Catching up from 2022. Hi friend!
So much to share with you. A little at at time.
It’s April 2024 and I’m picking up the blog nearly 2 years later. So what happened since March 2022?! (To read about the beginning of my story click here).
I thought I’d write to tell you how after years of suffering some of the top doctors in Seattle finally diagnosed me with Lyme disease and mold toxicity.
Then I thought I’d write to tell you how we left Washington and moved back to California for sun and healing in March 2022, but then abruptly found ourselves on an airplane 3 weeks later moving to Rhode Island. But I found myself dealing with so much change day after day, that it didn’t make sense to share it all, until now.
When we arrived in RI in April 2022, I had planned on “healing” and traveling to see doctors that would “fix” it. Instead I found myself severely reacting to the very home I was supposed to stay in, needing the ER again, leaving me to hotel and Air BnB hop away from my family, alone.
The doctors we moved for? They had no idea what to do with me, the information I brought them, and the cutting edge treatments I was reading about. We had thought the East Coast would be our answer, but found ourselves frozen with the new information we were learning while trying to recover from the constant trauma and PTSD that comes with chronic illness.
However, it wasn’t all bad. Rhode Island gave us the foundation and reset my body was so desperately needing. After years of running on adrenaline, handling trauma after trauma, pregnancies back to back to back and then a loss, living in a moldy home, exposed to ticks, viruses and environmental pollutants galore… my body needed a hard reset, and it needed one QUICK.
I met my husband at 20, I got pregnant at 21, and worked full time and mothered full time starting at 22. We moved a few times, started new jobs, and made a lot of life changing transitions back to back to back never stopping to wonder what effect this may have on my nervous system and body as a whole. At the young age of 28, we found out. My body crashed to the point where walking, breathing, talking and simply existing was excruciating painful. We barely caught it in time.
These doctors I was seeing were chasing mold, lyme, hormones, viruses, heavy metals, bacteria unsure of what order to “kill” them so I can go back to full health. They seemed to know what they were doing, but something was still off. The cycle of functional medicine (hourly rates, expensive testing, expensive supplements, cutting edge therapies) slowly started to mirror the cycle of western medicine (insurance, expensive testing, constant meds, more testing).
How did people HEAL instead of MANAGE their symptoms? This was the question that was nagging at me the whole time we were in Rhode Island. I have heard of these incredible women healing themselves from debilitating chronic illnesses (thanks Instagram!), so what was I missing?
I saw specialists in Rhode Island and specialists in Connecticut. We thought that the epicenter of lyme would also be the most advanced. We were wrong. But before we left the East Coast, I wanted to see one more practitioner so on Memorial Day weekend in May 2022, we drove out to Pennsylvania.
That one appointment confirmed my suspicions and finally put me on a path toward TRUE healing. To say it was life changing was an understatement. She offered me hope and purpose. She filled my head with ideas that the supplements I was on weren’t going to heal me. She told me that my body was clogged up and if I supported my lymph, I would see changes and feel better- without a bottles and bottles of supplements. She didn’t prescribe a single pill, and instead suggested I commit to a few sessions of 3 specific therapies… all involving moving my lymph.
The results? Profound.
By July 2022, we left Rhode Island and I found myself right back in California. Three months ago, I thought I’d never come back to our home state. We had plans to grab our car and drive to Arizona to start a new life with our newfound knowledge.
BUT…
Instead a couple weeks later, we settled down in California to give the kids stability, enroll my eldest one in school, and give my body space and time to heal.
From July 2022- September 2023 our family settled in Central Valley, CA.
If you follow me on Instagram, you probably saw that we settled into a year long lease. We went back to the familiar routine of work, school, play dates, and assimilating back into society after a 2 year pandemic + living with invisible chronic illness. What you might have not seen is how that choice wasn’t the right one for our family.
I improved tremendously, only to have my health crash several times. My entire family’s symptoms went from mild to severe. Our kids flares had us on our knees crying at night wondering how to help our children screaming in pain. It was excruciating.
I can write about it now because that’s no longer the case. They’re happy. They’re eating. They’re sleeping. They’re vibrant. All the things they weren’t when we were living in Fresno.
I want to keep writing and tell you what happened almost a year ago because it rocked my world.
But for now, I’m heading out to my morning walk so I can make breakfast before the kids wake up then prep for my client calls today. I never thought I’d be writing that, and I am so so grateful.
Thank you for reading and being with me on this health journey. Talk to you soon!
In love, health & healing,
Alex
That Mama With A Purpose