1 | An End & A Beginning
Rock Bottom is a difficult space and a great Teacher
The turbulent end of my relationship with modern western medicine; and a sensitive, thoughtful yet empowered beginning of my journey into the Alternatives.
It was a fated day in February 2002 and without even knowing what day of the week it was, the slow painful process of waking up started, although this time it was different - this time I couldn’t lift my head from my pillow, my brain felt heavy, groggy and dull – worse than a really bad hangover and as consciousness came on, so did the searing pain. My raw, weeping, bloody skin was literally stuck to my bed sheets. As my body continued to wake up, the intensity of the pain went from 10 to off-the-charts in milliseconds.
It was pain that came from deep within my body, rising to the surface of what little skin I had left. I rang my dear friend Maria, sobbing and managed to say “Help me, please, I can’t move, I can’t get out of bed” and slipped back into the refuge of unconsciousness. Maria arrived very quickly and with great love and care, helped me out of bed, using wet cloths to gently soak and peel the sheets away from my skin, She bundled me into the car and took me to the local doctor.
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About 6 weeks prior to this, I had unknowingly stopped using cortisone which I didn’t really know I was using - having thought I had left cortisone behind a couple of years prior when I started using Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine and creams. Now, this did not happen only in that 6 weeks or overnight, the reality was that this was 38 years in the making. So, a few weeks before Christmas 2001, I’m on my usual trip into Chinatown, Sydney, to my TCM Herbalist, with my empty Chinese cream packaging in hand, purchasing my usual bulk supply of what I thought was an all-natural chinese herbal cream. I showed the person at the counter and as usual, not much verbal communication was exchanged - I indicated how many tubes I wanted. Alas, it wasn’t available, he was waiting on a shipment from China due in around 3 months. I felt disappointed and annoyed, I rely on this cream, it felt good on my skin and seemed to keep it in good condition. So I spent a few hours going to every Chinese herbalist in the district and all had the same story - waiting on the same shipment.
At the last one, I asked him to please translate the packaging for me as it was written in Chinese, thinking that if I know the ingredients, I might be able to find a substitute. He translated each herbal ingredient and the last ingredient he read out to me was cortisone. My heart skipped a beat and my guts turned inside out, devastated by the realisation that I’m still feeding my body cortisone. I experienced a deep sense of foreboding, knowing that complete withdrawal from a lifetimes use of this drug, would be really bad, although I had no idea how bad it would get.
In those moments, I knew I could not go back to taking this drug even topically. All my life doctors had told me (whilst handing me their prescription) that ‘the long term use of cortisone is very damaging to the body’. I thought I understood, I realise now that I didn’t. There were times in my life when I did stop using cortisone only to crash and burn and go back to it because the crash and burn was so difficult to deal with. This time deep within my being I knew I could no longer take this drug in any form and the crash and burn was inevitable.
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So here I am, Six weeks later, on that fated day, Maria took me into the doctor’s office, and he was horrified at my condition. He wanted me to go to hospital and was ready to call an ambulance. I asked him not to, just yet, because I wanted to know what the hospital treatment would be, even though I already knew the answer. And there it was – the treatment would be the same – cortisone meds, oat baths, cortisone creams, cortisone injections, sorbolene creams, wet bandages, antibiotics, antihistamines, PUVA lights – you name it – every treatment I’d already experienced throughout my life, that were short term band-aid solutions, including the very drugs that had me sitting in front of him, with every vital organ in my body especially my skin - raw, open, weeping & bleeding; my vital organs - atrophied, emaciated, wasted and going into shutdown, including the swelling of my heart. By this time I had also very quickly lost a lot of weight and was now only 47kgs.
I shook my head and cried and cried. I started to feel a rage build in me that I’d never felt before. I could hear myself screaming at him – “are you for f***ing real?!? Look at me! F***ing look at meeee!! I screeched, 38 years of these treatments and look at me!!! If you give me one more cortisone pill or cream, I will f***ing die.” In this, what seemed like a suspended moment in time, I was 100% sure that even the smallest amount of cortisone would kill me. My reaction was not pretty nor polite. I had lost all patience and all filters. The stunned and bewildered doctor threw up his arms and said that He and western medicine, had nothing more for me and wished me good luck. Good Luck?!? As I stormed from his office, ranting and raving, the waiting patients looked affronted and horrified by what they had heard and the state I was in. I left the surgery, offering all sorts of hand gestures (again, not polite!), crying and feeling completely crushed and abandoned.
My darling friend, took me home, ran a warm bath adding only a very light olive oil, something to try and sooth my skin and she helped me into it. We sat for ages, her quietly and lovingly attending to me; me sliding deeper and deeper into despair. She got me back to bed and had to leave. After a few hours of tortured sleep I woke up and faced the choice of a slow, excruciating death or a worthwhile and fulfilling Life. This was the day I chose Life. I woke up knowing that if western medicine had nothing more for me, then I needed to look in other directions. I needed to look at all the Alternatives - the natural therapies, the marginal therapies, Eastern medicine, Ancient medicines, the unconventional and any other name that people put to these out-of-the-box Therapies. Right here was the end of my toxic relationship with modern western medicine and lifestyle and the beginning of an unabridged, more natural and healthier ways of self-care, self-responsibility, self-healing – an entire new way of life at every level of my being.
l had no idea what that would look like either, however, I did know that I was going to have to trust my Higher self, my inner knowing and those around me that love and support me, to take that giant leap into the unknown.
I picked up my phone, took a giant leap of faith and I rang those who love me and asked for help.
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It took 4 years of intense restoration and rebuilding for me to even leave my house; and then most of my 40’s to fully recover. A moment by moment, breath by breath journey, that I wouldn’t change and I’m grateful to have had the experience. A journey that led me to my Dharma (my life’s purpose) - that is to help others experiencing their own health crisis - for without this experience, I’d have no idea how to help you.