I am Healthy. I am Strong. I am Adaptable.

Coming back from our trip, I was on a mission - I am going to get better! Whatever is destabilizing my body, I am going to fix it! My first appointment back was with my naturopath, Jessica. Once again her acupuncture really helped, but I was still popping pills 24-7 to get some sort of pain relief. My jaw was still severely locked. When I saw Jessica for the second time that month, I pointed out the tension spots on my face - under my eye, above my eye, my ear area and then I remembered my trip to the pharmacist in Costa Rica and shared that with her. Immediately she put the clues together and inquired about sinus infection symptoms. I asked “Could a sinus infection really do all of this?” And her answer was “Possibly?” As soon as I got home, I contacted my doctor and was quickly put onto antibiotics. I could not wait to get the medication and for those pills to start taking action. The pain in my face was all I could think about every waking second of every day. In the meantime, I started to treat my symptoms from a sinuses approach. Daily I was doing six saline nose rinses, vapor steaming with peppermint oil, putting a vapour rub up my nose, taking sinus pills, you name it! Now I was layering anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and sinus pills all day and night. I felt like a medicine cabinet, but anytime I tried to cut the meds out, the suffering was too great to bear!

After the antibiotics were done, I felt some relief, but my sinus cavity below my eye was still super tender, my ear still felt completely blocked, my face was searing and pulsing and my hand and foot were still numb. It was still a living nightmare. I remember waking up some nights at 2 or 3am and my reality would all flood back and I would question if this was really the life I was living, crying myself back to sleep. This was my year of tears. I probably had already cried enough this past year to fill a bathtub.

It was at a visit with my naturopath in March when she suggested that seeing an Osteopath might be a good complement to the acupuncture and the jaw releasing she was doing. Serendipitously, a neighbour had recently told me she had found a phenomenal osteopath named Amanda, so I got the details and lined up my first appointment. April 14th was my first session and I immediately knew I was in (more) amazing hands. As soon as Amanda put her hands on my body to scan what was going on, they quickly rose to my neck, face and shoulder and she said “Oh dear…I wish I had 5 hours for you today”. She described my neck as being like a solid brick. My ear and all the muscles around and connected to it were completely stuck and inflamed and my trigeminal nerve was literally “on fire”. Amanda has hands of magic and she was able to feel and sense my nerve tones and then begin to heal them. My dream team was slowly coming together! I will never forget Amanda telling me in that first appointment that “I wouldn’t wish nerve pain on even my worst enemy” and that “nerve pain can feel like a non-stop screaming baby”. With that, I started to cry. She understood me. She knew what I was going through. Not only did she get me, I finally got me. I couldn’t explain this pain in my face any better. No wonder I found it so hard talking to anyone, focusing on anything or anyone as all I could think about for every second of every waking moment was “this screaming baby” on my face! It burned in my eyes, my cheek, my ear, my lips, my nose, my jaw. It felt like torture being in my body. After one appointment ended, all I could think about was how I would survive the time until the next one.

One of Amanda’s many gifts is her positive talk. She is always very intentional with her word choice as she understands how our mind pays attention to these things. She told me one day that I was healthy, that I was strong and that I was adaptable. I believed her and I believed these words.

I am healthy. I am strong. I am adaptable.

They became my daily mantra, and I put them on my kitchen cupboard to read multiple times a day, every day. I did believe that my body was healthy, and it wanted to be in a healthy state. I had to keep telling myself this.

It was around this time that I started doing pilates with Lia Bartha through a recommendation from my naturopath. I started that same day Jessica recommended it to me in March and have been doing it almost daily since then. The pilates gave me a focus to work on my body, to stretch and strengthen, improve circulation and to floss my nerves. It has been nothing short of life saving.

Later in March I saw my doctor as I was concerned that I still may have a sinus infection as so many symptoms were still kicking around. Her sense was the infection should be gone from the antibiotics, but she gave me referrals to have an Xray done of my sinus, a CT scan of the same as well as a visit w the ENT to do a scope. All three were done relatively quickly and showed no sign of infection. The funny thing is, I was actually disappointed with no diagnosis. All I wanted was for someone to tell me what was going on so we could get to a treatment and I could move on. So onward we went with treating the symptoms. What was so hard was that it was not a straight trajectory to better health. With every few steps forward, it felt like I took one or two steps back. At this time everything was pointing to it being muscle/skeletal and most likely caused by stress. My doctor had also prescribed some nerve anti-inflammatory pills, which I tried but did not like the feeling of, so decided not to take. In addition to them making me feel off, I also wanted to be able to feel my nerve health progressing and was worried I would not notice this progress, if I took these meds.

Despite all the pain and focus on it, life still goes on, right? I continued to coach my clients, feed my family and get my kids to their many activities. I was just barely getting by - I would use all the energy I could muster when I was coaching my clients or out and about for the kids, but outside of that I would crash at home by putting a hot pack on my face, having hot baths and rest whenever I could. It made me think a lot about what other people out there were dealing with. How many people did I pass on the street or in the grocery store who were also in debilitating pain? My pain was invisible to others, which made me realize I am not the only one living this way.

At the end of May, my two sisters and I treated our mom to a facial for her birthday. Going into the facial I was worried about how my face would feel from the treatment, but this esthetician had magic hands, like Amanda, and they soothed my trigeminal nerve and face muscles making them all very happy for a little while. I was so grateful. And because the universe really wanted to put me to the test, at the end of the facial she said “Oh yeah, there is a spot here on your nose that looks funny. I would have that looked at by your doctor”, implying it could be something serious (ie. skin cancer). To be honest, with all the medical appointments I had undergone that year, it was one more thing that I could just.not.handle. I put it on file in my brain, thanked her and told her I would get it checked out, knowing full well it was not a priority. More on this little, insignificant spot later…

Photo: Smiling through the pain in Costa Rica - Jan 2022