A Testimony – How I Refused to Die

Please God, take me. End this suffering. I am done. No more of this. No more of anything. I am done.

Like it was yesterday, I remember the first day I wanted to die, and meant it. The despair, the feeling of being so utterly lost and frustrated that the only way out was to let this moment be the ending. The definite end of my life. It was the first of many days like this, a string of minutes, hours and days where my whole being cried for relief. I was too sick to miss much of my regular life. I was disconnected from the world. I didn`t miss any of it, it seemed too distant.

The family barely came to see me, and when they did, they would sit downstairs in the living room. Friends stopped inviting us to events, and none of them came knocking at our door. From living a life filled with traveling, running my own business, being the center of the party, being the happy, energetic mother, sister, daughter, friend, and wife, I became nothing. From being an athletic high heal badass do-it-all for everybody, I became nothing. Not to them, not to me. That was my truth.

The Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lyme, ulcers and anxiety had me choking on my own life. It was like the outside disappeared. Everything became silent. My phone stopped ringing, and I resided in a bubble of pain and loneliness. Reading on the Internet, praying, crying and raging.

I became my emotions, the anger.

I felt hopeless and helpless.

I questioned everything.

I no longer believed in the medical doctors and their training.

I no longer had any hope of recovery. According to the ones that I had put my faith in, there was nothing that could be done to regain my health. Only a life where medication and pain, deformities and disabilities would reign.

I was on my own.

Dear God, please help me. Show me the way to health, please show me the way. I am ready for complete healing. I am ready.

I wanted to die, I wanted to be released from my earthly expectations and life. I wanted to move on, to set myself free. I felt trapped, and I wanted to fly. I cried for days on end. Cried for my pain, but also for the whole world. I was crying for all of us that were suffering.

And then everything changed.

I died.

Or so it felt.

I realized I had to let go of absolutely everything.

My expectation,

my beliefs,

my truth,

my outlook,

and most of all my Ego.

You see, breaking free from the paradigm that holds us locked in victimhood, dis-ease, fear and suffering will set us free.

To change.

Free to change.

And I did.

I walked the other way, towards life, health, nature, joy, and enthusiasm. I said realized I was not a victim, only the solution.

It was within ME!

It all started with this MRI of my feet coming back with a clear message: They found arthritic changes. This changed everything, and fast. Blood tests were ordered left and right. The nightmare was about to start. In the meantime, my hands were swelling, and my overall health was to the point of me having NO life. I became a full-time sick-person, waiting for test results, sitting outside laboratories and in waiting rooms. Then, they found what they had been looking for.

After having lived for 20 years with ulcers things had been escalating lately.
Fatigue,
Lyme,
anxiety,
insomnia,
irregular heartbeat,
severe nausea,
edema,
constipation,
UTI`S,
full-body-pain,
and rashes;
NOW everything changed.

You have a serious autoimmune condition and will never get well again was the message.

Unaffected, my Doctor looks at me and tells me;

“You will have to be medicated for the rest of your life, and will need more aids to take care of yourself as the years go by,” she continues; “Do NOT worry, we have great surgeons today, and a number of medications we can put you on to delay the deformation of your joints. There are some new drugs that are very promising. You are young, and you need to get on them right away!”

So, the diagnosis was clear. I felt death enter. At this point, I had arthritis in my feet, toes, knees, hips, fingers, elbows, jaw, ankles, heels, wrists, shoulders, and neck. Severe seropositive rheumatoid arthritis. The bloodwork was through the roof, and I was finally declared very sick. To the point where they gave me prednisone IV, chemo drugs, and immune suppressant drugs like Enbrel.

To suppress the severe symptoms. The road to HELL became a reality.

You see, I followed the path of chemicals to the point where I was no longer ME. The inflammation was down on the cost of new symptoms. Desperately seeking to feel better when all my trusted authority would tell me was: “YOU can never get well again. Ever.”

I felt doomed. I WAS doomed.