Its Fall

 Hello my little corner of the internet! Long time no speak, i'm still alive I promise!

I am nearing the end of my third quarter of chiropractic school! Next month I will be three quarters down, eleven more to go! 

In school I have joined the Applied Kinesiology club (AK) and have begun going to seminars to learn the subject the best I can. For those familar with AK and my story, AK played a significant roll in my healing journey. AK and CPK are two subjects my lyme doc is well versed in, and I personally one day would like to also master the subject. I still have a ways to go, like with anything the further into a subject I go, the more I realize there is too know. All in all school has been great but it is a full time schedule. Seminars on some weekends, 7a, classes 3x a week, 32.5 credit hours. Not much down time! Plus I am still making it to the gym, my current goal is 3x a week. I usually save it for the last activity of the day before dinner. 

As far as my health and lyme and PANDAS are all concerned, I am still doing well. I have moments where my fatigue slows me down, or I struggle to get a decent nights sleep. A couple months back I found a local place where I can get IV C again, I did my 3rd yesterday. Each visit I have gone up in dose, my first was 10grams, then 25grams, then yesterday was 50grams. The first two really brought my energy back up and lasted. I felt great! The 50g yesterday may have been a big jump, today I have been worn out but granted there are many reasons for this to be possible. 

I have noticed, comparing myself to other students, that I am not always to keep up with others as far as how quickly I learn. Some students here I would describe as being truly brilliant, not that anyone here would be described as "dumb" but some people can pickup new things very quickly. I am nothing but impressed, I just have to remind myself that I have a different learning style than other people. I am also far from the only one who has to put in real effort to learn new things.

One thing I learned about the chiropractic field, a lot of people do not choose chiropractic as their first career choice. A lot of students ended up here for other reasons besides " I just knew I wanted to be a chiropractor". To clarify, I do not think there is anything wrong with this, its just an observation. I have known for years what direction I wanted to go in with my life. 

My roommate for example wanted to be a dentist first, another friend of mine was in veterinarian school and decided she didn't like the field as much as she thought, another guy decided he needed to go back to school and this was a good place to go. Everyone has a different reason to be here, but I did find it odd a whole lot of students never even went to the chiropractor before becoming a student here. Not once. 

I have a lot of thoughts on this haha, but for now I will keep them to myself. I think in part some people thought it would be an easy way to get the doctor title added to their name, or bone popping sounds like fun, I don't know. I do know, there are a lot more benefits and meaning behind chiropractic than I thought there was. 

It is amazing to me, to look back and see the journey that God has placed me on. The pathway that taught me the patience to reach for more information and the caring spirit to want to help others. If I was in this just because I wanted to be a doctor, Im not sure I could do it. I am looking forward to learning all that is available to me and the options I will have for when I reach practice. 

Who Stands in Your Court

 I Have Something On My Mind

So recently a few of my friends as well as my mom have pointed out to me that I like to make friends with people who are uh, projects. People who maybe come from a rougher background, I'm not saying your generic thought of "rough". Like a tattoo'd biker or a something similar, but I do make friends with people who have had struggles. 

I can have issues relating to people who have not been through a ton, which granted is not actually that many people, almost everyone has been through something major. One of my close friends texted me yesterday morning that his dad passed away. His dad was a little older and in extremely poor health, in my non expert opinion it was amazing his dad lived this long. In the 5-10 years I have known this friend, his dad has been in bad shape. His dad was in a trucking incident in the 80's and had some severe back injuries from what I have been told. Due to his decline recently and overall very poor health, my friends dad ended up with an internal MRSA infection and that was more than he could take. I feel so bad for my friend, I spoke with him on the phone and we just talked for a while to keep his mind somewhere else. Now, heres the plot twist, my friend has always had to take care of both of his grandparents as well as his two grandparents the entire time I have known him. He has been in college since I was in high school, because he has had to stop and start school and take a decreased load depending on the care he had to provide to his family. He fed them, drove them around, cleaned them, made all of their medical phone calls, worked (as he could). Never stopped or questioned it. His mom died a few years back from congestive heart failure, he took care of the funeral and made all of those arrangements. His grandmother died right after, about three weeks different. That too was on him. Now his dad has died, without any form of life insurance so once again. It is on him. Now he just has one grandmother left, who again, is completely reliant on him. He is an only child and one of the only family members around. He's told me about a cousin or two who have helped out when there is absolutely no other option. My friend has selflessly taken care of his family his entire life and basically known no other than taking care of these people, and I look up to this quality in him so much. When we talked on the phone tonight he told me he still cannot believe his dad is gone. He knew deep down the time was coming, he saw some signs but he was under the care of doctors and his dads health was poor. 

It just astounds me the selflessness my friend has had. I know I wont ever know the entire story and nor do I want to. I know his parents were a big loving support for him and always encouraged him through his life goals. But as cold as it sounds, and I cannot ever believe I would say something like this because it just isnt right, but now my friend may actually be able to breathe a little and take care of his life. His own health has been very bad because he has to neglect himself to make time for his family. He has put his own hopes and dreams on the back burner more times over than I could count. He can finally be himself in the fact he will be able to finish his college degree (I hope and assume) and will be able to have time to dedicate to his own life. This sounds selfish on one hand, but my friend has never known anything else and maybe he can succeed a little more without being responsible for so many people. 

My friend had back surgery in August of 2020, he was doing well but in the last two months he's been in a lot of pain and has had tingling and dizziness. He has not felt well at all and still has not been able to return to his job (meaning no income at this point, I thought he could get unemployment or something but so far. no). I believe he had two discs replaced (he's only in his late 20's), which is major. 

He has people he can lean on for support. He no longer lives at home where his father and grandmother were, and he has found people he can rely on some to be there for him. So he is not completely alone, I help out as much as I can but I can only do so much on my own plus the geographic distance since I moved to school.

This is just one example of the type of people I make friends with, I have known this friend somewhere between 5-10 years. Im not even sure. I have more examples of "projects"and I have realised the sort of people I tend to trend towards.

Another friend of mine recently asked me why I try to pour so much into people, especially when they are people who are more transient where I may personally get nothing or very little out of it. I said, I have been loved so much and I just need to pay it forward. We do not live an even life, life isnt fair. You always hear "YOLO" or "take care of yourself dont worry about anyone else". Then we wonder why we live in a lonely, cold world. If we do not open our hearts and try to love everyone and treat them the best we can, how can we expect them in return? 

It was odd being asked that, because I really do not ever put this sort of thing into words. Usually I just try to be as nice as possible and try to treat people as Jesus would have wanted. Love, kindness, and listening sure does go a long way. In some ways its second nature to me, but I do try to balance myself out so that I am not only taking care of others and wearing myself down.

I do not consider myself a super nice person or super humble either. I am capable of both, sure, but I would not say that I just am either of those two qualities. I can be selfish like anyone else, but recently some of my "project" friends have pointed out to me that I do treat people different than other people do. I did not entirely know how to take that, but as odd as it is, more than anything I pray that they take a similar mentality of paying it forward and showing the people they come into contact with love, kindness, and a listening ear. 

We are living in a world where it is more PC to take a selfish day and ignore others, than it is to take a day and check on those we love. And that, is warped. 

Kansas March 2021

I am back in Kansas once again!

This will be my last visit before starting grad school in a few weeks!

I saw the doctor yesterday and today so far. He’s pleased with how I’ve held the progress but I think he was hoping for a little more. I still have a fair bit of high inflammation markers he would like to see come down a notch or two, and these markers do make sense of why I have had some residual symptoms that haven’t disappeared. 

After going through my lab work yesterday, he pulled me off all my supplements and said it’s time for a fresh start. I kept a couple things for sleep and autoimmune, 3-4 total. That’s it, the rest will be changed this week. 

One big positive that did happen, is my autoimmune markers have gone down to zero for the first time in years. That can be tricky to happen, some people have markers forever regardless of how they feel. Hopefully that sticks.

Today he worked on my kidneys and some detoxing. He said I have too much estrogen in my system showing up, as well as mycoplasma and metal. He put me on 4 things to clear those issues out. He said it looks like my kidneys are having to work over time to get everything done. Tomorrow we will work on a few more detoxification things to see what else can be cleared out of my system.

Overall, it has been a good visit. I have high expectations for how this will go. I talked to him about my stressed and psychological things. He said therapy could be a very beneficial thing for me to try out and it may help a lot, because I do have a lot of old baggage that needs to go. He said he will do his best with what he can help clear out energetically and get my body to the point where it can let go, without holding onto things. Interesting when estrogen showed up as an issue I thought well yea, that could certainly be causing me emotional distress if there’s too much in my system. I felt like that was a solid point in the right direction from the start.

Mind Body Soul and Spirit

 How Do We treat Ourselves?

I think we often ignore that when it comes to "ourselves" or our "being" we are more than just a physical body. We have more than just our body to take care of, our life is about more than food and sleep. Are we healthy or are we sick?

The absence of disease is not the presence of health. 

Just because we are not feeling sick does not mean we are treating ourselves like we are meant to be treated. I know I have been going through this lately and have tried to ignore it. I have been talking to my mom about some of whats been going on in my world and the things that have been weighing me down. I have allowed a lot to accumulate, even though it was not on purpose and I thought I was making more progress than I was. I have been ignoring my spirit a lot, probably because it has been broken so many times in the past it is easy to push it away. People from the past still stick with me and it bothers me, its not just one person or one comment. Its a few things that haunt me, for whatever reason. I have prayed plenty on the subject but I am at the point where I need to be putting in more than just prayers, I need to find a therapist. 

We as a society look past our soul and spirit so much, we dont take care of them very well. Its easy to see why, if we dont have a safe place, we dont eat or drink-we die very quickly. Our spirits are more resilient than our body, it lasts through more abuse. But it cant last forever on abuse. I try my hardest to keep my relationship with God as it should be, but I make some mistakes that I prefer I didnt. I get angry and upset. My spirit has been damaged. I know it can be repaired, I just need to move it up my priority list.

Talking to my mom today made me really think about how much we forget to take care of ourselves, our whole being. 

March 2021 Update

 Good Evening!

It has been a little bit since I have said all that much. Up until February I had been doing very well.  I am not doing poorly but I could be doing a little better.

I have found myself constantly feeling wound up again with some anxiety. A month ago I had a full blown panic attack while driving, a few friends came over and checked on me. I was a mental wreck at that point. I haven't had a panic attack in a year or two, so I did not entirely recognize it coming on. I noticed it was feeling harder to breathe and I was starting to feel off. Then I noticed I would stop breathing and I could not make myself breathe, then the hyperventilating started. I knew exactly what was happening at that point. I made it home and just collapsed on the bathroom floor, like I used to do. Not exactly an old routine I wish to return too. The good news is the full blown panic attack was a single incident. The bad news is that the anxiety has been more frequent and I have stayed keyed up. 

When this starts to happen, I start loosing my memory and chunks of time become hard to recall. I really hate that, I work hard to relax and take care of myself. I try to find enjoyment in all I can, anxiety does too good of a job at taking that away. With anxiety comes the OCD, which means obsessions, and over thinking and staying awake all night. I really hate that. 

I know something is off when I start getting quieter and I find it harder to maintain a conversation. I start getting trapped in my own head. 

I have a lot of change coming up. I move at the end of this month to start grad school at the beginning of next month! I am very excited but I am a little scared, this will be my first time living away from home and living in an entirely new environment. I don't think thats the cause of whats thrown my balance off, but i'm sure its not helping it. 

In the last several weeks I have started using the Calm app and I really like it. I use it every night before bed and it does help. Sometimes it helps more than others. 

I know a lot of the things that have made me anxious are old things, from years ago. People, incidents, my health, things of that nature. I know I have to start working on this stuff, since obviously time didn't heal some things for me. The PTSD factor of lyme is still floating around I guess. It was about this time either 3 or 4 years ago that I ended up with scarlet fever that caused my panic disorder, so maybe its a mental anniversary thing for me.

I need to find a therapist. Its easy to ignore the bad and the old when im feeling great and doing all the things I want to be doing. Plus with staying busy, it makes it easier to ignore some things. I know better though, I just need to push myself to go to a therapist. I spoke to a friend of mine and she gave me some names, its my turn to start making phone calls and find what I need. Sometimes I forget how much my body has been through, the old traumas wont disappear overnight unfortunately. 

Dont get me wrong, I really have been doing well. I still go to the gym 3-4x a week and Im still eating better than a few years ago. Im just a little bit side tracked at the moment and need some sort of remediation.

In other news Im in Kansas for my usual March checkup. I see my doctor on Monday (two days from now) and I plan on having some loooong talks with him. I suspect he will have some solutions just like in the past, I am excited to make new progress. 

Campus Tour

 I Toured my Soon to be College Campus!

This morning was amazing! My mom and I went and toured my soon to be college, I will start in April. I was able to meet people and see the classrooms and apartments. It was great! The people on campus, staff and students were the nicest people. They all told their story briefly, and everyone of them had a story. The college, being a chiropractic school, is multinational big time. One of our guides was from Puerto Rico and another was from Berlin, Germany. One was raised by a chiropractor, the other had a neck injury when he was a teenager and was inspired when he was healed by a chiro. In Germany, he said there are only around 120 chiropractors for the whole country-so not very many at all. I bet theres that many within 75 miles of me LOL. 

I felt like I was around other people who got it, people who are living with a purpose and dedicated to helping others. All of the teachers on campus are either DC, MD, PHD or a combination. One teacher that toured us around was from Egypt, he was both an MD and DC. He did not entirely give his story, but he seemed very fascinated by people. 

One of our tour guides, we were her last tour before she graduates, she had a back injury when she was a teenager and took the medical route. It didn't work for her and she was miserable, she lived with her issues for a long time but when she reached her early 30's she decided to go back to school and ended up at this one. She told my mom and I how she was pushed into it all, by God, how it all just landed into place and how she ended up in the chiropractic field. Pretty much all of the students who spoke said similar, they felt that this is where they were supposed to be and it was not an accident. Imagine being around that many like minded people who all believe that they are actually serving a purpose, rather than living aimless!

Talking to this tour guid though, she almost made me cry. When I told her my story, and I was only able to share a fraction of it with her, all she said was "oh my God" and she got it. She could see all I had been through and didn't question it. And she said to me "you keep sharing your story and never stop. Remember your why. Share your story often, it will mean so much.".

I have never felt like this before, but I felt like someone put such a strong value on my purpose to help others. No one tried to critique it, question it or tell me there was something wrong. I always shy away from sharing my story too much, I don't want to over share or make it seem like I have been through more than the next person. I never want to let someone feel bellow me because their story is different from mine. But this lady made sure to show me, that I am adding a value rather than substituting someone else out. How often do you hear a doctor, not talking over or trying to explain why they are right and you are wrong?? The first thing that comes to my mind when I hear "doctor" is someone who is smart but not wise, someone who tends to be snotty and a bit holier than thou. I did not get that feeling at all with any of these people today. 

This was a way different feeling from my undergraduate, the whole campus. It was a lot cleaner, a lot friendlier, a bit smaller. It will be another hard journey, making it through and passing all the boards, but I can do it. I have to do it. The environment will be much more positive than my undergrad though, because the nice thing about grad school is that most everyone that is there, wants to be there. It is more than just a means to an end, its a foundational beginning. 

First Decade with Lyme

 Ten Years Today!

On this day, ten years ago was when my life changed and I learned what it meant to be seriously ill. I broke my arm, had lyme in my body (unknowingly) and my health spiraled from there on out.

UNTIL I went to the lyme clinic in Kansas. Today, I feel like I am just as happy and just as able bodied as before I was sick. I feel great, I do all kinds of activities these days. Im still pushing at the gym, even though progress is slow. I go to visit my soon-to-be graduate school this weekend to see where Ill be living for the next four years of my life starting in April. 

I have a lot to look forward too outside of my health these days. Not every lyme patient is given this fortunate of an opportunity to move on with their life. I still take supplements, I take some things for autoimmune and for methylation and sleep. Which may seem like a lot, but considering these items work well enough that one skipped day makes me feel different, I feel like they count for a lot. 

I had a set of labs done in mid December 2020, my ANA was checked (autoimmune factors) plus standard CBC and lipids. I still have no cholesterol, that one stumps my lyme doctor to no end. He's given me stuff for my stomach/gallbladder/liver and changed things over and over and my body refuses to make cholesterol. My ANA is going down, its at the lowest it can be without being negative-which is fantastic. ANA may never test negative again, but as long as I feel well and the markers are rock bottom I do not really have anything to care about. I take two Apex Energetics products, Trizomal Glutathione and Nitric Balance and personally I think those two items are what have pushed my autoimmune down to a safe level. I still have kept on a regular dose on these two items, I have yet to drop down to a maintenance dose.

I run pretty hard, between my mildly questionable sleep schedule, work stress (recently quit my job of 5.5 years-but thats a story for another day), projects, the gym, planning for grad school and having a social life-I don't keep much down time. I enjoy staying busy because I was not able to for so long in my life. BUT with this, comes a price, I have  to take care of my body. I have to take my vitamins, I have to put myself in bed by a decent time in the evening, and I have to limit junk food. I also have to manage stress (people without chronic illness could be doing better in this category too!). If I stay consistent with these items I feel great and life is good. 

Yes I still have occasional days where I am not motivated and I do not want to do anything, but I attribute it to running hard more so than lyme. I do not have aches and pains associated with lyme, dizziness has been gone forever. 

Ten years ago, if someone said I was one day going to be going to chiropractic school to become a doctor because I had struggled with pain and disease for so long I wouldn't have believed it. I wanted to do some sort of sports, I wanted to get a degree in marine biology after high school. Instead I am going an entirely different direction in my life and I love it. 

I look back and this time has gone by so quickly, but I have not forgotten how terrible some of it was. I remember a few years ago how painful my anxiety and OCD was, that time period feels like it lasted forever. I was seriously afraid that would never end, that was a nightmare and nothing more. The early years with lyme, I spent trying to convince my parents and doctors that I had lyme and what having lyme meant. That was a long process in itself, its a complicated disease to explain to someone whose never had this sort of health issue. I am convinced, through my uncountable conversations with others about health, that lyme and co-infections are a category all in their own. Its not like cancer, it can be similar to autoimmune disease but at the same time it can be the cause of autoimmune, its different from thyroid disorders, its not even close to diabetes-just for some examples. 

I have so so much to be grateful for, my teachers, especially my psych teachers in college. They taught me so much on what it means to be able to manage stress and why its important. My whole journey has taught me about being compassionate and caring for others. 

Im glad im going into the next decade feeling like I have a sturdy ground to stand on, and I have God to thank for that more than anything else.