If I can be vulnerable with you for a minute – I want to share this as a mile marker for my journey, as well as a call to accountability from my people on a similar journey.
This photo is of something that I didn’t think would be mine at the age of 33. But, as I’ve learned in the last year – if you don’t make time for your wellness, you’ll be forced to take time for your illness.
I take 25 pills a day for everything going on (some are meds, some are supplements we saw I needed after a lot of lab work). Kind of crazy to think about, feels excessive to someone who’s not wearing this meat-suit. But luckily I have a doctor who spends a good amount of time with me and listens to what’s going on. Truthfully, he’s the closest thing in the medical field that I’ve ever experienced to the guy from “House”. It’s actually really refreshing, the first appointment we spent around 2 hours together. The appointments after that were about 90 minutes. The care has been nothing short of fantastic and intentional.
And honestly, it was needed. We discovered that I have Lyme disease (and a handful of other microbes), and my doctor believes I’ve been fighting Lyme since I was the age of 12, which has a good chance of being the root of my prostate issues I’ve had most of my life. Also a decent contributor to the level of whole body/joint pain that I feel and have felt on a regular basis for years. We discovered that between the Lyme and the level of stress that I have sustained over the last few years, my body had completely stopped producing Cortisol and testosterone – essentially my hormone system called it quits. We discovered that because of my system being in a perpetual state of “fight or flight”, that I developed about 20 food allergies that I had never had before – which the inflammation kind of increased the effects of the other issues. Some of those were mentally hard to let go of, I love me some potatoes and rice – but I learned to navigate it.
We discovered I have a noteworthy amount of mold toxicity when we ran a mycotoxin test. And, I have hereditary hemochromatosis – which means that my body develops toxic levels of iron buildup that I have to essentially donate blood regularly to be able to level off the iron levels. Since my doctor and I agreed it wouldn’t be a great thing to “donate” while having Lyme disease, I just do “therapeutic phlebotomy” where they take the blood and throw it away. Kind of sucks, at least when I was at the plasma center, I got $25 for a liter and it went to help someone else out lol.
There’s some other stuff too, but this is the bulk of it.
I’ve made a lot of commitments this last year to start taking control of my health again.
- Connected with and regularly meet with the doctor mentioned above.
- I found a great lab test company that I order my labs from (Have a pretty wide variety that I get quarterly)
- I found an amazing mobile phlebotomist for my labs and therapeutic phlebotomy work.
- I drink a gallon of water at least, every day.
- I take all of my medication and supplements every morning and every night. Which is really cool to see the effects of – my most recent labs were quite improved, and I am starting to feel better – but there’s still work to do.
- I have regular appointments with all of the parties above to make sure we’re proactively ahead of things now.
- I have weekly counseling sessions with my therapist Bruce, which have been monumental.
- I (reluctantly) let go of eating processed food. *sigh*
AND NOW
I hired a personal trainer to help me get back in shape after 5 years of (mostly) sedentary life. It’s amazing how much we’re supposed to move, and how little we do when we work behind a computer.
We have been doing 2 sessions a week, and Twan Hunter is kicking my ass – but he’s great at his craft and helping me get the care that I need – plus he comes to my house which makes it a no brainer.
We’re working on my nutrition as well, reeling that in – and I am doing more regular workouts.
It’s hard/humbling having previously been in a pretty good physical state and seeing the work I need to do to get back to that, but it’s work I’m committed to doing.
So, that’s all a long-winded way to say – I hope for anyone that might be going through some similar stuff on the journey, maybe you’ll feel like reaching out so we can be accountabilibuddies. I want to feel good, I want to live a long (and more importantly good) life. And I want to be able to share it with people I love.
For my friends, if you see me doing something that isn’t healthy for me – let me know. I want you to call me out, hold me accountable. (Except for steak, I will continue to eat Ribeyes lol)
I’ve taken the greater part of the last year and lived pretty low key as I looked inward and worked to become a better version of myself. I’m excited to get back on the circuit and do some really cool shit for our clients, and those I love.
We’re going to make this the best years of our lives – who’s with me?
(Also, if you feel like you connect with any of the things I have been going through, happy to connect you with my providers if they can help)
