Sandy’s Healing Journey
Imagine…
(the memory is painful for me)
Picture a middle aged woman who feels and “acts” like a 20-year-old, and thrives on keeping up with her extremely active 9-year-old daughter. I was capable of everything and life was good, moving along in a wonderful way.
Then the “perfect storm” happened! It started with a sacroiliac joint sports injury at the beginning of menopause with my hormones all wacky. This was topped off with numerous medical professionals misdiagnosing and advising me to keep exercising and “work through it.” And so I did–no pain, no gain, right? Wrong! The result–a torn gluteal muscle and a “twisted” pelvis with chronic sacroiliac joint instability and unrelenting pain. (My physical therapist, who identified the problem after my injury had seriously progressed, stated that my twisted pelvis was as bad as she sees in someone who had been in a car accident.)
Can You Relate?
(to some extent)
My attempts to get better led to countless compensation injuries and re-injuries to more body parts than I can count–yes a “train wreck!” Practically overnight, I went from a healthy, active and athletic woman running through Disneyland getting “fast passes” for my family to needing help to walk 15 feet to the bathroom. I lost all ability to sit, stand, ride in the car, work or take care of my family. The pain was devastating.
My physical injuries and limitations led me down a rabbit hole of fear, worry & isolation, being “housebound” along with a host of ailments that surfaced along the way. It took every ounce of energy I could rally to “hide” how badly I was hurting so I avoided being around people. I was always strong, there for others to lean on and here I was unable to take care of myself, let alone be an active participant in life. For years, I was down so low I felt like I was living in “quick sand” and would lay awake at night wondering how I could ever come back from the mess I found myself in.
Fast Forward
(through 10 years)
25 plus medical practitioners/specialists, more injections and tests than I care to recall, noticing my annual blood work levels going south toward “disease” from a state of living in “fight or flight” with chronic pain for so long, plenty of medications, including prescriptions for pain, anxiety and depression, loss of “life function” and oftentimes “loss of hope.”
This was fueled by medical professionals informing me that “A year from now you won’t be able to do anything more (physically) than you are right now…you need to see a surgeon!” or “Has anyone given you the pain talk?” or “There’s nothing more I can do for you!” and of course my favorite, “You need to learn how to live with chronic pain because you’ll have it for the rest of your life!”
At some point, I realized that in order for me to reduce the pain & heal I needed to take charge of my health and stop viewing it as a black or white, win or lose “battle” that keeps me in “struggle.” I needed to divorce myself from the destructive negativity I was hearing so I could jump into the “gray” and find my own way. Out of necessity, I began investing brief windows of time that eventually turned into hours (adding up to years) researching to find the “root cause(s)” of my pain and health crisis, instead of aimlessly “treating symptoms.”
And so, I became a health coach & guide in my own healing journey (and eventually helping others as a certified functional medicine practitioner) because I realized no one would take this on with the passion to heal that I had and no one could do it better! My years in the “School of Hard Knocks” taught me to listen to my body and give it all the nutrition & nurturing it needs to heal. Oh, and most importantly, as Winston Churchill said, “Never, never, never give up!”
I’ve Been Blessed
(with an extremely brilliant and
beautiful daughter)
who happens to have dyslexia. Our endless search together to find the best tools to facilitate and compliment Ali’s ideal learning style ended up helping me find my own personal pathways to healing. With Ali, I noticed early on that she needed different learning methods than those offered in traditional schools. We had her tested and I used those results to help guide me in my search for optimal tools to teach her how to read. This took lots and lots of “trial & error” to find the best fit for her.
I decided to put my writing, teaching and coaching career on hold to home school her full time as I knew the public schools didn’t have the time or resources to teach to her individual needs. What made the decision to put my career on hold a “no brainer” was that Ali wouldn’t even qualify for help unless she was two years behind in school. There was no way I would let that happen–not on my watch! (Does this sound frighteningly similar to the current conventional medical system approach–wait for “disease” to happen, then manage it?)
So, I threw myself into researching what might work best for Ali. We attempted and worked through nearly 20 different programs with a variety of learning strategies. We ultimately chose a multi-sensory Orton-Gillingham approach that I learned in order to teach her. We used “baby steps” as we worked through each and every module multiple times over the course of many years. Ali is now in college currently pursuing a Bachelors/Masters degree and I’m pleased to announce she’s maintaining a 3.5 GPA–with the right approach and tools, consistent effort does indeed pay off!
My Healing Mentors
(born out of struggle, need & passion)
I realized Ali’s early struggles with learning and my later struggles with healing mirrored each other. Ali’s success was the catalyst that empowered and guided me toward finding a “multifaceted individualized approach” to healing in order to treat my body as a whole and support it from all avenues, such as nutrition, sleep, exercise, immune function, energy production, detoxification and stress reduction.
I began intuitively tuning in to finding tips, tools and professionals to mentor me toward optimizing my health and healing, all along taking “baby steps” to gain back strength and life function. Through all my ups and downs over the years, getting my hopes up only to experience what seemed like infinite setbacks, re-injuring myself and having to “start over” at square one, a voice in the back of my mind kept saying, “This is happening for a reason.”
Deep inside I knew that eventually, when I was out of the woods, I would take all the knowledge and experience I accumulated from the challenges of living with debilitating chronic pain and declining health and reach out to help others. I’m deeply passionate about the mission to heal chronic pain and disease.
There are so many people with a similar story, people living with pain, disease & loss of life and function–perhaps you or someone you love–and it shouldn’t take anyone ten years to find the right help. Help is available now. Finding genuine professionals who think outside the box, with tips and tools to get to the “root causes” is critical to reversing pain & disease and optimizing health. This is why My Healing Mentors, our FREE 3 minute video program was born.