People often ask me why I “went Raw”. It’s not always easy to explain, especially to strangers. But my motivation was too powerful for me to shrug off the question… I have to tell my story, because somewhere out there is another woman struggling just like I once did, and searching for hope…
You see, on the outside, I’ve always looked perfectly healthy. I’m a slim young woman, and even at my heaviest weight still lie on the “Average” barometer for American females. My skin was never terrible, for though I had periods of my life where acne was a plague, it was usually never for more than a few days or weeks at a time. I’ve always been high energy, and had my birthmum not schooled me at Home, I likely would’ve been just another victim of Ritalin before I hit middle school. Simply put, I didn’t go Raw for any of the more obvious reasons so many choose this path.
(I did suffer from frequent Migraines and suspected Fibromyalgia — their story is told here.)
I had other, more powerful personal impetus to go Raw and stay Raw: to change my Life, and take control of my internal Health.
I would like now to share with you one as yet “untold story”, and my #1 reason for going Raw.
WARNING: This story does not have a Happy Ending… yet.
Since I was a young teenager I have suffered from a painful, debilitating condition called Endometriosis. Do a Google search and you’ll find the Mayo Clinic’s site, labeling Endometriosis as incurable, but potentially treatable. Pain medications, hormone therapy, ovarian-production and aromatase-inhibitors are a handful of the potential treatments. As with my birthmum, desperate pain-plagued women often resort to surgery to “cure” themselves.
In my teens, I didn’t realize that the excruciating pain that would cripple me for days on end was the Endo… I just thought I was having “painful cycles”. At 19, I didn’t understand why I bled for 4 months without respite, and why my extremely weakened-body began to shut down from the stress and pain. I slipped into a depression, lost my Job, dropped out of School, and spent weeks lying in bed, too weak to move, at my birthmum’s home.
In my early twenties, I didn’t think the miscarriage(s) I experienced had anything to do with my Body – I believed it was related to my then-boyfriend’s past fertility issues. And I blamed myself for being, according to myself, “too weak to support a healthy fetus.”
And in October 2008, as I rose from the breakfast table and suddenly found my legs collapsing beneath me in a flood of agony, I didn’t know why I was again, for the hundredth time, experiencing this strange, horrifying pain. As my terrified partner rushed me to the Emergency Room, nothing but survival filled my mind. I wanted to be Free of this pain, but then and there, I truly just wanted to have my Life back.
So there I was, hunched over in a wheelchair in the middle of a crowded ER, too weak to stand, clutching my shrieking, pain-seared abdomen in both hands, my instantly-bloodshot eyes causing the Nurses to go into a flurry of panic. And all the while, I had just one thought: “I never want to be here again.”
Ten hours later, my Body overwhelmed with pain from the endless barrage of tests, examinations, and internal probes the latest Doctor on duty had prescribed, I found myself face-to-face with a petite female Doctor.
She introduced herself as the chief of Staff and smiled at me wanly. She’d just come on duty – the tenth Doctor I’d faced that day – but someone had already filled her in on the mystery woman in Room 111. I knew I had frustrated the other Doctors: the level of pain I’d been experiencing was unnatural for any of the usual suspects. But this Doctor was in no way puzzled. I could tell she knew what was wrong, and I could tell I didn’t want to hear it.
“We’ve checked you for everything we know of… you don’t have ovarian cysts, you’re not bleeding internally…” she said, proceeding to list off all the possible female defects and diseases.
Finally, she finished the list, looked up at me and said, “That’s why we’re 99% sure you have advanced Endometriosis. I’m sorry.”
The way she looked, you would’ve thought she was delivering a death sentence.
I thanked her. My partner took me home. The pain eventually resided, and I went back to my normal life routine and for awhile, forgot the whole incident had ever occurred.
Three months later, I was back in the ER.
For the next 18 months, this became the only pattern in my otherwise unpredictable life. Every few months, something would trigger the Endometriosis to flare up like a raging demon inside my abdomen and take over my life for several days. Over the counter drugs did little to nothing to reduce the pain, and I could neither afford medical insurance nor qualify for the coverage I would have needed to get treatments (pre-existing conditions, anyone?).
Plus, I was simply confused: The symptoms were never the same one episode to the next. I would be seized with incredible pain in one or another part of my reproductive organs and abdominal region, sometimes out of the blue, sometimes in relation to my monthly cycle. Once, my partner was convinced my appendix had ruptured, another time I could barely breathe from the restriction in my chest.
Most of the time, I would keep silent: I didn’t want my Classmates thinking I was a freak, so I would hide out in the ladies room on Campus crying in the stalls rather than telling anyone what I was experiencing. Other times, it was too much to hide. I would black out, or my legs would simply cave under me. Fortunately for my careful facade, this never happened in Public. My secret was safe.
If I ever brought up the Endo in conversation, it was usually to blow it off with a laugh. “Yeah, puts me in the hospital sometime, but I don’t really care, you know — that’s Life!”
Denial was my ally, my best friend. If I pretended like it didn’t exist, maybe it would go away. I had not yet learned that denial is NOT the same thing as practicing the law of attraction for healing… one – Healing – requires acceptance prior to release, the other – Denial – is merely dishonesty to yourself.
In August 2009, I realized a life-long dream of earning admittance into a legitimate Voice Major Program. I was on-route to becoming a true, professional Opera singer. I was ecstatic, thrilled to be seeing my dreams finally take shape after years of undecided fluctuation and surrender to the naysayers.
I was also hospitalized twice. Each time, the mounting medical bills would increase my stress burden and shave off a layer of my external happiness. I had not yet realized that my healing lay within me (literally) and that my happiness, too, could be found inside my damaged, pain-wracked self.
Then, in September 2009, I sat down with my Voice Coach after a depressing opening to the new semester. It was my first term in the Opera Programme and I had never felt so physically discouraged. Every time I became stressed out or upset over something in life, the Endometriosis would flare up. And every time the Endometriosis flared up, I would lose ten days of singing productivity to the relentless pain. In addition, my vocal chords would become inflamed and swollen – I couldn’t sing properly even if I wanted to, then.
I was becoming deeply depressed again, and my prevailing thought was that if I did not find a way to cure my Life of this painful plague, I would never have the Life I had worked so hard to create for so many years…
Then came the final blow. My voice coach, a healthy, handsome young Baritone with a broad and beautiful horizon of successful singing awaiting him, called me aside during a lesson one day. He smiled down at me with the trademark Virgo calm – the kind of calm that hides a storm. Then, through that forced placidity, he told me plainly that with all my health problems, it would be difficult…maybe even impossible… for me to have a real career as a Professional Singer.
Damn that Virgo smile, was all I could think at the time. His message didn’t sink in until later that night. When it hit me, I cried for hours.
A month later, I was back in the ER… mysterious symptoms had prompted my loving Partner to drag me there against my will at 2am. As he carried me out to the car an hour later, I gnawed on my fist to stem the tears. “I’m done,” I whispered into his ears, and he flashed me a questioning glance.
“I’m done with this PAIN, I’m done with DOCTORS, I am DONE!” I repeated, louder, as if shouting would firm up my resolve.
My Partner’s face relaxed. Relief.
“Good,” he whispered back, dumping me gently into the passenger seat of the Rover.
That night, I lay awake, ignoring the pain and thinking intently to myself. I wanted my Life back. No, that wasn’t right, either. I didn’t want the old Life back because it had been pretty miserable much of the time. I wanted a NEW Life, an Endometriosis-free Life. My resolution grew with each empowering determination. I would CREATE a New Life for myself. I would find a way to cure myself of the incurable. Forget man-made medications, puzzled Doctors scratching their heads and the bleak outlook of surgery (which would mean I could never have children). I would find a natural way to heal my Life.
For years, I had inflicted mental limitations on myself, believing that while there were many things a woman could change, the internal workings of her damaged reproductive system was not one of those things. Even when I discovered Raw foods in 2006, I allowed the limited mindsets of others to become my own mindset and repeatedly failed to stay on an all-raw and living foods diet long enough to find out if I could heal all my health issues.
But the thunderclap ending of 2009 was my wake-up call. I was done with Hospitals, done with Hopelessness, done with the standard American way of dealing with Health issues.
I would take my Life in my hands, and I would take responsibility for my future. I could heal my Life, I could heal my Body, and I could cleanse my Soul. I was ready.
On October 10, 2009, I began a 90-day 100% Raw and Living Foods challenge. In keeping with the general medical and holistic healing opinion that a primarily-vegan diet rich in whole, fresh foods was the healthiest way to “manage Endometriosis” I also recognized finally the message my own Body had been sending for years.
“You can heal yourself – but you need the tools to do it. Raw is a tool. Use it.”
It’s January, 2010. A new decade has begun. For me, this decade is (and is destined to be) a ten-year span of healing, hope, and extraordinary growth in every area of my Life. It’s also the decade in which I will prove every Medical Expert in the woman’s health industry who believes that Endometriosis is incurable flat out wrong.
My daily thoughts are focused, my daily choices are in-tune: I am curing the incurable. I am Healed, I am Whole.
It’s Day #100. Join me on my journey. Only those things which work for the Good, wait on the path ahead.
Article Contents © Dauntless Diva 2010 Permission required for reproduction of the contents of this article in part or whole. Contact the Diva at dauntlessdiva@gmail.com for permission to reprint.
I don’t enjoy sweaty, smelly gyms, so I do Yoga at home every evening. This is a new development! I avoided exercise like the plague until recently…. now, my life is richly enhanced by daily MOVEMENT.
January 18, 2010
Curing the Incurable: One Woman’s Battle to End Endometriosis
People often ask me why I “went Raw”. It’s not always easy to explain, especially to strangers. But my motivation was too powerful for me to shrug off the question… I have to tell my story, because somewhere out there is another woman struggling just like I once did, and searching for hope…
You see, on the outside, I’ve always looked perfectly healthy. I’m a slim young woman, and even at my heaviest weight still lie on the “Average” barometer for American females. My skin was never terrible, for though I had periods of my life where acne was a plague, it was usually never for more than a few days or weeks at a time. I’ve always been high energy, and had my birthmum not schooled me at Home, I likely would’ve been just another victim of Ritalin before I hit middle school. Simply put, I didn’t go Raw for any of the more obvious reasons so many choose this path.
(I did suffer from frequent Migraines and suspected Fibromyalgia — their story is told here.)
I had other, more powerful personal impetus to go Raw and stay Raw: to change my Life, and take control of my internal Health.
I would like now to share with you one as yet “untold story”, and my #1 reason for going Raw.
WARNING: This story does not have a Happy Ending… yet.
Since I was a young teenager I have suffered from a painful, debilitating condition called Endometriosis. Do a Google search and you’ll find the Mayo Clinic’s site, labeling Endometriosis as incurable, but potentially treatable. Pain medications, hormone therapy, ovarian-production and aromatase-inhibitors are a handful of the potential treatments. As with my birthmum, desperate pain-plagued women often resort to surgery to “cure” themselves.
In my teens, I didn’t realize that the excruciating pain that would cripple me for days on end was the Endo… I just thought I was having “painful cycles”. At 19, I didn’t understand why I bled for 4 months without respite, and why my extremely weakened-body began to shut down from the stress and pain. I slipped into a depression, lost my Job, dropped out of School, and spent weeks lying in bed, too weak to move, at my birthmum’s home.
In my early twenties, I didn’t think the miscarriage(s) I experienced had anything to do with my Body – I believed it was related to my then-boyfriend’s past fertility issues. And I blamed myself for being, according to myself, “too weak to support a healthy fetus.”
And in October 2008, as I rose from the breakfast table and suddenly found my legs collapsing beneath me in a flood of agony, I didn’t know why I was again, for the hundredth time, experiencing this strange, horrifying pain. As my terrified partner rushed me to the Emergency Room, nothing but survival filled my mind. I wanted to be Free of this pain, but then and there, I truly just wanted to have my Life back.
So there I was, hunched over in a wheelchair in the middle of a crowded ER, too weak to stand, clutching my shrieking, pain-seared abdomen in both hands, my instantly-bloodshot eyes causing the Nurses to go into a flurry of panic. And all the while, I had just one thought: “I never want to be here again.”
Ten hours later, my Body overwhelmed with pain from the endless barrage of tests, examinations, and internal probes the latest Doctor on duty had prescribed, I found myself face-to-face with a petite female Doctor.
She introduced herself as the chief of Staff and smiled at me wanly. She’d just come on duty – the tenth Doctor I’d faced that day – but someone had already filled her in on the mystery woman in Room 111. I knew I had frustrated the other Doctors: the level of pain I’d been experiencing was unnatural for any of the usual suspects. But this Doctor was in no way puzzled. I could tell she knew what was wrong, and I could tell I didn’t want to hear it.
“We’ve checked you for everything we know of… you don’t have ovarian cysts, you’re not bleeding internally…” she said, proceeding to list off all the possible female defects and diseases.
Finally, she finished the list, looked up at me and said, “That’s why we’re 99% sure you have advanced Endometriosis. I’m sorry.”
The way she looked, you would’ve thought she was delivering a death sentence.
I thanked her. My partner took me home. The pain eventually resided, and I went back to my normal life routine and for awhile, forgot the whole incident had ever occurred.
Three months later, I was back in the ER.
For the next 18 months, this became the only pattern in my otherwise unpredictable life. Every few months, something would trigger the Endometriosis to flare up like a raging demon inside my abdomen and take over my life for several days. Over the counter drugs did little to nothing to reduce the pain, and I could neither afford medical insurance nor qualify for the coverage I would have needed to get treatments (pre-existing conditions, anyone?).
Plus, I was simply confused: The symptoms were never the same one episode to the next. I would be seized with incredible pain in one or another part of my reproductive organs and abdominal region, sometimes out of the blue, sometimes in relation to my monthly cycle. Once, my partner was convinced my appendix had ruptured, another time I could barely breathe from the restriction in my chest.
Most of the time, I would keep silent: I didn’t want my Classmates thinking I was a freak, so I would hide out in the ladies room on Campus crying in the stalls rather than telling anyone what I was experiencing. Other times, it was too much to hide. I would black out, or my legs would simply cave under me. Fortunately for my careful facade, this never happened in Public. My secret was safe.
If I ever brought up the Endo in conversation, it was usually to blow it off with a laugh. “Yeah, puts me in the hospital sometime, but I don’t really care, you know — that’s Life!”
Denial was my ally, my best friend. If I pretended like it didn’t exist, maybe it would go away. I had not yet learned that denial is NOT the same thing as practicing the law of attraction for healing… one – Healing – requires acceptance prior to release, the other – Denial – is merely dishonesty to yourself.
In August 2009, I realized a life-long dream of earning admittance into a legitimate Voice Major Program. I was on-route to becoming a true, professional Opera singer. I was ecstatic, thrilled to be seeing my dreams finally take shape after years of undecided fluctuation and surrender to the naysayers.
I was also hospitalized twice. Each time, the mounting medical bills would increase my stress burden and shave off a layer of my external happiness. I had not yet realized that my healing lay within me (literally) and that my happiness, too, could be found inside my damaged, pain-wracked self.
Then, in September 2009, I sat down with my Voice Coach after a depressing opening to the new semester. It was my first term in the Opera Programme and I had never felt so physically discouraged. Every time I became stressed out or upset over something in life, the Endometriosis would flare up. And every time the Endometriosis flared up, I would lose ten days of singing productivity to the relentless pain. In addition, my vocal chords would become inflamed and swollen – I couldn’t sing properly even if I wanted to, then.
I was becoming deeply depressed again, and my prevailing thought was that if I did not find a way to cure my Life of this painful plague, I would never have the Life I had worked so hard to create for so many years…
Then came the final blow. My voice coach, a healthy, handsome young Baritone with a broad and beautiful horizon of successful singing awaiting him, called me aside during a lesson one day. He smiled down at me with the trademark Virgo calm – the kind of calm that hides a storm. Then, through that forced placidity, he told me plainly that with all my health problems, it would be difficult…maybe even impossible… for me to have a real career as a Professional Singer.
Damn that Virgo smile, was all I could think at the time. His message didn’t sink in until later that night. When it hit me, I cried for hours.
A month later, I was back in the ER… mysterious symptoms had prompted my loving Partner to drag me there against my will at 2am. As he carried me out to the car an hour later, I gnawed on my fist to stem the tears. “I’m done,” I whispered into his ears, and he flashed me a questioning glance.
“I’m done with this PAIN, I’m done with DOCTORS, I am DONE!” I repeated, louder, as if shouting would firm up my resolve.
My Partner’s face relaxed. Relief.
“Good,” he whispered back, dumping me gently into the passenger seat of the Rover.
That night, I lay awake, ignoring the pain and thinking intently to myself. I wanted my Life back. No, that wasn’t right, either. I didn’t want the old Life back because it had been pretty miserable much of the time. I wanted a NEW Life, an Endometriosis-free Life. My resolution grew with each empowering determination. I would CREATE a New Life for myself. I would find a way to cure myself of the incurable. Forget man-made medications, puzzled Doctors scratching their heads and the bleak outlook of surgery (which would mean I could never have children). I would find a natural way to heal my Life.
For years, I had inflicted mental limitations on myself, believing that while there were many things a woman could change, the internal workings of her damaged reproductive system was not one of those things. Even when I discovered Raw foods in 2006, I allowed the limited mindsets of others to become my own mindset and repeatedly failed to stay on an all-raw and living foods diet long enough to find out if I could heal all my health issues.
But the thunderclap ending of 2009 was my wake-up call. I was done with Hospitals, done with Hopelessness, done with the standard American way of dealing with Health issues.
I would take my Life in my hands, and I would take responsibility for my future. I could heal my Life, I could heal my Body, and I could cleanse my Soul. I was ready.
On October 10, 2009, I began a 90-day 100% Raw and Living Foods challenge. In keeping with the general medical and holistic healing opinion that a primarily-vegan diet rich in whole, fresh foods was the healthiest way to “manage Endometriosis” I also recognized finally the message my own Body had been sending for years.
“You can heal yourself – but you need the tools to do it. Raw is a tool. Use it.”
It’s January, 2010. A new decade has begun. For me, this decade is (and is destined to be) a ten-year span of healing, hope, and extraordinary growth in every area of my Life. It’s also the decade in which I will prove every Medical Expert in the woman’s health industry who believes that Endometriosis is incurable flat out wrong.
My daily thoughts are focused, my daily choices are in-tune: I am curing the incurable. I am Healed, I am Whole.
It’s Day #100. Join me on my journey. Only those things which work for the Good, wait on the path ahead.
Article Contents © Dauntless Diva 2010 Permission required for reproduction of the contents of this article in part or whole. Contact the Diva at dauntlessdiva@gmail.com for permission to reprint.
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Filed under Social Commentary, creating success, life lessons, raw food, raw food column
Tags: 90 day raw food challenge, curing disease with raw foods, curing endometriosis with diet, dauntless diva raw foods challenge, endometriosis, healing endometriosis, natural endometriosis treatment, raw foods diet, success on raw foods