Like most of my attempts at journaling, my endeavor to create a blog a few years ago was short lived. I know now that I did not have my why. At that time in my life I was floating. My childhood, teens and college years are something I will write about another time. I was in my late 30s, single again, nearly 10 years into a career that took me to Indianapolis IN from my hometown in Kansas City. I was l looking for love, inspiration and joy in so many places. I found it on occasion, albeit temporary. The only place I had not been looking was the one place these things are all infinite and abundant, inside of me. I was a few years out from a period of terrible decision making, and I pretended that i was past it all and that nothing bothered me. A horrible, horrible lie. So I floated, and created a life for myself that didn't make any sense when I looked in the mirror. I displayed a well-put-together exterior, all the while I was screaming for an escape on the inside. I lived in a big house (too big) in Carmel, IN, bought the best wine, ate dinner at fancy restaurants, went to social gatherings, made plans with friends 4 or 5 nights a week, went to sing karaoke, drank too much, dated men, shopped excessively. Overall it looked like I had a pretty great life. I justified that I had earned it all, even though none of it gave me any satisfaction. Only heres the thing, I wasn't able to fall asleep at night. My hair was thinning. I developed an intermittent moderately severe tremor on my right side. I experienced muscle weakness. I started losing my balance. Fatigue started to overtake me. I developed food allergies. My weight fluctuated. I had many physical symptoms of anxiety even though people would describe me as "calm and happy". All I was doing was drifting further and further away from the person inside who was dying for better health, simplicity, connection, truth. All the while, I never stopped pushing. I gave my job 60 hours a week at least, and I didn't slow down until I had no choice. I knew something was wrong.
I started going to doctors. First a Western Medicine general practitioner told me that I had generalized anxiety disorder which was causing my tremor, and that my hair loss, weight issues and fatigue were "normal" for a woman over 35. I called bullshit. She wanted to give me Xanax at high doses and told me to diet and exercise. I walked out of her office feeling extremely pissed. I went to another doctor who suggested it might be my thyroid. He did tests and they came back normal as well. Various doctors tried throwing pills and plans at me, to no avail. I was feeling worse and worse. I remember trying to figure out when all of this started, and it was after my broken engagement. I was lost emotionally and it was during a period of time when I was involved with a man I should not have been involved with. I remembered clearly an afternoon in 2009. I was sitting in a hotel room in Chicago. I was on the bed working on my laptop when I noticed my right big toe moving rhythmically back and forth. Said man was with me and I called him over to witness the weirdness. I could intentionally stop the movement, but when I would concentrate on something else, the toe would pick up the movement again. We laughed about it, and then got changed and went to dinner. Over the next few months and years, that toe tremor moved to my foot, my leg and sometimes my hand. All involuntary and exacerbated by stress, ANY emotion, or concentration or focus on a task. I must mention that by 2012, the inappropriate relationship with this man ended very dramatically, Thank GOD (maybe a topic for another post). Also, my mother became very ill and moved from her apartment into my home, and I began to care for her, which brought up feelings of resentment, guilt, obligation, compassion, despair- you name it, I felt it- on the inside. Only a select few people got to see the authentic me, broken and stressed to the max. To the rest of the world, I was the superhero. I cooked for her, bathed her, took her to doctors appointments, picked up prescriptions.....without letting up on any of the activities and work I mentioned above. As she continued to decline, my stress level skyrocketed and my physical health tanked even further. I began to lose my balance and struggled with fine motor skills like buttoning buttons and zipping zippers. By the end of each day, my motor function had declined by over 50%, and was only improved by sleep.
Because my mom and my job were my primary focus, I continued to brush off and ignore my symptoms for the most part. I didn't ever entertain the idea that it was all connected, and possibly partially rooted in emotion. During this time I became friends with a girl who had been dealing with her own frustration with western medicine. She had autoimmune issues, food allergies, etc. She referred me to a place called the Chiropractic Neurology Center- a functional neurology office that focused on metabolic testing as a means to get to root cause, utilizing physical therapy, supplementation and chiropractic care as holistic, non prescription treatments for a wide variety of ailments.
Turned out I was (am) highly allergic to wheat and gluten, casein, eggs and peanuts. So, thus began my continuing interest in utilizing food as medicine. I did the elimination diet and felt fantastic. My tremor never really went away but was improved. My energy skyrocketed. I then shifted from a western medicine general practitioner to a functional medicine doctor who has a degree in molecular biology and is keenly interested in root cause. She found and treated the issue with my thyroid and has been by my side through the journey I have been on the past 4-5 years.
Health-wise, I have been inconsistent at best. The new docs determined that I definitely had autoimmune disease. I started researching and reading and QUICKLY got overwhelmed. I was spinning and only occasionally could I stop myself long enough to re-focus. Work became more challenging due to some team reassignments. My personal life had absolutely no direction, and the cycle of stress, overwhelm, detachment and poor health was in full effect. I was going to church and not really feeling my faith, I had friends and still felt lonely. I had a friend step up and challenge me that some of what I was dealing with was emotional and that I could focus on distressing if I would dig into that, so after a period of resistance, I did. I will be forever grateful for the fact that he could see what I needed when I could not. One outcome was moving mom into her own place-- a first floor apartment. She couldn't negotiate my two story house anymore and I had resorted to not even cooking or spending much time at home because every smell or noise bothered her. I wanted to put her into assisted living but she would not have it. She was angry, scared, sick and resentful. Our relationship had become mechanical. I visited once or twice a week, made her some bulk meals, cleaned her apartment, and exchanged pleasantries. I felt better emotionally, but my physical symptoms persisted, and I continued to ignore them and escape in "busy".
Eight months later, when I was about to meet that same friend for dinner, I got a call from her. All she could say was "Help!" I quickly called my friend and told him to meet me at her place and I raced over there.
When I got in, she was GRAY and gasping for air. I asked if she wanted an ambulance (she has a DNR) and she said no. My friend overrode her decision and he called anyway. Her lung had collapsed. Since I didn't know where the DNR paperwork was, the hospital did all they could to save her life. They inserted a chest tube and after about 3 hours she was admitted into the ICU.
At that point, May 28, 2015 my life changed. Everything I was doing was put on hold and I was on autopilot. As an only child, I was responsible and all I wanted was to help her and be there with her. Work was a distant memory. I basically disappeared (took FMLA). I withdrew from church and friends and any social activity I was previously involved in. This event took up 100% of me.
She had complications from the chest tube, and I was preparing to say goodbye. I was practical, pragmatic, non emotional. I slept in the hospital, and sat by her side. She got better. We talked. We had some of the best conversations we have ever had in our lives. Something I never thought possible to due to our difficulties when I was growing up. She got out of ICU after 17 days and shortly after had a heart attack which landed her back in ICU. I prepared to say goodbye again, but she pulled through. When we all decided that a heart cath wasn't possible, she was moved again to the regular hospital floor. Her lung collapsed a second time and that time even she said she was ready to go. But, after the doc came into see her, she changed her mind and got another chest tube. Back to ICU again. After nearly two months in the hospital and the physical therapy rehab center, she was told no more living alone. I moved her into an assisted living. She was placed under hospice care due to the severity of her condition. She was now being taken care of. I could go back to being her daughter. I could exhale- or wait, could I? I was afraid to sleep, to get THE phone call.
ALL of my symptoms came back with a vengeance. So i decided to take steps to de-stress. I sold my big house and moved to a smaller one. I continued my nutrition journey. Only, I wasn't really getting better. Now I was having almost a daily tremor, daily loss of function and the tremor had migrated into my left jaw. Fatigue and stress were overwhelming. I started getting acupuncture and massage. The chinese medicine doctor says my energy is out of balance.
Finally I saw another neurologist in June of this year, and was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson's Disease. I have all of the symptoms. It is a tough diagnosis to swallow and I am not sure I even still understand how it is making me feel. I just know I am on fire, and I now have my why. Why are there so many young people being diagnosed with autoimmune disorders these days? Why are disorders like Crohn's Disease, Diabetes, Parkinson's, MS, and Alzheimers so prevalent and popping up in people with no family history. Some of my thoughts are: Our food is toxic. Our environment is toxic. We are overachievers, always going. We don't care for ourselves. We are out of balance with universal energy and vibration. We don't clear emotional blockages. We self medicate. We accept illness as the status quo. Well, not me. Not anymore. I am fighting back. There is something to this food, energy, emotional rebalancing and I am going to find out what it is. We are energetic, emotional beings and we were meant to be connected to the earth and each other vibrationally. Our bodies are literally miracles...wonders of nature. My degree in molecular biology dictates that I don't deny that the inner workings of a cell are more complex, profound and powerful than any pharmaceutical created in a lab. I believe in the healing power of my own body. I intend to journal on the process and my experience of self healing, which is why I have re-started my blog. Thanks for reading!
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