopkins was coming to a close, I knew this was in no way the end of the road. This was the first big step of my recovery, but my body still had a long way to go before I was back to 100%. I made it a point to remind myself of how far I have come and how much I improved in two months through this first step of recovery. I knew it would take time to be able to do all the things I used to do, and wanted to resume, but I reminded myself my body was still healing, so I listened to my body when it told me it was time to nap or rest I did. I didn't push myself past what I felt I could handle, and I knew that was what was best for my body.

The Beginning of Day Hospital

The transition to day hospital was a bumpy start. After 5 weeks of being inpatient and on one level - not going up and down steps, and not being allowed to stand for more than 0.5 seconds, my legs forgot what it felt like to move! My second day in day hospital, we wound up walking down 4 flights of stairs to go to the cafeteria because the elevator wasn't working. At the time it didn't feel bad, but the next morning and the day after...my body was not happy with me.

I remember at one point one of my peers and I went to stand up and as she say "ahhh my back" I simultaneously said "ahh my hamstring, it feels like there's a charlie horse." We looked at each other and said, "we sound like an old couple, what are they doing to us here!?!" Hahahaha.

I went to day hospital on 4000 calories (still!). The team told me I was close to my goal weight but still had weight to gain. They told me they wouldn't send me if I wasn't close. I soon learned, from my peers, that "close" can mean anything from pounds away to a few ounces away, but you will never know because they will not tell you until you are in the middle of your goal weight range, and then they will still never tell you your weight.

My second day in day hospital was probably one of the roughest encounters I faced in this program. For the first 3 days of day hospital you are on the unit until 8 p.m. The hardest part of the transition was instead of drinking ensure drinks, in day hospital you can no longer have ensures and have to replace them with a 350 calorie dessert. So going from 8 oz of liquid that equals 350 calories, to having an extra 350 calories of solid food was A LOT of extra volume of food. I had dinner on the unit the second night and about half way through the meal felt like I hit my wall. I was already nauseas and beyond full. I pushed through the rest of the meal and finished all the food because I knew that's what the answer would be. If you called over your nurse and said, "I don't feel well and I'm way too full," all they would tell you is "keep eating, you have to finish." If they let patients stop and not eat just because you "didn't feel well" no one would ever get over the disorder. I barely got the ensure all the way down and felt SO SICK. It felt like I had eaten ten times what my body and stomach could handle. 

Afterwards, I laid down and the nausea set in full force. I talked to my nurse and she told me just take deeps breaths, stretch your arms up to stretch your stomach...I tried all that and listened to her talk me through holding back from vomiting. I kept fighting it, as hard as I could because I knew how forbidden vomiting was in this program. I tried not think about the fact that I had to eat another 500 calories AN HOUR LATER.  But after almost an hour of pale, sweating, nausea, and shaking. I could feel my heart racing, and just couldn't fight it. It wasn't staying in me any longer. I got up and ran to the trash can and made sure I was in plain view of all the nurses and staff on the floor so they saw I wasn't purging on purpose. Ashley was on the phone and all I remember hearing her say was, "Katie's sick, bye!" and she ran by my side. I felt my heart racing afterwards and then the fear sunk in immediately: this is my second day in day hospital and they're going to think that I can't handle this! Ashley sat with me and calmed me down. The rest of my peers commended me. At first I was like, what are you proud of me for? Then they told me it was amazing seeing how I wasn't complaining at all through the meal, or afterwards and that it was a good thing I did get sick because I showed the staff first hand that it was too much food, I wasn't just making an excuse not to eat. I figured it would set me back a lot but Kenny convinced me that it probably didn't make a huge significant impact in my weight.

I feared what the consequences would be, would I get readmitted back inpatient? Would they make me eat another entire meal? Would I be punished and placed on restriction in day hospital? My one peer told me, "you have done every single thing they have asked of you and I bet nothing bad will come of it, it was not your fault." I reminded myself that as the night went on -- I did all I could, and my body just could not handle that volume of food. I was pretty nauseas the next morning and feared what consequences I would face walking into rounds to see the doctors or would it happen again. I asked to be the first to go into rounds to meet with the doctors (I wanted to get it over with!!) To my surprise, when I went in my doctor said to me, "I heard you had a rough night last night." I explained what happened and told them I've never vomited since I was here and it was solely from the volume of food. Their first response was, "well maybe it wasn't the food, maybe it was stomach bug." I said, "umm no! it definitely wasn't a stomach virus, it was too much food." They told me my calories aren't changing and I still have weight to gain so just try to condense foods as much as possible. So I wasn't penalized as much as I thought I would be.

That night after it happened, I didn't want to talk about it and dwell on it. I didn't even want to call Kenny or tell my Mom. I turned my focus inward on me and set everything around me aside. I talked to my Mom the next morning and she reminded me "there's a reason your body throws up, it's your body telling you it can't handle that much food!" I continued to reassure myself, I DID NOTHING WRONG. I choked down all the food and in the end my body couldn't handle it.

My biggest goal for day hospital was to get down to maintenance calories and get used to what a NORMAL AMOUNT of food is. They continuously told me that being on such high calories is only short term it won't last forever.