July 4, 2011 - I declare independence from my hyperimmunity!

Today is a great today. I was inoculated with twenty-five hookworms two weeks ago today and for the last five days in a row, I have been feeling totally fantastic!

This might not sound like a big deal but I have not had three days in a row of feeling terrific for decades. The only time I've felt what I used to think of as "normal" was when I was starting a course of prednisone and I'd catch one day of feeling really well on Day 1/2. To feel this good for five days in a row is just unprecedented. I haven't felt this well since around my twelfth birthday, which was when my allergies really kicked in. It's been a long litany of allergies, sinus infections, asthma and migraine headaches.

It's also remarkable because the last few weeks before we took our trip, I was so exhausted that I could barely function. I felt like getting to San Diego was the finish line of a race that I'd been running for decades. No amount of sleep made it any better.

It's really hard to know exactly what mechanism is in play, since I couldn't actually get any physician to figure out what was wrong with me. I suspect that my adrenal glands are finally getting a break as well as my general hyperimmunity that was attacking many different systems in my body. The degree of swelling all over my body but particularly in my face, wrists and ankles is markedly less. My husband says my body feels much less spongy. My allergic shiners are no longer bright purple.

My daughter is doing very well too. Most remarkably, she's having a hiatus from her constant generalized anxiety. We're not doing anything with increasing her food repertoire yet, but she's asked me if getting drowsy around 8:30 p.m. is how "normal" people feel. I'm very hopeful that she's going to be eating more real food in a couple of months.