You’re doing it wrong….

I spent the past two days out in Buffalo working a Medicare health fair. Over the 48 hours, I interacted with about 500 people and I was able to learn about their individual health journeys. These were men and women either already retired or at least 65, and many managing multiple chronic health conditions. I write tonight specifically regarding one woman. Her story literally brought me to my knees and it deserves to be honored through sharing it.

This woman and her husband cautiously approached me to inquire about what I was representing. She spoke of trying to “eat better and learn more about nutrition.” Her husband was less than enthused to be accompanying her, and he wasn’t afraid to show his contempt. She began explaining of how she doesn’t have any diseases like diabetes (her words), but rather was diagnosed with “ADEM”. The second my brain registered what she had spoken, my eyes immediately welled with tears of empathy. She immediately recognized that I knew what she was speaking of and had an immediate sigh of relief. And I knew why.

You see, “ADEM” is otherwise known as Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis. This is considered to be an “autoimmune disorder”, to which of course there is “no known cause”. <insert choke here> I want to attach the web md definition of ADEM and what “could” trigger ADEM.

As much comfort she may have received by my knowledge of her very “unknown” condition, her eyes welled with tears as she continued to tell me her journey. She went into detail of the agonizing nerve pain she suffers, how certain scents can trigger excruciating pain, how she has been dismissed by 2 physicians because after their multiple attempts at prescribing medications had failed, they wiped their hands clean. She spoke of how her adult children and husband criticize her and tell he that “she looks fine to them” so she can’t really be affected by smell. She spoke of how she can barely stand to be touched the pain is so excruciating.

I stood and listened as my stomach dropped, my heart ached and my eyes welled with tears of empathy and sadness. Her pain was evident on a visceral level. All whilst sharing, she kept attempting to pull her husband over to prove that she wasn’t crazy and that I knew what she was talking about. She excused herself from me for a few minutes and I followed suit.

I hustled myself to the bathroom, locked the door and dropped to my knees and began sobbing. I am feeling the ugly cry set in as I type. How are people suffering and we are just idly standing by? It shouldn’t be this way. WE ARE DOING IT WRONG. We are setting people up for failure and then mocking them when they fail.

ADEM is triggered by vaccines. It’s not rare, it’s just rarely acknowledged. My new friend ended up circling back to me and proceeded to continue of how and when she was diagnosed.

Guess what? It turns out that it all started after she received a flu vaccine. She ended up with the ADEM diagnosis after multiple MS tests were ruled out. Not once did she speak of the vaccine being a possible trigger, and even though every single cell in my body wanted to scream it out at the top of my lungs, I didn’t. Instead, I chose to listen to her. I chose to acknowledge her pain, loneliness and affirm her intuition to learn more about controlling inflammation though nutrition. This woman needed empowerment not lecturing. She needed to feel acknowledged and not dismissed. I extended my cell phone to her and asked her to please reach out to me as I have extensive resources to help support her and networks to tap into. I wanted to throw everything I could at her to help her feel like she could manage this. It crushed me.

She asked me if she could give me a hug and we embraced in the middle of the fair with even a few tears of relief amongst both of us. It was a human connection that we all fundamentally seek and need, between strangers. I will continually send out my energy to her through prayers that we connect again. Meeting this woman and hearing her story shifted me once again to never stop empowering people through truth.

This woman and the numerous other people that I was privileged to speak to over the past two days are EXACTLY why I divorced myself from the Pharma world. There are only so many medications or band aids that can be prescribed. Until we acknowledge and address our health from the root causes, and educate ourselves around them, we will always be setting ourselves up to fail.

I am finally on the “right side” of life that serves my soul. I grow every time I get to see someone become empowered and find their way to a “new normal”. It’s synergy at it’s finest, and I will forever dwell in that state of growth.

“Suffering should make us angry. This type of anger moves us toward a wrathful compassion to take action to end suffering.” – Dalai Lama

So much love and respect.

Xo -e