Hello Athena
I wanted to share a success story with you. It was a long time ago, but I believe it can hold some power to inspire your viewers as well. I don’t want to only be asking for your help, but I want to give you some thing that you may benefit from sharing as well as giving back to the community in anyway, I can.
When I was born, I was born with emphysema it is related to the airways. Growing up, I had a lot of issues with my airways due to this. Plenty ear infections, sinus infections, and eventually several cases of pneumonia. Eventually, one pneumonia got so bad when I was 13 years old that I lost over 15 kg in weight because I was coughing so bad I was unable to keep food down. I had just changed schools due to bullying and was already having a really difficult time emotionally. My mother and father separated when I was young and when he called which he rarely did he heard that I was sick and to add insult to injury. He told me that he hoped I would cough myself to death and he hung up the phone.
My mother took me to several doctors until eventually one doctor realize the severity of the situation and gave me, a 13 year old child weighing not more than 40 something kilos, more antibiotics than he would’ve given a grown man twice the weight. My pneumonia cleared up, but unfortunately, the strong antibiotics dried up my airways to the point that they had small cracks in them, and I could not walk for more than 5 m without being out of breath and coughing, but now a dry cough that burned the inside of my lungs like fire.
Going back to the doctor they established that my lung capacity had decreased way beneath normal. I believe a 60 to 70% decrease was what was told to me and I was put on very strong Cortizone pills as well as three different inhalers that I was told I would be needing for the rest of my life starting now. They told me that this kind of asthma that I had developed was permanent, and could not be healed, and that my days of being active (I was a ballet dancer at the time dancing for more than 10 hours every week when I was well) it was over. I couldn’t even run to catch the bus.
I was given an additional inhaler and was told that before any strenuous activities, I would need to use this to open up my airways. For three years, I continued with the heavy medication until age 16. I no longer danced, and I no longer partook in a lot of fun activities that my friends were able to engage in and I felt my body becoming weaker and weaker every year that passed. I told one of my mentors at the time that I had made a decision to no longer take the medication and that intuitively I felt like the medication itself was keeping me sick. I told her not to tell my mom and every morning before school I would pretend to take my medication as prescribed and I started going for jogs around the block. I figured that would need to happen was an increase in blood flow to my lungs so that they could actually heal and I was committed to making sure that my body got what it needed to heal. Sometimes I threw up as I was running, pushing my body to its very limit. But I had made a decision and nothing was going to stop me. I also decreased anf for a long time completely eliminated sugar, and any kind of milk products that increase the production of mucus. I did everything I could as I came back to the doctor a year or two later they ran some tests and the doctor looked confused at me and asked me what have you been doing? I said I would have just been taking care of myself why? The doctor said my lung capacity was back up and from a decrease of 60 to 70% I was only about 20% down. She had never seen anything like it and asked me again what had I’ve been doing? I told her I had stopped taking the medication, and I decided to heal. She looked at me with confusion and disbelief and then I left never to return.
Today I am 36 years old and I have no issues with my airways whatsoever. I rarely get sick and if I do it’s a once a year kind of thing if even that. I’m sharing this in hopes that it will inspire anyone in our community that is struggling with physical ailments within themselves, or within those of the ones that they love. When we decide to heal, and we show up for ourselves in whatever way we can, we heal.
Looking back, I don’t understand how I had the bravery and the strength to ignore both doctors and my father, who, by the way, told me the first time when I was seven that he wish that I would kill myself and that everyone around us would be much better off if I was dead. I believe his words were one of the reasons I struggled so much with different types of sickness as a child, but nevertheless, I made a decision with such a strong conviction, and I did not tell a single soul, except for my one mentor, who was supportive of my decision to stop taking the medication. I’m not saying that anyone should stop taking their medication, nor am I a doctor, but I do know that every day people heal from things the doctor say that they can’t, and the doctors can’t explain how it happened.
Nothing can stop a person from healing once they have made the decision. I remember running and throwing up sometimes, and as I look back on it, a fearful mind may have thought all kinds of things that would maybe make them stop. Instead, I remember as a child I got excited when I threw up and I saw it only has the sickness leaving my body, the burning in my chest was healing in my mind, and the grasping for air was my lungs, healing, expanding breathing and enjoying the fresh oxygen. I believe that when we’re young, we know inherently what we forget as we get older. We talk ourselves out of our greatness, and submit to the limitations of those around us. I’m grateful for you, Athena and for our beautiful community, a place where we can rediscover the power within us. The power of our imagination and our decisions. I have faith in you and in all of us Gd bless and much love