Allowing my body to heal

Understanding what exactly Lupus is can be tricky because it differs from person to person. Basically, it is an autoimmune disease that can cause damage to any part of your body by attacking and destroying healthy tissues. With this disease, the immune system can’t tell the difference between foreign invaders and its own body tissue. These attacks can be made on skin, tissues, or even organs. This disease also goes into a series of flare-ups and remissions that can be exacerbated by psychological or chemical stress or sometimes by seemingly nothing at all. Severity ranges from person to person as well as type of symptom.

After the diagnosis, my life soon drastically changed. Not only was I receiving almost daily Chiropractic adjustments, acupuncture treatments, massage, and taking a variety of homeopathics and herbs, but also the most difficult alteration was to my diet. God created our food to heal our bodies and our society has forgotten this over the years. Most people don’t know this, but all Chiropractors receive advanced training in nutrition whereas Medical Doctors receive little and most receive none. So Doctor Kay had a lot of good ideas. We had always eaten pretty healthy growing up. We had our own garden and my mom actually ground her own wheat to make bread, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t eat food that was bad for me… like gluten. I was a gymnast remember, and although I was currently in the process of quitting, I could never seem to get full. Our family used to joke that I should go to overeaters anonymous. I rarely ate much fast food, but I could sure put away the pasta, dairy, cookies, and potatoes in addition to whatever else was being served. I however, was never much of a fan of meat with the exception of Chick-fil-a and bacon. So my Chiropractor strongly encouraged a diet change, which got rid of all inflammatory food. It took a good bit of self-control to be able to give up all meat, dairy, gluten, and sugars. I’ll admit I didn’t give it all up 100%, but the majority was eliminated. With Lupus being an inflammatory disease, it’s hard enough for your body to heal from that without adding in any additional inflammatory toxins in the diet. I have maintained this basic diet my whole life, with the exception of periods of stress and a cheat day now and then.

This life change not only sounds unpleasant, but felt unpleasant too. Detoxifying your body from disease is not an enjoyable experience and I found myself questioning whether this was the right choice, as I was actually feeling much worse than before. I was completely drained of energy by this point; I just wanted to sleep all day. Had a foggy head and was constantly nauseous and weak. I stuck it out though, hopeful that it would all make me better. Hearing what all I had in my body inspired me to stick it out too. I don’t know who wouldn’t want to get rid of parasites, toxic levels of metal, autoimmune disease, and other such gunk out of their body.

Within about six months of all of this, I started to feel better. I didn’t really notice it at first because I had blocked out any thought of pain from my mind anyway, but finally I thought to myself, you know what, I do feel better. Doctor Kay had me go back to my original family practitioner to have all of the tests run again and to everyone’s amazement, everything came back negative. There were no traces of Lupus or even Arthritis. I will never forget that day. I don’t know if it was from embarrassment to blame or what, but the Medical Doctor, much to our disbelief, wouldn’t even come to the room to deliver the information but instead sent his assistant whom said, “well the original test results must have been wrong. There must have been an error. This is impossible.” You would think that it would have been hard for us to believe too, but the proof was evident in not only how I felt but also in how I looked. I felt like a twelve year old again. I had energy again. I could smile again. So my mom of course wasn’t going to let this slide and she said, “so first off, you are now saying that the tests could have been an error yet you were trying to force me to put poisons in her body? Will you not acknowledge now that this Chiropractor knows what she is doing as she is the one who recognized that this was an autoimmune disease?” He refused to see us that day or answer my mom’s questions and we never returned to his office. 

The big diagnosis

Lack of energy was never an issue with me. In fact, I probably had too much, which caused me to get into trouble a lot because apparently couches aren’t made to be exercise equipment… nor is your sister. That all changed though when I was about twelve years old. I gradually started to feel more and more strange. I all of a sudden had a significant decrease in energy, started getting sick all the time, became very heat intolerant, my hair was falling out, kept having what seemed like asthma, and was experiencing the most unbelievable pain throughout my entire body. My eyes looked dull. I no longer had that energetic sparkle, was no longer beaming with life. I was losing interest in gymnastics, mainly because everything was hurting too much to do. All I wanted to do was lay around. This was not who I was. The only Doctor I was seeing at the time was a family practitioner. We had been going to him since I was three years old and were never really completely confident in his expertise, but he always got the job done for the basics. I started telling him about all of my new symptoms and it was clear he was not the man for the job. He kept brushing it all off, saying that I was about to be a teenager and these were all normal things to experience when getting older and he refused to have me tested for anything because he said they were unnecessary. My mom was never satisfied with this answer though and she wasn’t going to ignore my symptoms. This Doctor completely missed diagnosing me with Mono nearly a year prior and I was fortunately diagnosed and treated elsewhere. Yes, Mono seemed to make the round on several of us at gymnastics. Germs tend to thrive in places like gyms.

After suffering through several months of this new lack of energy and pain, my mom hesitantly decided to take me to a Chiropractor she kept hearing raving reviews about by friends from church. I say hesitantly because, I don’t know about you, but we always kind of thought Chiropractors were “quacks.” My dad had tried out a Chiropractor many years prior for some back problems, but I think the guy actually made him worse. But you know, there are bad Chiropractors out there, just like there are bad Dentists. Just because one is bad, doesn’t mean the whole profession is useless. So we decided to give this Chiropractor a try because all of the head injuries were definitely starting to wreck havoc on my neck.

I’ll never forget the first time I met my Chiropractor Doctor Kay. She is probably the smartest person you would ever meet, but also the most down to earth. She is a country girl at heart and would give you the shirt off her back if needed. I instantly loved and trusted her. I not only loved getting adjusted and found it all fascinating, but pretty much every visit we would get chastised by her assistant for laughing too loud and causing concern by other patients as to what on earth we were doing in the treatment room. I also enjoyed asking a lot of questions and felt very at home at her clinic. I was thankful that I wasn’t going to do what she did though. She would tell me about different classes she had taken and certain details about the board exams and I would think to myself, “Thank goodness I’m not doing that.”

Although the adjustments felt great during each visit, I must admit I didn’t feel that much different later on each day that I had been adjusted. Doctor Kay herself seemed a little frustrated by my lack of progress. So one day she asked me if I was having any other health problems. I had learned by this time that Chiropractic is useful for more than just neck and back pain, but the Medical Doctor had told me there was nothing wrong so I didn’t want to approach the subject much. I felt like maybe she might be able to help though. I began telling her what all was happening, how I no longer had energy, how I kept getting sick, how I no longer cared about anything, how every square inch of my body ached, how I felt like I was walking through a cloud, and on and on the symptoms went. She had also observed some things including how my face was always very red, how I would never hold an adjustment for more than a minute, always felt warm, and always had enlarged lymph nodes. Doctor Kay then wrote a letter and handed it to my mom and said to take it to my family Doctor and insist on having me tested for the things in the letter, and if he did not, then to find a new Medical Doctor. I think my poor mom didn’t get one hour of sleep that night due to researching and stressing over the things in that letter.

With much hesitance, the family Doctor ran the requested blood tests on me. The day soon came for the test results and he said, “Your daughter has tested positive for Systemic Lupus Erythematosus and Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis. Due to the extremely high levels, our only suggestion is that we send you elsewhere immediately where your daughter will be prescribed Chemotherapy and Steroids for the remainder of her life to help cope with the pain.” There was a mix of emotions. Slight relief to at least know something was wrong and it wasn’t just all in my head, mixed with shock and confusion as to know what to do next. She then asked if this treatment of chemotherapy would cure what was going on and he said that no it would not, but would only help with pain and that I would not live much beyond my twenties. My mother said that she did not want to put me through chemo, but instead wanted to talk to the Chiropractor to see if she had a more alternative approach to treatment. And then he said, “If you leave the office without following my suggested course of action then I could call CPS and force Catherine to follow my treatment plan.” Being the factual mother that she is, naturally she fed him a taste of his own medicine and threatened reporting him to the board for his multiple failed attempts of diagnosis, among other things. This shut him up. 

Are concussions that bad?

My health took a turn soon after I had advanced in the sport that had taken over my life, gymnastics. Like a lot of active girls my age, I remember being sprawled out in front of the television watching the 1996 Olympics with my eyes focused on the USA women’s gymnastics team known as “The Magnificent Seven”. It was then that I decided I wanted to be a gymnast! I lived and breathed gymnastics. I couldn’t wait to be on the team at my local gym and participate in competitions. I eagerly trained at my gym for the four hours required of us each day, in addition to the hours I trained on my own at home. We lived on a farm at this time, and having no brothers, my sister and I became pretty good with hay bales and other muscle-toning chores. My dad even had a chin-up bar for me in the garage as well as a trampoline in the barn. I was even happier when summer hit and we could basically be at the gym from morning until night.

Even though I was an extremely hard-worker and a perfectionist at fine-tuning my skills, my 5’9” frame simply was not cut out to be gymnast material. Skills are more difficult to execute when you are twice the average gymnasts size, both because the apparatuses are made one size and because tall people seem to be less flexible in my experience. Because of this, injury seemed to come more regularly. Making sure that you are being coached at a gym with proper training is also very important to prevent injuries. If you have ever been in sports or have kids in sports, you may think it’s okay to have the occasional wipeout injury, or even a concussion. We thought it was okay. Yea it was scary when it happened, but we thought it was something all athletes experience. When in actuality, it is not okay. It is especially not okay to have repetitive concussions. In all sports, avoiding head contact is key for your health, especially for later in life. A kid hitting their head with a soccer ball makes me cringe now that I know all the effects it has on the body. These are very dangerous not only to the neck, but also to the function of your brain and alignment of your skull.

 I couldn’t tell you how many concussions I have had over the years. Between multiple falls at gymnastics, horse-riding injuries, crashing into a concrete ceiling multiple times, and launching through a window in the middle of my sleep, it’s safe to say I have received more than my fair share of head injuries along with other, seemingly minor injuries, like muscle pulls and broken bones. Some of those concussion descriptions may have sparked your curiosity for more detail, so I will provide more of an explanation. The gymnastics and horse-riding injuries I assume are self-explanatory. The concrete ceiling and window descriptions probably are not so easy to imagine.

The farmhouse we owned was a very odd house. The guy who built it apparently had an obsession with concrete because not only was nearly the entire house made of concrete, but there was also an underground concrete tunnel, which led from the house to the detached garage. Well, with all of my pent-up energy, it was difficult for me to simply walk up the stairs like a normal person. I would instead go from a running start and leap up the stairs to exit the tunnel and forget there was a low concrete ceiling above me. I would jump up and then the next thing I would consciously know of was seeing the floor underneath me. If you ever went through huge growth spurts, I’m sure you remember forgetting either how tall you had all of a sudden become, which caused a lot of head bumps or knocked a lot of drink glasses off the table because your arms were all of a sudden a foot longer. Took more than once to learn my lesson on this one.

Now on to explaining the crashing through the window scenario; so I shared a room with my sister at the time, and I slept on the trundle part of a day bed. My poor sister was woken up many times in the middle of the night, being alarmed that I was often flailing around in my sleep, only to realize that I was apparently doing gymnastics in my dreams. It was all pretty harmless though, as I would normally keep to myself…well, I guess except for the bruises she often received from me kicking her. On one particular night, however, I woke my sister up, yet again, moving around in bed a significant amount. She said that I all of a sudden scooted down to the bottom of the bed and then all at once sprung backwards crashing through the window that was behind the head of my bed. My mom came running in the room and they both tried to wake me, but they did not succeed. I would not have believed this crazy story they told me if it weren’t for the evidence of the broken window the next morning and the glass I found in my hair.

How it all started...

I have finally decided to post a blog. It may be a little long in some sections and may be boring to some of you, but I have received a decent amount of requests in regards to a little more detail of how and why my health struggle has served as my inspiration in becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic, so here you have it. My reason for posting a lot of the health problems I have gone through is not at all to whine about every little thing that has happened, because I actually find it all quite amusing. But instead, I want to prove that we go through things for a reason. Most of my friends, family, and acquaintances, do not know nearly half of all of this information about me, because for the longest time I was uncomfortable sharing it. I guess I am more comfortable now in recent years, maybe due to the fact that I understand it all a little better. It has all happened for a reason; meaning it was all in God’s plan for me, to get me where I am today and I believe, to carry me even further in the future to help others. The majority of the first posts will be about my health and Chiropractic. Then I will be posting funny stories about crazy patients, health tips, inspirational stories, and who knows what else!

Discovering your sense of purpose comes easy for some of us, but for others it never seems to be discovered. For some of us, it simply happens. Oh yes we paid our dues to get here, trust me. We worked our tails off to get the job done, but I’d say we are blessed to have figured it all out so soon. I never imagined I would become a Doctor. Heck I never even wanted to go to College! I couldn’t wait to even graduate high school. All that wasted time learning things I would never use in life. Who cares about diagramming sentences, what happened in Germany in the 1700’s, or figuring out how to solve an algebra problem. How would all of this useless information help me succeed in life? My thoughts were, it wouldn’t. My plan was to get done with this dull part of life, leave the boring farm I felt stuck at, and go to New York City and be famous! It all seemed so simple. I was thin and in shape, thanks to many years of gymnastics, attractive and tall. I was going to be a model, I decided. All of my friends and family said I should be, so why not? Well I soon discovered why not.

When something seems like the “right fit” and is relatively easy to fall into, it is more than likely not what God had in store for you. Yea you may be able to fake it for a while. Oh you will probably even make good money and convince yourself that you are happy. But you won’t be satisfied with yourself, and one day eventually, everything will make perfect sense. At least that is what happened to me. It’s like someone hit me in the back of the head and I woke up to reality. I finally realized, okay, this is what I’m meant to do. I didn’t necessarily want to do it at first. I knew the schooling I was about to get myself into, and remember, I hate school. But I knew this would give me life-long satisfaction and purpose. It’s safe to say that I am one of the few that has passion as the driving force behind their career choice. Not passion for money, status, or interest, but passion because of first-hand experience. My profession saved my life. And who saved my life was an amazing Chiropractor.

At first glance of my story, you might judge me as a hypochondriac. But no, I just really have a lot of things happen to me. Hardly anyone knows about most of these problems because I am not at all a complainer, nor do I like drawing attention to myself in this way. My problems actually started right at birth. I tease my mom and say that she intentionally tried to kill me when I was born because she knew I was going to be such a problem. Later in life, after being in Chiropractic school and learning about different conditions and things that can go wrong, I quickly put together that my mom actually had eclampsia while I was born. This makes perfect sense because as soon as I was being birthed, the moment my head cleared, her body contracted around my neck causing me to turn blue, which then caused the inexperienced Doctor to panic. This then ended with him pulling me out rather forcefully and quickly by my head. All of this will play in significance on my health, as you will find out later. I was not in the clear yet though as the cord was apparently wrapped around my neck causing me to stay blue for moments even longer. Thankfully though, everything soon appeared “normal” for both my mom and I. I continued on as a healthy baby, with my parents giving no other thought towards my birth.

Things didn’t really start to get interesting with my health until around age eleven. Sure I had the usual childhood illnesses like repetitive ear infections, which with much regret from my mom later on, led to getting ear tubes. We later found out that a simple Chiropractic adjustment can allow the built up fluid in the ear canal to drain, without causing harm to the eardrum like tubes do. I had the occasional strep throat and what seemed to develop into a tradition for me to have pink eye on every Easter Holiday, but everything seemed pretty “normal.” Just basic childhood illnesses. Well, like I previously stated, if anyone really knows me, they know that I am not a complainer. The moment you hear me actually complain about something not feeling right, there is definitely a problem.

With this being said, it’s safe to say that I was actually a pretty sick child. I can remember at the tender age of five or six, being in choir at church. Man I hated choir. Not only is singing just not my thing, but I remember at almost every choir practice excusing myself to the bathroom so I could huddle down on the floor, grasping my knees, trying desperately not to throw up. I didn’t understand how everyone else could stand upright for the entire hour, and in addition sing, without feeling like someone was squeezing off their oxygen supply and causing them to double over in pain. I always blamed it on my stomach if questioned. Because my goodness, did I have stomach problems. And it was just an easier explanation I guess. I didn’t understand people who didn’t have stomach problems. I thought it was normal. No matter what I ate, or even worse sometimes was if I didn’t eat, my stomach would cause me to be in the most horrible pain.

My mom actually took me to a specialist when I was around six to see if there was something wrong. They didn’t give us much of an answer. Just said that I was “sensitive.” I also couldn’t stand for anything to be restricted around my stomach including seat belts and even tight pants. Everything always had to be loose. My mom says that even when I was a baby, I would try to push the seat belt on the car seat away from my stomach. I dreaded anything where I knew we might be standing for more than ten minutes. School field trips were an absolute nightmare for me, especially if it were a museum. Always the same thing happened; extreme stomach pain with restricted lung movement leading to blackouts. Nothing would help so I rarely said anything, because what was the point?