Health has been a long and frustrating battle for most of my life. My home was always filled with high-intensity emotional chaos from as early as I can remember. I lived in an almost constant state of fight-or-flight. It was before I had even finished primary school that the dead-end Dr's appointments started.
I wasted so many agonizingly pointless energy-zapping trips to so many different Drs and specialist trying to get answers about my chronic-fatigue and the debilitating period pains I suffered each month (yes, I was already menstruating at 10 years old). The Dr didn't even want to hear about the sleep paralysis and terrifying hallucinations, she just laughed it off and said that nightmares are common in children. Then came the never-ending phlegmy throat ("Just gargle with saltwater"...didn't help), dermatitis ("It's just mosquito bites, it'll go away"...no it didn't, it only grew), reflux so bad my voice went permanently hoarse ("Just take proton pump inhibitors"...made it better, then soooo much worse). Once I was finally in my late teens we mentioned my severe depression to my Dr. She said "Too easy! You need Zoloft". This sent me into full blown Borderline Personality Disorder where I genuinely believed that all humans were evil robots and almost took my own life. It then took 10 years after coming off the drug (with no support from the Dr who wanted me to increase my dose even though I told her the drug had put me into the scariest mental space I'd ever been in) for the 'banging head syndrome' to finally disappear. Then came the reoccurring urinary tract infections with no 'positive' test results for bacterial origin, but hey, I was 'treated' over and over and over again with rounds and rounds of strong antibiotics. Then I was told by a Dr that I appear to have endometriosis and that it was unlikely I would ever be able to have children. By this stage, I knew I needed to find help and answers elsewhere, but I didn't have a clue where. By a few good twists of fate my Mum came across a life-changing book called 'Start Where You Are' by American Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chodron. Just when I thought I was 'unfixable' and that I would never find the strength to pull myself out of my hole - this book flipped my perspective 180° and started off the most profound emotional and spiritual growth. Good ol' Mumsie had also started reading the work of Australian lawyer and author David Gillespie about the myths of the Healthy Eating guidelines. Mum told me that if I wanted to get better I needed to cut refined sugar out of my life. ...Despair!
"But I will be miserable without ice cream - what kind of quality of life would that be...without ice cream or milo or maltesers!? Sorry Mum, but there's no way I'd ever do that."
It took about 3 more months and 2 rounds of unbearable urinary tract infections before...."Right! I'm giving up the hard stuff! Don't any of you even try to tempt me with the white powder!" The recovery was honestly not nearly as tough as this previous junkie expected, and I'm proud to say it's been almost 7 years clean. And the UTI's and sleep paralysis ...all completely stopped the moment I quit the white stuff! Shortly after getting married I found myself worrying about the Drs warning that it may take years to fall pregnant if I even could, so we immediately started trying. First go - baby on board! I then met a lady who had multiple surgeries for endometriosis which kept growing back and so had been told there was no chance of her being able to have children. She also tried quitting sugar but had given up on the idea of every having a baby - BAM...she fell pregnant just after saying goodbye to sugar! I was actually so blown away by the power of a simple nutritional change, that I got quite obsessed with learning about nutrition. It was fascinating and empowering. After delving into the subject of 'gut health' I was mortified to think of the number of rounds of antibiotics I had mindlessly taken. I promised myself I would never take another round unless it was a life-threatening situation. I learnt so much and made so many positive lifestyle changes. However eventually my health progress plateaued and I also began to feel overwhelmed by the increasing amount of contradictory information and things on the 'bad list'. I ended up incredibly anxious and in a very unhealthy head space worrying endlessly about how to gain perfection and avoid anything 'bad' happening. It got so stressful and draining that I made the decision to stop striving for perfection and come to terms that I was doing enough. I wasn't content that I had all the answers or that what I was doing was enough to keep me from getting sick, but it was all I could manage and I knew it was counterproductive to spend my life worrying. Living in fear was not sustainable. We then got the opportunity to live over in Belgium for a while for my husband's job. We leapt at the opportunity to travel to as many places as possible which was amazing, but the planning and organizing and the run-around with our 2 year old was thoroughly exhausting and tensions built in our marriage. I felt like I had carried too much of the load since falling pregnant with our son. I was desperately missing 'the tribe' I had never had, and expecting my husband to fill the entire missing roll of 'the village'. Completely broken, I cried to my husband that if I didn't get more support and find a way to lighten my load that I was going to end up in hospital. We also ate poorly in Europe as it was so difficult to find wholesome food on the run which didn't help. With the increased sugar and stress I was struck with my first urinary tract infection in 4 years! The Dr threatened that I would end up with kidney failure unless I took antibiotics. I told him I would prefer to avoid them and that I was hoping to try for a baby within the next couple of months, and requested a urine test first to confirm bacterial infection. He denied me this and prescribed me a type of antibiotics which I looked up before taking when I got home - it was strictly contraindicated within 3 months of trying to conceive. I was furious. I went back, but he was no longer in, I saw another Dr who prescribed me an alternative saying it was crucial that I take them. Anxious little Me took them feeling that perhaps I really would end up with kidney failure if I didn't do what the Dr said to do. Even though I felt like my tank was on empty, I wanted another baby before the gap between my children was too large. I fell pregnant easily again, but problems surfaced before too long. I got strange dimpled and red skin on my breasts - Dr google came up with 'inflammatory breast cancer' one of the most aggressive deadly forms of cancer. After a terrifying period of thinking I may have cancer, and my husband only rolling his eyes and calling me a hypochondriac, it turned out to be a rare hormonal condition which mimics that type of cancer. The stress, distance and resentment grew and grew between my husband and I.
I kept thinking "I am going to get sick. I am going to get so sick. I'm not coping. I'm alone. I am falling apart. I'm getting sick."
At the exact midpoint of my pregnancy I awoke to the most intense breath-taking pain I have ever experienced. I grasped at my bra-line feeling like there must have been a fishing line wrapped so tight around me that it was just about to cut me in half. I couldn't breath. There was nothing I could do to make it ease up. I had not felt a worse pain in my life. I quickly ran to get a glass of water...the cool water ran down into my stomach...
...and suddenly the pain and tightening intensified 10 fold.
I was diagnosed with gallstones and acute pancreatitis at the emergency unit. The Dr went pale with worry looking at my blood results - he said there should ideally be 0u/L of this digestive enzyme leaking out into my bloodstream, but definitely no more than 100u/L. Mine, he said, was at 4000u/L. They transferred me to a larger hospital in case I needed emergency surgery.
They told me they didn't want to have to operate while I was pregnant but that each attack put myself and bub each at a 1 in 5 risk of dying, and that the pancreatitis would get worse with each subsequent attack. It was terrifying. I felt like I was a ticking time bomb.
The surgeons said for now they weren't too worried about my blood levels - they said they see people with levels of 20 000u/L..."If you get to 30 000u/L then you're really in trouble...you'll be in ICU then, or dead! But we need to monitor it because people have died at lower levels than your current results". After 15 hours total waiting in emergency, and then a following 9 hours waiting for a formal ultrasound to be performed, I was finally discharged shaking from sleep deprivation, pancreatitis and complete dehydration as they wouldn't let me drink almost the entire 24 hours (in case I needed surgery and in preparation for the ultrasound) but forgot multiple times to set me up with IV fluids! I had the strongest gut feeling that having the organ removed wasn't the answer, and became desperate to figure out a way to save it. The gallbladder is so important for digestion of all those crucial fat-soluble vitamins, I couldn't believe they were saying it was just an unnecessary body part! I asked if they could surgically remove the stones while I worked on figuring out how to get to the root of the issue to prevent stones forming again. But they just kept telling me the organ was diseased - I didn't believe this for a second. It is just a sack (an important sack, but just a sack never-the-less) that concentrates bile and enzymes - how could it randomly become 'diseased' in isolation!? They had no answers. The trouble I knew starts up stream at the liver, and there had to be a way I could improve the function of my liver and save the poor innocent sack.
I was also planning a homebirth and was so scared these health issues may derail that dream.
The attacks continued and I felt like I had more of a chance to take care of myself and just monitor them at home, but one morning after an attack I noticed some spotting and we rushed to hospital to check Bub was OK. Once again I was left waiting for an incredibly long period of time and told not to drink anything in case of surgery. Once they had finally given me the OK to go home as the baby was fine and the pancreatitis was now settling, I left once again exhausted and completely dehydrated.
Reading up on the treatment for acute pancreatitis during pregnancy I found that "Early fluid therapy is the cornerstone of treatment and is universally recommended - aggressive fluids given through an IV line are essential". This was 2 hospital stays now where absolutely NO fluids were given and instead I was torturously dehydrated - not even safe for a healthy pregnant women let alone one with acute pancreatitis! I really felt that the hospital was not the safest place to recover during each attack. The anxiety was unbearable each time - of not knowing whether I would having a better chance of surviving each attack at home with rest and fluids or going to be 'medical monitored' by a team of nurses and Drs too snowed under to even remember to fit a cannula, while being put under the stress of fluorescent lights, uncomfortable waiting areas, no rest, no updates, and no fluids.
I began acupuncture with an incredibly experienced and wise acupuncturist and the moment I walked in she immediately said we need to work on releasing childhood trauma – I felt like she had read my mind. I had been trying to work out how I was going to tell her that I think it's stuff that happened when I was young that has affected my coping mechanisms and stress levels and health now. She said gallstones is the disease of ‘hardened emotions’. We begun pins for emotional release and she told me to begin putting out there to the universe – my dreams, desires, and aspirations. A new direction.
I knew that I wanted to find THE answer to the health puzzle, and help others struggling with their health issues, because everywhere I went everyone was also sick and many looking for answers. It was an incredibly difficult and scary few months – dealing with and clearing big emotional stuff and going through gallstone attacks and subsequent pancreatitis.
I ended up enduring 22 attacks, and on what was to be the 2nd last one I was sent into a 4 hours fit of vomiting so intense I couldn't call for help or even breathe more than half a gasp here and there. I was finally able to call my mum who came straight over. After her half hour drive she burst in ready to take me to the hospital but I was so tired I couldn't face the thought of the hospital - it was as appealing as going to a noisey strobe-lit nightclub with pancreatitis. I told her I would take a rescue remedy pastille to get the taste out of my mouth and see how I was in 10 minutes before deciding if I really needed to go to hospital. My intuition was screaming to stay home. The blackcurrant flavoured homeopathic lolly worked wonders at removing the ghastly bitter taste of bile from my mouth and my nausea completely disappeared, I felt so much better but just so tired. I had a nap on the couch while mum nervously monitored me.
That night I went to bed so thoroughly exhausted and laughed that it was the night of the new moon - the night I had predicted the baby would be born...I said "yeah right! No baby tonight! I'm not up for it at all!". Then came my first contraction! I lay there so out of my brain tired I didn't think I could possibly find the strength to get up and set up the birthing room and birth a baby tonight! But once I realized the contractions were already quite close together I thought "Come on! We're not going to let some stupid gallstones ruin this opportunity of a lifetime...Let's get up and do this!!!". I hoped into my beautiful warm birth pool and my body's natural endorphins must of kicked in because suddenly I felt relaxed, centered and powerful. My husband and midwives took brilliant care of me and it was like I had never been sick.
I pulled my baby up to my arms just a few hours after the first contraction. It was the most serene empowering homebirth, and my milk came in flowing. And the best bit - I was able to snuggle up in my own bed in a peaceful dark room and get a great sleep to recover from all my body had been through over the past 24 hours. Thank you Universe!!
I was so glad I didn't go to hospital that dreadful morning before, as I am convinced they would have taken one look at me and rushed me off for an emergency Cesarean, probably under a general while also snipping out my gallbladder then remaining separated from bub for hours during recovery. Instead I stayed true to my intuition, and stayed where I felt safest and most able to take care of my wellbeing, and got the natural uninterrupted birth of my dreams with absolutely no medical situations arising. This was so healing in itself. It changed who I am - or really, brought me back to who I am - that true, resilient & resourceful, self within us all. I had a beautiful recovery and we had our fingers crossed that maybe now Bub was out that my hormones may change or settle and the attacks may let up. But when Bub was 5 days old I ended up in hospital with very severe pancreatitis. As I sat there breastfeeding my newborn, a Dr came up and told me to take it easy. He said I wasn’t even going to want to know what my blood results were, then he said “You’re up at 50 000u/L…I don’t even understand how you are alive let alone breastfeeding” (the endurance of mothers hey!). Unfortunately I had to have emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder, but Baby boy happily slept and before I knew it I was able to go home and return to my blissful baby bubble. As I sat with Baby asleep on my chest, sipping tea on the back deck watching the bees in the tulips under the blossoming apple trees, I felt so glad to be alive and free. The ordeal was over. It didn't end the way I had hoped, but considering the circumstances it had gone the best it could have.
The whole thing was such a wake-up call to take better care of myself – emotionally! I knew that the emotional stuff had made me ill and my resolve was strong to work out what the exact physiological mechanism was, and what other factors may have been at play to make me so sick, and how to heal from the very root of the issue. Going through such an ordeal, and trying to stay empowered within a medical system that tried to shut down my desire to heal and save the organ, as well as working with a supportive and inspiring acupuncturist and become part of the most amazing community of strong, educated, empowered homebirthing women - was all so transforming. For the first time since I was child, I began to listen and follow my intuition again. This led me to the truly exception work of an American man named Morley Robbins. I kept seeing the word 'magnesium' everywhere. I followed it, and boy did it bring the goods.
Morley used to be a hospital executive and became so distressed to see how many people were sick and only getting sicker. He conducted study to predict illness rates over the next 20 years and the results were so terrifying that he became determined that he would help solve the question of what was causing this. After solving his own frozen shoulder with the help of a chiropractor and magnesium, he became very interested in magnesium’s role in the human body. He read all the scientific literature he could get his hands on about it, and was sure it was a huge missing piece of the puzzle. He then sat every day for the next 10 years and read all the peer-reviewed scientific literature on the subject of mineral metabolism, and sure enough when you synthesize all the thousands and thousands of studies together, it becomes so incredibly clear that the root cause of basically every health condition/disease/symptom on this planet is an imbalance of just a few key minerals – magnesium, copper and iron are the 3 main players.
Soon after gallbladder removal I was diagnosed with adenomyosis which is endometriosis inside the uterus muscle and was warned it will get unbearably painful when my period returns and that I willl likely need my uterus removed. I braced myself, but felt certain I could avoid this with the information that had just come to light. I devoured Morley’s information – I was completely mind-blown. I finally felt like I had the complete picture. I knew that somehow I had to join his movement. I felt so strongly that I had found my life purpose. But I had absolutely no idea how to make it a reality. I had absolutely no formal medical background and with 2 small children each making about 5 demands per minute, I had no idea how I would find the time to create a way to channel this calling into my life. But I read and read and read at any spare moment I had. And I decided I had to make some sort of a move towards finding a way to work as part of Morley’s team, so I emailed them to see if he provides training and what the prerequisites might be.
They wrote straight back to say that Morley was coming to Australia to conduct training in a few weeks, and that everyone was welcome because any medical background/qualifications were not necessary nor of any particular benefit to this training (as it is basically a case of 'forget everything you think you know about disease'). The training was going to be held near Byron Bay – 12km away from my uncles house. My heart sunk. We had been planning a trip to Byron for over 10 years, and never seemed to manage to make it up there – but we had finally recently actually booked flights and organised to stay with my uncle….10 days too late for the training dates!
I couldn’t believe the situation could be real – what are the chances that I discover a hero who happens to be coming to Australia, right to where I am about to be headed….BUT for the timing to be out by less than 2 weeks!!?? I got very down about it, knowing that there wasn’t really a way to manage it. But as it got closer I felt more and more determined that I had to find a way. Then on the full moon I quickly wrote to the organizer to ask if it was too late to enroll and she said “applications close in 2 hours”, so I went crazy making phone calls but no one could help me out. Finally my husband said that despite the fact he really couldn’t afford to take any time of work at such a hectic time, that he would come with me so I could continue breastfeeding our youngest.
So we drove 9 hours up north overnight and I started the intensive training for 3 very long days (the rest of the course was then delivered online over the following months), and then we drove back overnight again. It was the most intense and exhausting experience imaginable – but it was just incredible, and I am so excited to now have graduated as an official Root Cause Protocol Consultant and can't wait to begin empowering others with this rare comprehensive understanding. It truly is something special and I am eternally grateful that I have somehow managed to find myself in this work. Thank. You. Universe!!!
I hope you will all be as excited and transformed as I am to learn about this incredible protocol. It's been a journey, but I now have all the answers I have been seeking for a lifetime, and the RCP is my new health compass. And, I know I am headed forward now, in the right direction.
My healing so far has not been entirely easy as I shed what no longer serves me, but I am so excited to see tangible changes occurring and I can't wait to see where this leads my family and I on our healing quest. And in terms of the adenomyosis - I had constant niggling pain and when my period returned I had some pretty intense period pains, then I started adding cod liver oil and beef liver and the pains and PMS intensified a huge amount, I became fatigued, and got headaches, heart palpitations, insomnia, and acne! I started having this weird half-subconscious thought all the time "I need to get it out"...I couldn't work out what I needed to get out, but then it was brought up in an meeting with Morley that once we mobilize toxic iron with the protocol, we'll really want to get it out! I booked in my first donation, and the wait was unbearable. I was completely restless. After the donation I felt very tired and a little disheartened because I expected to feel lighter and get immediate relief.
I also started EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) that same week to begin releasing emotional trauma, which was huge. I was so zapped. But before long I was expecting my period the following week and anticipating the frustration and overwhelm of PMS...but nothing. I realized I actually felt great. I then noticed I didn't have many pimples this month around, and then my period crept up on me because I had absolutely NO cramping to warn me it was starting. I was startled at what a massive different this all was to the previous month before the donation. I am heading in for my 2nd donation this week, and incorporating EFT into my daily routine. It's a process of highs and lows, and I'm sure I have a lot of stuff to shift, but all the little improvements are surfacing and it feels so good to be building momentum. I feel so whole-heartedly that I am on the right path now, and the more I learn about iron<>copper metabolism the more exciting it becomes.
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