What's Wrong With Tara?

Ever the pendulum swings…..and after so much intense work, belief, and great momentum towards self-healing last year, the pendulum of my days swung the other direction the last few months, or maybe even jumped right past center, and straight to the top of the other side.  The dark velvety side….the debaucherous side…..the side full of brilliant and not-so-brilliant ‘aw, fuck it’ moments.  The side of chocolate, wine, bourbon and wild abandon, of costume parties, bloody red meat, and crunchy french bread.  Full of drama, heartbreak, exploration, celebration, the holidays, family, friends, trips, and late night giggling potato chip bag raids.  And it was exactly what I needed.  Cathartic dirtying after so much cleansing.  Putting on a sweet little layer of fat after so much skin and bones, finding a sweet little bit of living large after so much simple scarcity.

After all, in my deepest awareness, my body appears to be the same at both ends of the pendulum’s swing…my symptoms not responding to either kale juice, nor tequila body shots.  These strange symptoms seem one of the few things that over the long run doesn’t swing at all in my life.  Sure they swing wildly day to day, week to week, month to month…..but over the years, they have been a great and enduring constant.

My days now though, have reached a nice balance…somewhere I imagine towards the center of this great teeter totter.   My mornings full of meditation, yoga, and journaling; my afternoons full of the practice of drawing, painting, and spanish, my evenings full of inspiration, community, and enjoyment.  I have found great grounding in the practices I developed this last year of meditation, yoga, and juice.  I have found purpose, structure and hope in the practice of artwork.  And yes, I have found that I still greatly enjoy the luxury and simple joys of chocolate cake and red wine, of abundance and silliness and good friends.

More than anything, I have found a great deal of grace with it all.  A heavy weight lifted from my spirit after this last year.  I really did give it my all….absolutely everything I could, and well, it just didn’t make one bit of difference in my symptoms.  I found a strange freedom from that.  Finally realizing perhaps, that this illness just isn’t my fault….not a fault of my laziness, or lack of self-esteem, or unwillingness to dedicate or look deep or open up or eat green things.  I found confidence in seeing myself work so hard, and so completely.  I remembered the strength of my spirit.  And that has made all the difference.

My spirit.  It too, is a constant in my life.  Sometimes it appears in strong and clear ways, and other times a bit lost in the fog of things….but always there, and thank god, always strong.

Perhaps the chinese herbs I’m taking will do something over the long run, or the flower essences, or the supplements.  Perhaps the rootedness, centering, and breath of my morning routine will work it’s energetic magic.  But I’m not thinking too much about it.  I’m focusing more on the grace, and the peace, and the balance.  Because in any state of health, there is a full spectrum of life and experience and learning to be had.  And I’m just going to ride this silly swinging pendulum, hair whipping in the wind, feeling it all fully, unafraid to hoot and holler and scream, from the two high sides and fast along the ground….. enjoying the ride, because like the tire swing of my youth, I know that the tree is solid, and the branch will hold.

Love. t

Along the path of life there are many decisions, lessons, and choices that lead us, become us, and envelop us.  It’s the same of course when your life is lived with chronic illness.  The options about what to do and who to be may be different than you had expected, but that’s to be expected isn’t it?  The enduring traits we hold among all the paths, obstacles and surprises laid before us are the only things we really get to call our own.  Some might call these enduring traits our Spirit.  Are we patient with actions, or spontaneous and charging?  Are you accepting or challenging, a fighter or a pacifist, one who does things or has them done to you, a leader or a follower, content or suffering, apathetic or constantly in struggle?  We are all likely each of these things in different situations.  I think one of the great teachings of chronic illness, is learning to be many all at once, and to keep your spirit intact while doing it.

My spirit is more of a struggler, a changer, a seeker….I can be quite content and happy with my life, although no matter how much I like a thing, I rarely settle into it for too long without trying to improve it or expand on it or dive deeper into it.  I don’t defend this trait, but it is undeniably there.  And with my illness, I am no different.  My illness, however, is enduring…. even amongst great change, learning, improvement, and fight….it remains.  So I struggle with it, I wrestle with its limitations, try to squeeze out its lessons, concentrate on improving myself within the illness when I can’t change the illness itself, always believing that if I could just be creative enough, enlightened enough, dedicated enough that I might be rewarded with health.  But if those things don’t bring healing, then at least I will be rewarded with a bit more creativity, enlightenment, and fortitude.  I seek improvement constantly, but at the same time ironically, I also seek acceptance.

It’s a tricky thing to do.  To work and strive and struggle for betterment, while remaining content and peaceful all the while.  But it’s the greatest trick of them all, and I think well worth learning, perhaps even if it does take 20 years of illness to do it.  I’m getting better and better at it, and both the drive and the peace are residing more deeply than ever before.  It is like this in a fight for any great cause, and only a few of our best leaders and activists have really mastered it-  allowing yourself to act for change, to care deeply and to fill up with passion, while simultaneously maintaining the acceptance and peace that allow for real insight, effectiveness, compassion, and freedom.  It’s action without attachment…and it’s not easy.

I have wonderful friends.  And after the small rant of my last post, and anytime I show struggle in my life, I get all sorts of loving advice and brave fiery encouragement.  “Don’t give up, it’s worth the fight!” “Just keep trying, and keep searching, with each new doctor and treatment you’ll learn more and more.” “Stop trying to find the cure, and begin living with, instead of fighting whatever you have.” “Please just let go, give yourself a break and enjoy life”.  “Quedate donde estan los doctores y tratamientos.”  “Olvidalo un ratito, necesitas pachangear!”

And even in their extreme opposition, they are all right.  And except in moments of self-doubt, I follow all of their loving advice, all of the time.  They are my best mirrors and guides.  In their advice I cherish the differing perspectives, the impassioned counsel, the enormous love in every direction, and the perfect proof that there is no one or right way to proceed.   Peace and Fight.  Grace and Grit.  And, with their help and my own sturdy keel, I think I live in an often impressive and ever improving balance between working on it and letting it all go, searching and being present….between being stuck and dancing wildly.  And as the years roll on, the suffering-against is ever so slowly melting into a lightness and laughter, at the absurdity and perfection of it all.

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.”  Vaclav Havel

Even in searching for answers to my health, sequestering myself to juicing at my parent’s house, spending hours in doctor’s offices or days and weeks struggling against my situation and enduring my body….I am in fact still deeply living life.  In raucous enjoyment, drinking wine, eating chocolate and dancing till 3 in the morning far away from home in Mexico… I am still in fact caring for my health.  There is no way to not live your life.  And this life is mine. I don’t regret it, or even wish it to be different.  Because that’s all it would be, is different.  And there are a million ways to go through life.  I have never become numb, or passive, or disengaged- which I would find utterly unacceptable.  I have lived fully, clawing my way towards and throwing myself into the fiery center of every choice laid before me.  It isn’t always pretty, but it’s incredibly rich.

In sickness and health, in peace and struggle, I will continue to choose to live with love and spirit and spunk.  And to me that choice, no matter which other choices I make, is all that matters.  All suggestions welcome.

(Grace and Grit- by Ken Wilber- explores he and his wife’s journey through cancer…. and it speaks philosophically of the challenge and glory of living with both acceptance and fight.)  

After 20 years of looking for answers, each new doctor’s visit holds so much hope, longing, confusion, frustration, and helplessness.  So it was today.  Seeking guidance in the nutritional healing journey I began this spring, and wondering if I should do another water-fast after the seemingly good effects of my previous 5 day fast, I found a doctor here in the Atlanta area that seemed he could offer quite a lot of advice and expertise on both subjects.  I was hopeful, looking forward to my appointment, craving guidance and mentoring.

I have begun to believe firmly in my body’s ability to heal itself, given the right conditions.  With each piece of new information I learn though (seemingly endless with the web at my fingertips), I feel more and more confused, not sure anymore at all how to create those perfect conditions.  I especially have no idea what I should be eating!  My god the amount of experts there are out there with completely opposing opinions!  So this doctor claims to create a personalized nutritive healing plan for each patient, based on extensive testing and case history, under the theories of Natural Hygiene.  That, I thought, is exactly what I need!  And many miracle testimonies seem to back up his work.  So I was enthusiastic to get started….

But I should know better.  The appointment was super challenging.  I’d say 50%, if not more, of the words from New Doctor were negative, berating what I’m currently doing, what I’ve done, the un-reputable doctors I’ve seen, the ridiculous and worthless (even laughable) tests they’ve ordered, the unreliable labs they ordered them from, and the advice they’ve given me.  Even the semantics of “Juice Fast” was clarified for me, and then my regiment called too extreme, and but at the same time not strict enough.

Humph!  It’s all just been lunacy!  What was I thinking?  All this searching and trying and testing, all this not-trying and balance and distraction, all these well-meaning doctors and $3000 rounds of labs, all this peeing in a bottle and shitting in a french fry box and waiting at blood draw labs for hours was all just for a ridiculous round of worthlessness.  Stupid me.  And perhaps he’s right.  Perhaps they are all wrong, and all my testing really is crap.  I can accept that, and don’t really doubt it.  It really confuses me though, angers me, and makes me feel hopeless, misled, and desperate.

“You see what people do when they get desperate?” he said to his assistant after hearing my story.  Well yes, this IS what they do when they get desperate.  And to show how REALLY desperate I am- after some tears and hard questions- I signed up today to get another $3000 of testing, to get this New Doctors read on my situation, and hopefully to get on his program towards healing.  Why?  Because I don’t know where else to turn.

After 38 days of juice fast #2, with no noticeable improvement (or decline), it seems without the advice of someone, I run the risk of being lost on day 60, skinny, possibly imbalanced, and without any idea of what to do next.  That lost place, where I just settle in to numbness, is the scariest place of all.  Even among all the acceptance and peace that comes when I stop the search, the illness always wins out in the end, and I can’t help but search on, yet again.  Though now it seems, there are so few places left to search.

So, yes, in desperation, I am trying another zealous doctor’s approach, and enduring his very peculiar sort of compassion, hoping that I can begin to heal, or at the very least, good god, know what to eat for dinner.

I am breaking the Juice Feast, at his recommendation.  At his order, I will never do another herbal cleanse.  I am returning to ‘normal’ eating, while I wait a few weeks to see what the test results show. My parents took me out to dinner tonight, for my first plate of chewable vegetables in over a month.  And so it goes.

Here’s to what comes next…. As I jump yet again on utterly blind faith and endless hope, into free fall.

A lot has happened since I last wrote.  I have had some up-swings and some down-swings.  With each, I was too afraid to put them in writing, for fear of jinxing the up-ness, or reinforcing the down-ness.  I had one very spectacular week in mid-May, a few weeks after my juice fast ended, with my energy often up to normal, and little crashing.  I took salsa lessons, went to yoga, walked for hours and hours, caught up with friends, absolutely delighted to be standing tall and laughing a lot.  Then things got a little slower, but still felt promising.  An old friend visited and we were able to walk around town some each day, go dancing one night, eat out.  Though slowly, while visiting friends in Oregon over the next few weeks, I began crashing out more and worse.  I had a few extremely slow days, thank you dear friends for all the caretaking.  In Africa on vacation, though I thoroughly enjoyed lots of up-time on the trip, I was again using my cane, getting carried and wheelychaired around, and being rescued.  But even with this return of gympiness, I still believe my juice fast helped.  After the fast I had 6 weeks without needing my cane.  And so I will continue on that journey.

Assuming  that I might be dealing with an autoimmune disorder, I have been eating a diet with no gluten, grains (except rice a few times), dairy, sugar, or soy since I finished the fast.  That’s no gluten for 22 weeks now (even in Africa they were amazingly accommodating!).  I am seeing a new Naturopath, Dr. Rose Martin (Body of Wisdom, Natural Family Medicine) who is investigating the autoimmune track.  Some tests are in, some are out still….so more on that comprehensive investigation later.  But she does have me on B-12, iron, and Vit D, all of which have showed low.  She also retested me for heavy metals, and it seems I’m full of thallium and lead.  I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that rat-poison as a kid.  It’s going to be a bugger to get rid of.

Per the advice of many people over the years, and one recent visitor to this blog, I have also visited Dr. Heiner Fruehauf ‘s Hai Shan clinic.  Heiner is a practitioner of Chinese Medicine and is reported to be a great healer, one who helps those who have no other place to go.  I got my evaluation by one of his colleagues, and bought the recommended herbs and supplements….though I won’t be taking them for another few weeks.  For some reason I’m not totally bought in to seeing him again, and so I’m just sitting with the decision for a while.  Perhaps it’s for lack of understanding, perhaps because he’s in Oregon and I will be living in Mexico, perhaps because I’m just not done trying this fasting thing yet… I’ve caught the juice fasting bug!!  And really do believe it will help me.  So here it goes…

I am currently on Day 6 of a 60 Day Juice Fast. Yep 60 days.  My parents have very graciously taken me in for the duration of the fast, and Dad is even joining me for some of it.  It’s wonderful to have the support and camaraderie, the mountains of fresh organic produce (hard to get in Mexico), and a place to rest and focus.  Thank you Mom and Dad, as always.  I will record some of my process here, which I did not do on my previous 45 days juice fast….just in case anyone is curious what it’s like.  Along with the juice, I will also be doing the Dr. Schulze Incurables program again for the first month, and continue with the yoga, meditation, affirmations, breathing, staying present, scrubbing, hot and cold showering, walking, loving and laughing.   I’m in the middle of my liver cleanse now, and it’s going well, except that I reek of garlic….another great reason to stay quarantined in the folks house for a little while!

I have been a bit discouraged by the last couple months, picking up a cane again, wondering where to turn next.  But I have not lost my hope or drive or spirit.  I am determined to heal myself.

I’ll let you know how it’s going!  Thank you for being here with me.

Well, 45 days have come and gone….I did what I set out to do!  40 days of juice fast with the Dr. Schulze’s Incurables cleansing program, and an additional 5 days of water fasting (why not?).  I have been eating food for about 10 days, slowly starting with smoothies, then soup, then cooked veggies, and now am eating fruits, vegetables, small amounts of meat and fish, oils, and salt.  My hunger switch has definitely turned on on on and it’s fun to be eating again.

The big new is- I haven’t used my cane in 3 weeks!!!  I haven’t crawled, or been carried, or gotten stuck….not since day 2 of my water fast. Yahhhooooo! I am certain that enormous healing has taken place…..a healing that is still continuing.  I have very little energy during the days, and still spend much of the day in bed with my eyes closed, too exhausted to do anything else, but when I’m up, everything moves normally!!  That’s got to be good, no?

I experienced a major decongestion phase during the fast, beginning around day 35… the symptoms nor process were fun, but I can breathe better than I have in years.  My ears, lungs, sinuses, and surely my entire body, has rid itself of lots of gunk, and good riddance.  I like to think that my brain was covered with this gobbly gook and couldn’t function properly (because that’s exactly what felt like it was decongesting).  With that thought in mind, I now dedicate this theme song to Lee, who lovingly listened to every sorted cleansing story of mine during our tropical evening sunsets- Ween , Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain.

I have returned to Guanajuato, back from my very pleasant and incredibly supportive beach retreat on the Mexican coast (Present Moment Retreat) …and I am constantly having to remind myself (now back in the ‘real world’) that my healing process is still in full swing, and that my program continues.  The wellness staff (and all of the staff!) at Present Moment was so wonderful and talented, and through them I have learned and been re-inspired towards many healing modalities.  So these days I am resting, eating well, and still drinking lots of juice, but also doing Healing Qigung, Yoga Nidras, Yoga movement, and a meditation practice everyday….working from the inside out.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling a little impatient, lying around all day.  But all this time inside my mind has been a crucial and fascinating part of my healing journey, and will continue to be, as I integrate my inner learning into every moment and action of the day.  I have been re-reading The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (this time in Spanish!) and have been re-reminded of The Work of Byron Katie…both extraordinary teachings for being present in the here and now, and ending resistance to reality or ‘what is’.  I have been busy during all this bed time, watching my thoughts and emotions and reactions like a movie, realizing how crazy (and how unhealthy!!) they really are, and then kindly un-doing them, un-attaching to them, and slowly un-identifying with all of it.

There is nothing like illness to kick you into the present moment, making the past and certainly the future irrelevant.  But also there is nothing like illness to make you want to run from the present, the pain, the boredom, the reality of the life you find yourself living and towards towards the refuge of hope, dreams, memories and stories.  But I have chosen to dwell in the present now, instead of separating from it in dislike and fear. I will take it as it comes, without calling it good or bad, happy or frustrating…and love it all.  I will again remain deeply rooted inside my body, instead of separated, distracted, and frustrated with it for what it can’t do….because if I’m not here living my life, and dwelling inside my skin, then who is?

With this deep dwelling, more than juice or cleansing or the moving of Qi, I will infuse my body and my heart again with the spirit of life.  I will be living fully, vibrantly I dare say.  And then, the outcome ceases to matter.  (Though, admittedly, I would still love to be hiking in the mountains by my 40th birthday….enlightened or not.  Call me stubborn.)

So the journey continues.  And I am walking this path, dammit, with all my heart, and both feet on the ground.

To all of you who walk beside me….you have my deepest gratitude and love.

With only 5 times out of the house in the last 33 days….I’ve gotten reinvigorated to do everything I can to try to HEAL MYSELF.  I have spent years searching for a diagnosis, a treatment, a healing regiment, a long ago stifled emotion lurking like sludge in my cells.  But I’ve not found anything that really works.  The doctors have said to stop looking, and the things not-yet-tried or tested are becoming more and more obscure.  But I’m clearly not broken….because when I feel good, I can do anything.  So my body must have the ability to be well.  And I’m going to give it every chance I can, to return to wellness, all the time.  Even though I’ve meditated, had crazy breathwork sessions, fasted, cleansed, washed out my gut, done yoga, juiced, bounced, massaged, said affirmations 50 times a day,  journaled, screamed from mountaintops, and excavated emotions from my depths….all to no avail….I haven’t done them all at once, for as long as it takes.

Inspired by Dr. Shulze, and his emphatic “There are no Incurable Diseases”, I’m throwing everything at it.  It doesn’t matter what “it” is.  I just want “it” to go away.  So I must give my body everything it needs to heal, every hour of the day.

I’m currently taking cayenne, eating raw garlic, doing a hot/cold shower hydrotherapy twice a day, meditating, deep-breathing, enemas, massage, upper cervical, skin brushing, doing no less than one hour of exercise/yoga (even if it has to be done from bed, I move), and am eating only fruits, vegetables, and sprouted legumes and nuts.  I will go on to raw food in a week.  I will be on full juice in two weeks, and will do a 45 day juice flush.  Tons of fresh live nutrition, in juice form….to give my body enough of what it needs to repair, without the work of digestion.  I will use cleansing herbs for bowel, liver, kidney (Dr. Shultz Incurables Program); do emotion and belief garbage removal; and eliminate everything toxic to me (from alcohol to relationships to old stuff)- replacing them with live  whole food, laughter, love, and self nurturing.

I believe this can work.  It certainly can’t hurt.  And it’s one of the best chances I have.  Because even if some doctor somewhere can pinpoint the chemical imbalance occuring in my mitochondria or something of that sort…..could we fix it any other way?  Wouldn’t this be the best route to health regardless?  It would.  It is.  Wish me luck.

There are three things, historically, that have turned my symptoms around.  Certinly not always, but they have.  Bourbon, Sex, and Meditation.  Not bad for a treatment regimen, is it?

For some reason I had fallen off the meditation wagon these last couple years, only doing it sporadically….but I jumped back on a couple weeks ago, and am meditating every day (It’s far less complicated than sex or bourbon!).  I have seen my symptoms even out a couple times, and turn around once.  I’ve been reminded too, how much my upper cervical area cracks and pops loudly while I’m meditating, very interesting!

I have been doing some research to find the connections in the bodies chemical changes caused by – alcohol, sex, and meditation.  All cause elevated levels of dopamine, and Gaba.  Both neurotransmitters can have an effect on motor function, (dopamine is tied to Parkinson’s, Dystonia, and the like). Further investigation into digestion and it’s effects on those same chemicals (since I have a strong tendency to ‘crash’ after eating), shows them both playing a significant roll in the gut.  Also in mitochondrial function.  Hmmm…

…. the search continues.