I sit here dumbfounded… blinded by tears… overwhelmed by unquantifiable emotions… as I read through my blog top to bottom, reliving my journey of sickness which began in 2016 with my diagnosis of both Lyme Disease and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.
The last two years I have been asked to carry crosses I NEVER thought I could carry.
The last two years I have fought harder than I ever thought I could fight.
The last two years I have been shown love and mercy from a God who is ever more loving and merciful than the same God I knew before I got sick.
I have had dozens of people reach out to me with their own stories, asking and begging and pleading for both help and HOPE in their own journeys. I told myself at the beginning of all this that if going public helped even just ONE soul, then my own, personal exposure and vulnerability would all have been worth it in the end. Thank you, Jesus! Praise you, Jesus!
“WHO AM I, that the lord of all the earth
Would care to know my name
Would care to feel my hurt?
Who am I, that the bright and morning star
Would choose to light the way
For my ever wandering heart?
Not because of who I am
But because of what you’ve done
Not because of what I’ve done
But because of who you are
I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still you hear me when I’m calling
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling
And you’ve told me who I am
I am yours.” Casting Crowns
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mBcqria2wmg
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DjNZf878ISQ
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DoqbKyeKOBI
Casting Crowns IS MY BAND!! These songs encompasses the immense gratitude and humility I feel now looking back at the end of a very long journey. I was on four different antibiotics (Plaquenil, Mepron, Doxycycline/Minocycline, and Azithromycin) for TEN MONTHS (June 2017 – February 2018). As many of you may remember, my husband was going through unemployment during my illness from January 2017 through November 2017 (ten months of unemployment for a family of 10). In November 2017 (three months before I stopped antibiotics even), he was FINALLY able to find full-time employment… traveling 5 days a week. This was NOT my prayer for myself (let’s just be honest… selfishly), for my husband, for my marriage, or for my family. During my months of sickness and laying in bed, I prayed a 54-Day Rosary Novena *specifically* for the intention of “my husband’s re-employment with proximity to home.” I still cannot, to this day, tell you what God‘s plan was in this traveling position of reemployment. My husband traveled nearly 5 days a week for 13 months. I did the solo-parenting, mom-of-eight gig… all the while still recovering and rebuilding both my life and my health.
Here is what I have done since that time (I think this is about where I left off from my last blog post!):
September 2017 — I traveled with my husband to DC to find a house as we thought we would be relocating there. Turns out he didn’t get the job.
November 2017 — Hubby went back to work for a different company traveling nearly 5 days every week (as mentioned above). I incorporated the Wellness Pro (tens unit machine) into my healing program (it’s about a three hour a week commitment). Here’s a link to the science behind why I chose to use it! It has to be purchased through an independent distributor, and I’ve got a name of a great one if anyone would ever be interested in using this protocol, too! Drop me a comment if interested!
https://www.finallypainfreetx.com/what-it-is-what-it-does/
January 2018 — I launched a small business! This product (LipSense) is the ONE thing that kept me feeling beautiful during all my months of sickness and laying in bed! If I got up and had assistance showering and put on this long-lasting (up to 18-hour), liquid lipstick every day – – I felt like $1,000,000. I bought a tube from a friend to help her small business, and the rest is history! It was the worst of times, and this was all I could do – – yet it was enough! Check out my business as a Senegence Distributor at:
Facebook.com/pages/beautyfromwithinwithkelly
Facebook.com/groups/beautyfromwithinwithkelly
IG: @beautyfromwithinwithkelly
https://www.instagram.com/beautyfromwithinwithkelly/?hl=en
February 2018 — I stopped antibiotics.
March/April 2018 — I developed BOTH both cystic acne and clostridium difficile on a dime. Didn’t know I was dealing with clostridium difficile until it was diagnosed in October (8 months later). Despite all of the precautions I took using Nyststin while taking antibiotics and not eating one bite of sugar, C. Diff still happened. Nonetheless, I would STILL 100% chart the same course through Lyme. I would truly do it all over again. I also switched to the Ketogenic Ketoflex 12/3 diet at this time per recommendation of my LLMD to keep chronic illness at bay. Here’s the scoop on THAT:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_5a43fba7e4b0df0de8b0681a/amp
June 2018 — we moved. AGAIN. For the 10th time in 16 years. We decided we were no longer enslaved to our property or to our acreage or to our “lifestyle” (our dream), so we downsized.
Summer 2018 — I was able to successfully unpack our family while simultaneously supporting two of our sons through traveling baseball as a solo-parent. Our youngest, who was 1 at the time, fell in our downstairs ceramic tile bathroom and impacted three of his baby teeth — so I dealt with that, too. Our second daughter who is sensitive and empathic also was broken by this last move and after some time in counseling it was presented to us that our moves had caused trauma for her. In the meantime, while I was still solo-parenting, I was dealing with a child with depression, anxiety, and oppositional defiant disorder (not to mention 7 other children).
Fall 2018 — After nearly a year of solo-parenting, or 10th move, and losing our nanny to go back to college – – my thyroid went completely out of whack again. Between the months of September through December I was dealing with a horrible flood of hypothyroid symptoms that came flooding back in and crushing me with an oppressive wait. My hair started thinning. I was fatigued and needed to sleep though I did not have the time. I was drinking 3 to 4 cups of coffee a day just to survive. It was NOT a good quarter of 2018. I also developed another random post-Lyme symptom that emerged called trigeminal neuralgia. By far one of the worst symptoms that I have dealt with in the course of this disease. It still continues to come and go depending on stress/immunosuppression.
December 2018 — My husband landed a local job and stopped traveling as much (though he still intermittently travels). This was a much better paradigm for our family.
January 2019 — While getting increasingly frustrated at the gym due to the same old routine and to my body now recognizing running as inflammatory post-Lyme Disease, I decided to shake it up a bit and push myself out of my comfort zone and try something new! I got a flyer in the mail for a local CrossFit gym, so decided to give it a whirl! It was the missing link for my mental wellness, physical wellness, and really for the post-Lyme issues I was having to subside! I was HOOKED!
I became diligent with my CrossFit routine. I started at three days a week because I wanted to see how my body would tolerate it. I had to be careful to not tip the immune system balance that I had gained during my time on antibiotics and in the months following my course of antibiotics up until the present. I started gaining energy. I started using MyFitnessPal to track my macros. I started drinking the amount of water that I needed to drink to support my fitness level. By the time we took spring break in March 2018 I was up to five days a week. I had gained 5 pounds which had been transferred to muscle from fat. I was eating 2500+ calories a day with my macros being balanced at 40/30/30 with a carbohydrate/fat/protein ratio. I WAS THRIVING!!
Currently — I am basically still operating on that paradigm! CrossFit was truly the missing link for my body in recovering from Lyme. I am up another 5 pounds since then to right around my target weight of 118#. At 5’5,” my BMI is finally over 19! I would ideally like to be somewhere between 120 to 125# so there’s a little bit more room to wiggle. Yes — I spent nearly a year on antibiotics. Yes — I spent another 1/2 year sick with C. Diff and Hashimoto’s, recovering from the antibiotics. Yes — I would TRULY do it all over again!! I still have to watch what I eat very closely – – no inflammatory food and most especially no gluten or dairy. Yes – – I still take a handful of supplements every day to keep my body in tiptop shape… most especially omega-3‘s, probiotics, B vitamins for methylation (the methylated form of B’s even though I do not carry MTHFR), CBD oil (which was a game-changer, too), a multivitamin, a digestive enzyme, Vitamin C, zinc, selenium, vitamin D, Calcium Glucarate (to bind extra estrogen), and a few Byron White tinctures and detox products. Yes — I am STILL a work in progress! Every day I continue to grow and learn. I learn what my body needs. I learn what my soul needs. I learn what my children need individually and collectively. I learn what my husband needs. We are perfectly imperfect beings, and I am learning to rest in God‘s peace and that THAT is OK.
The greatest blessing of having had Lyme disease is that everything I had come to know in my life prior to being sick came crashing down right before my eyes. I had to rebuild my cathedral, and the grace was that I got to decide what that looked like. I had to re-learn how to set boundaries for myself. I had to learn to SAY NO. I had to learn how to practice self-care. I had to learn how to make time for myself every day for my own mental, physical, emotional, and nutritional well-being. THIS IS NOT EASY as a mother of eight children. To God be all the glory. I am so thankful for the process of transformation that lies behind me at this point in my life and for the process of transformation that is still yet to come ❤
Let Us Begin 