Seriously. If I could go back and UN-do it, I would. I never would have looked. Never would have gone digging. I wouldn’t know now what I now know.
But I can’t un-do it. I can’t un-know it.
And most of all – I can’t un-drink it.
Teeny ordered up a new tea for me. Once we realized the endo had likely come back, she decided to pull out the big guns. I hadn’t boiled down any of my own herbs since right after my last IVF cycle. Realistically, I had only been on the faux-squirrel-poop tea for just over a month. Not nearly long enough to have been able to deduce whether or not it had any real gut-saving properties. After that failed cycle though – I guess the truth is that I didn’t really care enough about anything to want to keep trying.
At that point, I think it’s fair to say that I just wanted to give up.
But I’m not there anymore. I don’t want to give up. I want to keep fighting. Fighting this disease. Fighting the pain. And fighting all the havoc it has wreaked on my insides.
I want to fight, and I want to win.
So when Teeny said she had a new herbal blend she wanted me to try, I was all for it.
Even after she alluded to the fact that some of the ingredients may make me a bit more squeamish than even the squirrel poop had.
I didn’t care. I told her to order up the herbs and just not tell me what was in the mix. I said I would rather not know. That I trusted her and what she thought was best, and she could just keep the gory details to herself.
Why oh why couldn’t I stick to that mentality?
I’ll tell you why. It’s because as soon as the box arrived – I knew this batch smelled far worse than the last. I knew we were dealing with something nasty. And I knew I was in trouble.
Teeny had already told me that she specifically requested the more disturbing elements be placed into tea bags (instead of out in the open like all the other loose herbs) so that I couldn’t see them. Which I think just made me even more inquisitive. Brewing up all the herbs and knowing there were 3 different tea bags in that mix that I couldn’t see at all left me more than a little curious.
And we all know that curiosity killed the cat.
Still, I managed to down 2 glasses of this stuff without knowing. It wasn’t easy. This tea was clearly more pungent than the last batch, and drinking it involved a lot of honey and quick expansive swigs.
But I did it. One glass last night and another this morning. I did it. Without knowing what I was drinking, I did it.
Something hit me after the second glass this morning though. I don’t know what it was. An inability to not know I suppose? An obsessive need to be aware of what I was putting into my body, even though I knew I would immediately regret that knowledge once I had it?
Stupidity?
There. That was probably it actually. Complete and utter stupidity on my part.
I knew I didn’t want to know. I knew it would leave me disgusted and unhappy. I knew it was best to be in the dark here.
But I couldn’t help myself. I was stupid enough to go digging.
So, I grabbed the list of ingredients out of the box. All Chinese names that I would never be able to look at and know what they were on my own. I immediately started plugging each and every one into Google.
Like a freaking idiot.
All of the ingredients were fairly innocuous. Different plants and bulbs. Flowers, seeds, nuts. Nothing to get too concerned about. And all of them seemed to have exciting properties to help with the current situation. A few even specifically mentioned beneficial uses with endometriosis. All in all, I was starting to wonder what it was Teeny had been referring to that would be so scary for me.
And then, I got to the last two ingredients.
Di Long and Wu Gong.
Oh how I wish I had never looked up those two herbs.
From the best that I can tell online, Di Long is the stomach contents of an earthworm. They capture the earthworms, cut them open, and then remove their innards and dry them out in the sun. That’s Di Long. Earthworm guts.
Wu Gong is even better. It’s a centipede. An actual, whole, intact centipede.
No wonder Teeny asked them to put the scary items into tea bags. If I had seen a centipede in my tea as I was making it, I would have freaked.
I do not like bugs.
As it stands, my sheer knowledge of what was in those bags was not enough. At this point, I needed proof. I don’t know why I couldn’t leave well enough alone. Why I couldn’t just move forward with the knowledge and be grateful that at least I didn’t have a visual.
I think it all comes back to that stupidity again.
Because at this point, I went and dug the tea bags out of my trash. I cut them open and emptied their contents onto a paper towel. I just had to know. I had to see it for myself.
And now, I wish I never had.
I’ve got to tell you – this picture does not do what was in those bags justice. I’m not a great photographer, and I have no idea how to capture the real dimensions and coloring and bug-gy qualities. But rest assured – it was quite obviously a bag full of bugs and bug guts.
A bag that I had just the night before seeped in a pot along with a bunch of other herbs. A bag which had eventually helped to create a tea I had now already consumed 2 cups of.
Two cups of insect and insect gut tea.
I could have cried.
Now that I’ve already had 2 glasses though, I almost feel stuck. It’s like Taco Bell. You know it’s awful for you. You know the people making it probably don’t wash their hands. You know the beans aren’t even real beans. But you justify eating it again to yourself because hey – it’s not like you haven’t already eaten it before. What’s the harm in one more time?
(Wait - is that just me?)
After reading about all the other components of this tea, I actually think it could help. I think that maybe if I stuck to a hard core regimen of tea drinking, maybe (just maybe) my ultrasound in August could produce the kind of results I’m hoping for. Maybe this could be the magic potion for fighting this disease.
Since clearly, nothing else has worked.
But still… Centipedes and earthworm guts.
I wish I didn’t know.
I wish I hadn’t done it.
I wish I wasn't so damn stupid.
