Daddy’s Girl: Nursing my dad back to health

Hi, everyone. I am attempting to do for my dad what he has done for me, nurse me to life. My dad is 55 and his health is spiruling out of control. It used to be a secret. He would drive himself in the middle of the night at 4am to the ER then come back the next day like nothing happened until the bill got mailed to the house and we all looked around like, "What -- did someone in the house get shot at some point??"

Sometimes we would get tipped off by an aunt-in-the-know hours before a surgery and we would have to assemble in 45 minutes from where ever we were to see what exactly was going on. Once he even had a mild stroke and did not even know himself! He called my younger brother when he couldn't find his car and for awhile my mom assumed he might have just gotten drunk out of nowhere at 2pm on a weekday.

When love hurts ourselves

It sounds like my family is disconnected and negligant when really we all live together in the same house and deeply care for each other. And that precisely is the problem. We are so worried about being a burden that we don't share with each other the serious, which often equate to expensive, problems in our health.

I was guilty of that 2 years ago when I found out I was diagnosed with stage 2 cervical dysplasia, which was progressing in the span of months (rather than the "very slow" 10 years my doctor predicted). I didn't want to stress my parents out (at the time my grandma was in and out of the hopsital on a weekly basis and I could tell my dad already couldn't handle that. No sense bringing in more stress when I could handle this on my own, I thought). But after I felt the fear and anxiety that came from getting biopsie done alone and having to calm myself down between test results that I realized how hard it is to deal with medical issues alone, especially when they are life threatening.

What's wrong with my dad

Since my grandma passed (I fully believe her death could have been prevented with lifestyle changes) I talked openly and candidily with my dad about all his health problems and he has many: past stroke, heart surgery, high-blood pressure, IBS, diabetes, weak eye (result of stroke), and respitory problems. It sounds like a joke, but it is not; his health is worse than his father's who is heading towards 80.

2 Years of Research: I think I can bring my dad back to health

I say all this because I have spent 2 years researching natural healing and food as medicine (I am set to complete my MBA in food and wine in 8 weeks) and I am ready to completely transform my dad's health in a holistic way. For the last 2 years, since my cancer scare, I have been my own human guinea pig. Researching, testing, and applying methods I have learned from other professionals and experimenters I have greatly improved my health. As I write this, I am currently recovering from a systematic bacterial overgrowth that I've had for years and getting started on taking care of my adrenal fatigue.

What is the funding for?

Experimenting on myself has given me a good idea on the monthly budget for changing a lifestyle and acquiring the supplements and treatments needed. The $2000 posted is probably a conservative number considering the amount of months that will be needed to get him to a full recovery, but I want people to see what can happen with just $2000 and check back on us as a way to motivate yourselves of the people you love to feel empowered to do the same. I was fortunate enough to fund my own recovery with a mix of personal savings and parts of my student loan that I set aside after I found out I was awarded a scholarship; unfortunately, I do not having that kind of money laying around now that I have to tackle my dad's health.

I hope if you take anything away from this it is that what I am I trying to do is be proactive in saving my dad's life. This is not a fund to get him 6-pack abs or a faster mile time. This is a fund to help nurse his body, immune system, heart, liver, lungs, and kidnies back to health so that we aren't holding our breath for the next 3 am medical emergency to fall on him.

Thank you and I appreciate your support!