My Journey
Healing Body Mind and Soul
THE WAKE UP CALL
In 2017, I went to the dermatologist for a small rash on the side of my nose. Thinking I'd be prescribed an ointment and sent on my way, it didn't go that way at all. Instead, there was a biopsy, a week long wait and the results of something called Sarcoidosis. Absolutely terrifying because I've never heard of this word before and it took me awhile to even be able to pronounce it! He tells me it's an autoimmune disease and it's incurable. Believe me, that word, incurable, stuck with me. I'm then instructed to see a specialist to verify what he believes is going on.
I make the appointment and see the specialist. I'm in the hospital all day getting breathing tests, blood work, CTI Scans and MRI's. They all determine that I indeed have this incurable disease, Sarcoidosis. It's an autoimmune disease, like all the others. You might be more familiar with Psoriasis, IBD, Grave's, Hashimoto's or Celiac disease. They're all very similar. Some are more extreme than others. My doctor told me to go home and come back in 6 months to see how I was then. Feeling a little disappointed and abandoned, I went home.
I went online and found some Sarcoidosis support groups to join. That was very discouraging and I eventually left the groups. Everyone was very dedicated to what their doctors instructed. Mainly a lot of steroids to suppress the symptoms. I've always believed in getting to the root problem to heal. It was so sad to read every day about another person dying from this disease. It just doesn't get the attention it should though. It attacks our organs so if it goes after someone's heart it gets labeled as heart disease. Someone's lungs... it was breathing complications, etc. My doctor told me that this (incurable) disease might go away on it's own. I can only shake my head and sigh at that statement. Before I left the group though I read a post from a woman so excited because she found a way to heal through food and meditation. She was absolutely ridiculed in the comments. I wish I could find that post and let her know that she saved my life! I believed her and I looked further into it, later.
About a month after my doctor appointment, everything got worse...
EXTREME fatigue
EXTREME body ache
EXTREME brain fog
EXTREME weakness
Joint pain
Weight gain (60 pounds)
Hair loss
Painful heartburn
Indigestion - constant tummy growling
Heart palpitations
Constipation
Solid white bowel movements
Inability to speak properly
Erratic menstruation (months with nothing then heavy flows)
Swollen feet in the morning/painful to walk
Worsened vision
Skin rashes
Patches of dry skin
Dandruff
Ingrown hairs every time I shave
I was 100% a burden on my family, although they didn't mind and went above and beyond to help me. I am so blessed to have them. None the less, I was incapable of doing any tasks in the house at all. Still, I want to be helpful, not helpless.
I could still sit up and use my laptop though, so I did. Yep, I turned to blogs and books to find answers. Someone must know the root cause of this. The single most helpful sentence I read...
“All autoimmune diseases develop from Leaky Gut.”
This isn't the root cause though because that has it's own root cause. (more on that soon) But that key component set the ball rolling. I had something to work with now and from there it rippled out to an incredible healing journey. I decided to focus more on healing my gut and less on the autoimmune disease.
Let's take a minute to discuss Leaky Gut connection to Autoimmune Disease. There are good and bad bacteria in our guts. The bad bacteria can destroy the good bacteria and penetrate through the lining of the gut, creating holes and leaking the bacteria into your body. This wreaks havoc on the whole system and we can no longer properly digest our food. Our immune system is located in our gut and this leaking is what triggers the autoimmune system to react. A major cause of this Leaky Gut is stress but also poor food choices and environmental toxins.
Okay, so what now? What can I do with this information? Remember, there wasn't too much to go on back then. Healing naturally with foods isn't largely supported this day in age. But I had faith and was desperate enough to try some things that maybe the majority lacked faith in.
Out of the blue a friend of mine said that when she worked at the health food store she learned about colloidal silver and it always made her feel better when she was sick. She told me it's an anti-bacterial, anti-viral and anti-fungal. She explained that it's an antibiotic that we don't build up a resistance to. I still thought no way could that help me, this is an autoimmune disease. I didn't yet, fully understand what Leaky Gut was. But remember, I said I was feeling desperate, so I went for it. Not everyone is ready for this and I understand. There is controversy around it. I also don't think it's necessary for everyone but my gut was drastically overrun with the bad bacteria. So, I took it like a standard antibiotic. 1 tablespoon, 2 times a day for 10 days. I started this the same day I began to fast. After the 10 days I started taking Garden of Life with HSO's Probiotics for a month. I followed the instructions on the bottle. Now I take them a couple times a month as maintenance.
I studied how to naturally heal Leaky Gut. The best way to jump start this is by fasting, specifically a bone broth fast. At the time you couldn't go to the grocery and find this. Fortunately, I have a friend who raises her own chickens and I asked her to make some for me. I really wanted to know it was legit. She made a big batch for me and I began to sip on the broth while fasting. I did this for 3 days and I was experiencing a strange combination of having more energy while feeling weaker. I stuck with it though. After the third day I was hungry! Really hungry. I read to take it easy on my digestion so for the next week I ate nothing but steamed vegetables. They were the greatest thing I have ever tasted! After 3 days of bone broth, I was in heaven! I began immediately to feel some strength return and I was able to drive myself to the grocery store for more vegetables! That might not sound like a big deal but it had been weeks since I was able to get out of bed and it felt like a miracle! I stuck with it and ate nothing but steamed vegetables for a couple weeks.
During this time I discovered the Autoimmune Protocol, AIP for short. I found lists of all the foods I could and couldn't eat to reduce inflammation. I followed that list faithfully. I also learned of some wonderful gut healing supplements. You can find a pdf of these lists by clicking here. It was over a year before I had a raw vegetable. My gut really struggled to digest them. Everything had to be cooked soft.
Months had passed and I could tell I was doing a lot of healing but my body was telling me there was still more to do. Remembering that stress and toxins are also causing my Leaky Gut. This began my journey of healing not only my body, but also my mind and soul.
BODY
As
I said above, I began healing my gut. I followed the AIP diet without
cheating. When
I was finally
up and out of bed, I felt HOPE! That's a powerful emotion right
there. That can be the catalyst to take you far. The other is stubborn determination. Asking for help was
not one of the things I ever felt comfortable with but hey, I was
trying new things, right? So, I asked my family to support me with
this strict diet. After seeing my big turn around in just a few days
they were on board! 100%. My daughter, 28 at the time and my
granddaughter 8, saw great results in their health and mood too. I
asked them for a week and they are still to this day embracing our
dietary changes. My granddaughters eczema cleared up in the first
week. She was overjoyed! She asked me, ”Why haven't we always been
eating like this?” Why, indeed. We've discovered so many new
foods and flavors to enjoy.
Once you fully commit to it, it's not as hard as you would think. At first it felt like a diet of lack but once we embraced it, we discovered that wasn't true at all. A whole new world of foods and flavors opened up to us once we stepped outside of our comfort zone. Outside of what I've read is the SAD diet... the Standard American Diet.
MIND
After about a year of the diet, I seemed to have plateaued. Not nearly as sick but not exactly healthy either. So began phase 2 of my journey. I had read a lot about the emotional side of health, disease and healing. I remember my parents saying, “You'll give me an ulcer if you keep that up.” There's truth in that. There is a connection to stress and our gut. It always comes back to the gut. I began to look at my spiritual beliefs, my relationships and just what exactly was I doing with my life anyway? I began to invest in myself. I took all kinds of online courses to better understand myself and to learn how to navigate in this world. I began to look at things differently. Expand my mind. I was so lost, I had no direction at all. I always thought I knew what was best for myself and that no one else could possibly understand what I was going through. I was so wrong. I'm not alone. I can ask for help. There were others out there who understood what I was going through and believed me.
I
rearranged all of my priorities and started saying no to people. I set boundaries. I
learned how to discover what I wanted and began to put my needs
first. It was about 6 months into this and I saw great results in my health. I could eat raw vegetables
again! I NEVER thought I would be so happy to eat a salad. They are
still one of my favorite things to eat now. I was seeing results! I
was finally losing the last half of the weight I had put on. My
stamina was increasing. I was able to start slowly building up my
lost muscle by doing things like gardening and I even did some low
impact activities like roller skating. I could go on walks again.
Life was feeling pretty awesome.
SOUL
I realized that to align my soul, it's important to me to be of service to the world. With the encouragement of family and friends, I enrolled in the Institute of Integrative Nutrition to be a Health and Wellness Coach. I took that leap of faith and I'm so glad I did.
This new life direction felt so right, it aligned with the side of me I kept hidden from everyone. The girl that was always in the self help section, soaking up all she could about how to be the best me I could be. Learning all about Buddhism, Meditation, Chakras, Psychology, Healing Emotional Traumas, Archetypes, Personalities, Affirmations, Mantras, Psychics, Tarot, Shadow Work, Crystals, Shaman Healing Practices, Decalcifying the Pineal Gland, Fluoride in our Water, Toxins in Everything, Holistic Healthcare, QiGong, Yoga, Quantum Physics, Science, DNA, Past Lives, Ancestral Wounds... it's no surprise I finally ended up here. I've belonged here all along.
This all brought me to the present day of my Whole Body Healing approach.
TOXICITY
In order to move forward I had to leave all of my toxic life behind:
The Toxic Relationships, Self Destructive Habits and Limiting Beliefs.
The Toxins in the Foods I Consume and the Products I Use.
It's a lifetime promise and commitment to love yourself and put yourself first.
It's the letting go and releasing of a way of being that no longer serves your higher purpose.
It's faith and trust in your abilities, your strength and your character to pull you through.
It's a total surrender.
Environmental toxic exposure. This reminded me of the summer of 2009 when I was exposed to black mold at a friends apartment I was always at. During that time my fatigue was awful and my menstruation cycle was seven days long, every two weeks.
Toxins in our foods. I spent the summer of 2016, a year before I was diagnosed, drinking a lot of red sugary fruit punch drinks. I started to become paranoid and filled with anxiety. I remember my body felt like every molecule inside was rapidly vibrating in opposite directions. I began to withdraw and hung blankets over all of the windows. I recalled reading an article in my 20's about the effects that Red Dye #40 has on the brain and mood. I read that it's a bi-product of coal and petroleum. I immediately stopped drinking it and within a week all of that anxiety was gone. I took the blankets down and went outside again.
UNEXPEXTED SILVER LININGS
Things began to heal that I never associated to my disease. I had chronic neck and back pain since childhood, that's completely gone now. My hormones balanced out and those strange hairs growing in new places are gone now. If you know, you know. My insomnia is gone. I'm less stressed and much more calm now. Even my period came back until I went into menopause.. when I was actually supposed to this time. I don't have nightmares anymore! That one was the caffeine.
When I was sick, my exhaustion was so strong that not only was I physically weak, I was also emotionally weak. Things that used to bother me, get a rise out of me, irritate me and cause me to speak up and get argumentative, now required too much energy. Energy I no longer had. I was not physically or emotionally strong enough to even feel the frustration or annoyance. It taught me a great lesson that I don't have to act on these feelings. They will pass and everything still works out in the end. I gave up control. I surrendered.
I learned that I'm a Highly Sensitive Person and I no longer see these qualities as weak or less than. I am whole. I love myself. I find joy in the little things. I appreciate the good, the bad and the ugly. I am thankful for everything this disease has taught me. I am learning to live in the flow.
An Old Chinese Proverb
A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Love and Health,
Ren
Still healing in amazing ways.
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