I think back to when I was going to see my Rheumatologist three years ago. I was on the strongest RA meds available on the market. I had been going to different Rheumatologists for over six years at that point. I had run the gauntlet of meds and surgeries. I had been to orthopedic specialists and had all the injections. I was on pain meds, and anything else that could help me with my pain. I was lucky enough to finally be able to find a great doctor to do my back surgery (best decision of my life), most of the doctors would not do it because I was so young. I am forever grateful to Dr. Paulster for hearing me, and seeing that I was in need of this surgery for my quality of life. But the things I was doing to “feel better” were not working. I was just getting up in the morning and praying for night to hurry up and get there so I could go back to sleep. Wasting each day just praying for it to end.
"Magic happens when you do not give up, even though you want to. The Universe always falls in love with a stubborn heart" - JM Storm
There I was, sitting in her office. Leo was about to deploy and I was sick and tired of taking all these meds. I was feeling really shitty guys. I imagine, those meds have played a part in my joints still being so healthy now, but they were killing me at that point. My spirit, my soul, and my love of life…..I was not in a good place. I asked her to take me off of the meds, she and Leo both said that it was a bad idea. They felt I needed the drugs and to make the choice to come off of them was reckless to my health. I listened, I kept taking them…..and then the hallway incident happened and I knew it was pivotal to my journey ahead, to detox my body from all these prescriptions. I needed to have a clean system and I needed to connect fully to my mind and body…I could not do it while being so highly medicated. I needed to fully experience what my body was feeling so I could fully understand my opponent. If you want to play the game right (whatever game it is) it will serve you well to know your opponent.
Let me be very clear before I move on with this blog, I made this choice for myself. I did it because I felt my quality of life was not matching the sacrifice of the side effects. I love modern medicine and believe it has added quality of life for many people, it was just not doing that for me. I do believe people need to make this judgement for their selves. I am not here on this blog to say that the way I did it is the “right” way, I am just saying it was the right thing for me…..but I do however, encourage people to really sit with what the right choice is for you. All choices will be different because we are not coming from the same perspective and I understand that. Not all illnesses are created equal either, some REQUIRE you to be on meds to maintain any quality to your life, use those and live your best life! Some people though are choosing these meds because their doctors are pressuring them to believe you will have no quality of life IF you choose to treat your illness in a more natural approach…..and THAT is where I want to talk from, from that perspective.
"Symptoms are not enemies to be destroyed, but sacred messengers who encourage us to take better care of ourselves." - Joe Gabriel
I want people to take back control of their health! I believe most doctors become doctors (as with any profession that is of servitude to others) to save lives. I believe they want to help people get better, but sometimes they stray away from their “why” and get sucked into the darker side of medicine…..greed! They want more money, so these companies come in and “sell” their products (some of those drugs are very toxic to your body….) they are not there to “help” you, they are making you a customer. They want more money, so they have to sell more of these meds, who are they selling them to? YOU! Sick people who are looking to feel better. They are misusing their position and they are creating customers for the drugs they are paid to sell. Yet another system that is totally broken, because we turned health care into a business….and that is bullshit!
That pisses me off! This is YOUR life, and although they are the experts, you get a say in how you want to live. I say take all the information and make the best choice for you, but be sure to understand you are choosing it, so embrace it fully and live fully from that choice. That is THE ONLY way to live! From a place that says “I have made the choice to live like this and I am going to make this the best God Damn life I can from these choices!!” I am never, ever, EVER….here to tell you which choice to make. That is completely up to you, but I do really encourage people to understand that once you make the choice it is your responsibility to make THAT the best choice! Make it what is going to give you the best life ever. Meds, no meds, that is not for me to ever decide for anyone….except me. But when I made that choice I hit a lot of negativity in my personal life. Everyone had an opinion….and most are either always telling you theirs, or reminding you of how your choice sucks. That was the hardest part about stopping my meds and cleansing my body of the pharmaceuticals, the judgement!
"...and now, I will do what is best for me"
Do you know I was told that my choice to stop taking prescription meds for RA was selfish!!! I was called selfish in so many ways and reminded each hard day (and there are STILL hard days guys…I fucking have RA!!!) that I could not complain because I had choose this for myself and now I had no right to complain on the bad days. I should not be sick or tired because this is the choice you said you wanted to make. Can you imagine? Really stop and think about that….I made the choice for myself to stop meds and try to get healthy in a different way. I made that choice for everyone in my life but I made it with me in mind. My wellbeing, my mental and emotional health. I made the choice to think of myself in this fight and was told I was selfish…..and I guess if you break down the word “selfish” I was….it was what I needed to do for me. I was not the “easy” choice or something I did thinking originally, that I was going to “feel better” in any other way than mentally. I knew in making that choice I may be risking my mobility…but it was worth it to live a life that felt like I had some control over my body and my health. It was worth the risk to think I could feel like my “old” self again. It was made for me, but it was not selfish! I will never understand how someone can say that, and yet when I talked to my new Rheumatologist yesterday I felt just a tinge of “Fuck you” in my bones for every person that acted like my choice was selfish! Look what I did…..I did that by choosing the hard choice but having faith it was the right one.
"Taking care of myself doesn't mean "me first", it means "me too"- L.R. Knosts
I didn’t linger in that feeling because it doesn’t serve me moving forward but it was there. Instead I let the lingering feelings be of pride and gratitude. I never in a million years could have seen this as my future after learning I was sick. My RA doc saying my illness is in remission, and although we need to monitor it because it is still there, it is in check and I have a very mobile and active life ahead of me. It filled me with so much joy and if we were not in the middle of this COVID pandemic I would have hugged him. I told him how happy I was and that this is such good news in regards to my schooling and my future in massage therapy. To know I can make a career of this and not have to worry about my health all the time was a huge load off my mind. I spoke to him about how fascinating the human body is and how so much of the work I do for my health is mental. Learning to feed my mind the good stuff and to keep healthy thoughts always as the forefront. He smiled (it reached his eyes so I could tell even though he had a mask on) and he said “I would love to send you on your way with some tips at keeping yourself on track but I have nothing. You are doing all the right things…..” I was proud! I left his office and cried in my truck…..I was also so grateful! This was not the easy choice, and to know all the hard work over the last three years HAS paid off in the most needed way, my health, is a blessing!
I keep saying “not the easy choice” and I want to add this before I conclude…RA was not my choice! I had no power over that, and yet the guilt I felt when I got sick was overwhelming! To the point of falling into chronic depression. I felt so useless and I felt like I always overcompensated for that by doing more than I could, and never feeling like I measured up. I was in the best physical shape of my life when I got sick. My world fell out from under me and I had no clue how to keep being that person and stay healthy. The meds were not working, the injections and pain meds did not make a difference. I was tried every day of my life to a point of not being able to do much at all….and yet trying to do it all. I was a military wife and made it through at least three, four to five month deployments, where I did it on my own, with two small boys, I did it all but I felt like I was failing because I could not do everything I wanted to like before I got sick (maybe in a way that is why I got sick….the body is a wonderful and mysterious thing….maybe my body got sick because I was trying to do too much and it malfunctioned?). RA was not a choice, it was a total recall of life as I knew it….and I didn’t adjust well. Looking back, I wish I could have done it better, sooner, but hindsight being what it is, I am proud of me for doing as much as I did for so long as I did, but I am even more proud that I was able to finally see a way to still do the things I enjoy but to also actually enjoy them fully.
This came from “being selfish” in more ways than one! Not only detoxing my body from all prescription drugs, but also getting healthy by moving my body. I had someone say to me one day “You are so lucky to have your body…” HAHAHAHAHAHA I could not believe someone had said that to me, she was trying to be nice I believe, but to think someone might want this body was hilarious to me. This body is not playing with a full deck, but it is the thing that keeps me living my life and to do that fully I had to learn to treat it well. I am once again, in the best shape of my life (fuck you RA) but I work hard for it….not in a “hard work” kind of way, because I enjoy yoga so very much. It does not seem like work to me but instead my “me time”. Time to connect fully to my body and my mind. I do yoga two hours a day, five days a week (one hour when I wake up and one before bed….) I so enjoy it and it has been one of those “selfish” things I started making time for when I decided to take back control of my health. So when people say “you are so lucky” I typically say “This is not luck….this is hard work and determination to be healthy”. Saying that from the place of chronic illness is so much different than saying it from a place of wanting to “look good”….it comes from a desire to just be active and healthy for as long as I possibly can.
"Whatever is good for your soul....do that!"
I also became “selfish” in my sleep….if I am tired, I sleep! I do not sit in front of the TV all night watching stupid shit on the TV, and then complain how tired I am….or worse, sleep my day away because I stayed up all night. I go to bed by 10pm most nights and am up by 5am every day. My body feels more rested now than it ever did before when I did not have a routine. I wake up do my yoga, and meditate.I became "selfish" not just with my sleep but my "me time" in general. I learned to make "me time" important. You cannot be everything to everyone and forget about yourself. Gratitude is probably the most important part of this equation for me and my "selfish" journey towards health. I had to learn to be grateful for my health, yes, for the health I didn’t have. I had to find gratitude for it….because even on my bad days, I am here and I am living! I am still making others smile and I am still making an impact. I am awake to hear the bird’s chirping, and I get to snuggle my boys wherever I can force them to….haha I am alive because of my health, and that is a gift! The gift of life is beautiful, no one said it was easy, but it is beautiful! Gratitude will forever be what I believe saved my health the most, because even in the practice of yoga every day, if I lost sight of the gratitude for being able to do it, it becomes a chore…..if I stay ever present in the blessing that I can do that, it stays a blessing!
In conclusion I want to say I am proud of what I have overcome in my life, most of that stuff felt mental or emotional. Alcoholism and depression, feel like emotional pain rather than physical (although it can very much become physical the more it hangs around)…..when I was diagnosed with RA I thought I was in for a rough, physical fight. I knew I could handle it because I have dealt with physical pain from my back since I was really young. Little did I know that the physical pain that comes from RA was not my demon to fight, once my body was healthy (yoga and eating well….no alcohol and no more pharmaceuticals) it kind of took care of that….it was the mental battle that I was not expecting. It was the grief that came from a life that felt lost. It was the guilt I carried around in my heart, just knowing I wasn’t measuring up. It was the the friends lost because of too many plans canceled. It was the people that made me feel like I was lying because I never “looked” sick enough to be complaining. It was my husband thinking I was lying about my illness because I didn’t want to work. It was the toll it took on my mind trying to figure out if they were right. Was I lazy? Was I just scared? Could I do more? Should I be working? The constant battle of “just do it and live” or “if you do it, you know you will pay later”. It was the times I couldn’t make it to the field trips or the when I finally knew I could not volunteer anymore. It was the countless days at the doctors’ offices, them never having a way to help but always trying a new med. It was the waking up in the morning only to pray for the night, and then lay in bed crying because you knew you were also failing as a wife to her husband. Sex was just not something I wanted to do. I felt like I had FINALLY made it to a point where I could sleep….I sure didn’t want to have sex. I didn’t realize how the years and years I spent in the emotional turmoil would affect me as a whole. But it did.
"Monsters don't sleep under your bed, they sleep inside your head."
I was depressed and I was done living like that…..to think that night would have been just the start to leading me here, is an amazing thing to look back on. It was not easy, and a lot of stuff is different. I am not the same person, but I refuse to apologize for that, or feel badly. I am finally living from a place of true peace. Do I still have bad days, OF COURSE!!! There are days I cry, because I am tired and I still have things to do…..but I remind myself about why I am doing it and it feels like a blessing to get the opportunity to do it. There are still canceled plans, and my kids do not do all the running around that other kids do, but they are loved VERY much and they know it. That is really all you can ask for in life. They watch their mother kick ass on a daily basis and they are proud! I entangle myself into their lives in a way that makes up for my shortcomings. Are there still feeling of guilt and grief to work through, always….there will always be that, but I am equipped to do that now. I have learned the tools of the trade and I just keep using them. Do I still question whether I am doing my best, duh….don’t we all. When I do that, when I start to let the inner voice speak for all of us, I shut her up really quick and I remind myself of all I have overcome….and then I remind myself of all the blessings that are to come…and it just doesn’t seem that scary anymore. I am blessed….call it God, call it spirit, shit, call it magic if you want…..but call me blessed!
I remember walking into my massage therapy class for the first time. The teacher (whom I love) asked what made me decide on this career….I explained first that it felt like the right place to start my new life. After 16 years married and about to divorce, and 13 years as a stay at home wife/mother, I was ready to find my own place. Then I told her “I am here because I believe I can help to heal others but first I need to heal myself.” I have taken each class and each opportunity to learn how to do that. With each new lesson I try to take it as a personal moment to grow. From learning about the human cells, and the brain….to how connected the cardiovascular system is to the respiratory system. I have learned that the hypothalamus controls the hormones, and the medulla elongate controls the breath…..if the brain controls it all, and you control your brain, then you can control your breath and if you can control your breath you can control your respiratory AND cardiovascular systems!!! It is a beautiful way to totally understand that although I may not be able to decide if my body develops RA, or if it will cure itself of RA. I can sure control how it reacts to it, because I am in complete control of the entire thing!
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