Hello
"One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else's survival guide."
- Brene Brown
Thanks for joining me. Grab a cup of tea and a comfortable seat. Let me tell you a bit about my why and then we will dive into how things are setup in my little corner of the internet. I'm here to share my story because I know I can positively impact others who are experiencing a similar journey. I am still healing, but when I was really in the thick of the hard, others' stories were my lifeline. Please do me the honor of letting me help you along your way.
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I've set things up such that I will share a short story meant to immerse you in the moment of my struggle. I feel like this will be the most effective way for us to connect and understand each other. Next, I will share real talk about the situation, what was going on, and how I found my way through it.
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It's time. Let's Heal.
I bet you can relate. . .
It’s that time again. It comes for me every 24 hours. There is no escaping it. My stomach sinks as the sun goes down. It’s bedtime AGAIN. My body knows. It starts responding with a tension headache, my stomach is in knots, and I have a nervous feeling streaming through my veins. It’s always a gamble. Did I do the right things today? My list of do’s and don’ts is growing. I have become superstitious. I’m like the guy that won’t shave his beard for the whole football season, lest the team find out and the quarterback get a bum arm because some guy, in middle of nowhere, had the nerve to trim his facial hair. I’ve become that guy. It’s inconsistent though- some days I think I have fulfilled every do or don’t to the letter yet still I am jerked awake. Still the monster hunting me may catch me, may sink his claws into me, but other nights, he can’t find me. He is lost, went through the wrong door to scare the wrong child (love me Disney’s Monsters, Inc.) and doesn’t get to have me that night. Maybe tonight is the night he won’t come back. Maybe.
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We gather as a family, all of us sitting lazily on the couch. The kids wrapped in the familiar cocoon of their parents’ love as we join them for their long awaited “show” before bed. It’s a part of our routine, the frenzy that strikes us when dinner time wraps up and the night slides in, stealing our peace. Reminding us that there is so much to do. Shower, floss (if I’m lucky), brush, take fluoride, brush out the girls’ tangled hair. Did everyone set out clothes for the next day? Are your backpacks ready? What’s on the schedule for tomorrow? All these things insisting to be checked off before we can gather. The list is kind to me, it provides me the briefest moment of distraction from the monster in the shadows. YouTube flashes on our TV. The kids select their latest favorite, The Odd1s Out. We cuddle, laugh at his self-deprecating humor, their little bodies releasing the demands of the day. Not mine; mine soaks up the day sloughed from them, mashes it with the tension and anxiety humming inside of me into a sticky, gum-like substance pulling at the back of my head. Tugging, reminding me what I have waiting for me. I hold my head searching for relief, there is none. The monster is here, ready to pounce. Be vigilant.
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The show ends. Despite their pleading protests, we deposit each child into their warm beds. I sing the song to them my mother sang to me, written by my grandfather. The words portraying my love as their minds begin to drift to dreamland, where they are chasing unicorns and making the NBA All-Star Team. The innocence of childhood lending them the ability to find sleep almost as soon as their heads hit their pillows. My mind knows this is the time. There is no avoiding it now. It’s nearly upon me. I almost can’t finish the song. The weight of it nearly crushing me, pulling at the back of my head, virtually immobilizing my lungs, uncovering my weaknesses, exploiting them to snake up through my body. My husband leaves to take our dog on a walk. I fumble to find my iPad and earphones. Must turn on a distraction. Mustn’t be alone with my thoughts. Mustn’t allow my mind to give breath to the monster. Keep going. Keep going.
Zombie-like, I floss and brush. I step into a steamy shower. I have to shower before bed, I never know what the night will allow me to have, whether the morning will come as a sweet awakening or a groggy shock. I don’t know what the monster has planned for me. I line up my pills, so many pills, all boasting the ability to fix me, to allow me the escape I crave. Sometimes they’re enough. Sometimes I take them and find sleep like my babies in their beds. My body cries in elation: you must have done all the do’s and don’ts right today! My favorite football team scores the winning touchdown and I celebrate with my proverbial unshaved beard, patting myself on the back for having the foresight to keep it long. My superstitions served me today. Other times, well, those times that come more often than not: they are the lurking monster. When the pills don’t take hold, it gives the monster license to step out of the shadow. He is so familiar, he is my companion, my frenemy that often accompanies me through those long, lonely nights.
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My husband arrives home from walking our dog. He joins me in preparing for bed. I can’t say anything to him. Monster has my tongue, and my sanity. He’s taken it and I can’t seem to wrestle it back. We get in bed, me hoping for the best, but knowing the worst is coming. My bed is a trap. It holds the memory of all those nights when the monster has been there, molding himself to me. Preventing me from escape. My husband switches on the TV. I sigh, surrendering to the blissful distraction of our favorite bedtime show (have you seen Brooklyn 99?). My husband brings me a modicum of peace, knowing he is watching over me. He will fight sleep until I’ve found it, or haven’t, as we know is often the case.
As I relax into the familiarity of our bedtime show, my head is at war. My limbic system is on high alert, warning me about the monster. She knows he is here. She knows. I try to reason with her, ‘yes he is here, but he doesn’t catch me every night. I can do this. I can do this.’ Tonight, it seems my reasoning may prevail. I’m starting to drift off to sleep. Touch down! The pills have taken hold. Gratitude rushes through me, tingling my extremities. My relief is palpable. Blissfully I find sleep. I fall into it like the arms of my husband, safe, secure, at peace. And then the monster is there. He leaps from the shadows. He guffaws at his shrewdness. He lulled me into my peaceful respite, only to rush in, reminding me that I will never escape his grip. My ears start pulsing. My heartbeat is reverberating in my head, crashing into my skull with each pulse, thrusting my short-lived sleep out like a referee throws out a rowdy, misbehaving fan. I’m jerked awake and anxiety, frustration, and discouragement flood my body. I sit up abruptly, curses flying from my lips.
How Did I Get Here: What I've Been Through
It started in 2015, the pulsing. I had just given birth to my second baby and was trying to manage being a mother to a newborn and toddler, nurture a career for which I’d worked so hard, and maintain some identity independent of the daily pressures I was experiencing. The pulsing would come at night, only when I was laying down, and it would catch me right before I fell into a really deep sleep. The doctors call it pulsatile tinnitus. I have many names for it, none as clinical as that. The pulsing feels like my heart is trying to burst out of my head. I get dizzy, sometimes nauseous, and it makes it impossible to sleep. In 2015, it would only show up a few nights a week. When I experienced the pulsing, I would eat a light snack, and something about the chewing would relieve the pounding in my head and ears. It was unpredictable, this thief of my sleep, and pressed me for any vigor it could squeeze out of my worn-out body.
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I had just come off a series of foot surgeries and was familiar with health problems. I’d been lucky enough (sensing my sarcasm here?) to draw the short straw blessing me with extra sesamoid bones in both feet. Those extra fulcrums caused stress fractures through both feet and made it impossibly painful to walk much. In 2011, I had both bones removed, leaving me in a wheelchair for a stint while I navigated my first career job- a job that was so incredibly stressful that it often rendered me hopeless. The double foot surgery was the first of many surgeries as the result of such an invasive procedure became evident in the cascade of complications that led to four more, including my being awake on the operating table while a doctor explored my right foot with a needle, attempting to find the nerve that was relentlessly causing me pain.
After the wheelchair, I spent time on a scooter and then graduated to a boot. I spent countless hours at physical therapy and still struggle with pain in my feet. It was a harrowing experience and left me very humbled as I became familiar with the magic that is our amazing bodies. Unfortunately, this was not the end of my health problems.
Before I continue, I reviewed my health history and felt like it was pertinent to share so that you can understand the stress my body has undergone as well as the desperation and fear I encountered trying to find relief from my symptoms. It’s a lengthy list, and the reading is not for the faint of heart. I’m a very Type A personality (working on this as well, because I believe the constant push of tasking is part of the reason I am where I am today, for good and bad) and someone like me would not carve out time to read through a lengthy narrative, rather, I would prefer a brief summary conveying the information, but you are welcome to keep reading should you be interested in the detail.
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Know that if you just peruse the summary, you will miss some of the themes I intend to talk about as we move through this journey together. Maybe you don't have time to read the details now, but if you've got a minute to yourself later (a minute to yourself, sounds amazing), maybe you consider reading it then.
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What I've Been Through: Timeline
Let's Summarize All This Information
Q3 2011
Double Sesamoidectomy
Q4 2012
Neuroma in Foot Removal
Q2 2015
Birth of Second Child
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Q3 2016
Lasik
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Q1 2018
Birth of Third Baby
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Q1 2018
Repair Umbilical Hernia
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Q4 2020
Liposuction
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Q1 2021
Pinguecula on Eye Surgery
Q1 2021
Severe Ear Pulsing Starts Again
Q4 2021
Weight Loss Consult, 1st Testosterone Pellet
Q2 2022
EmSculpt
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Q4 2022
Cerebral Angiography, Venogram, Lumbar Puncture
Q2 2023
Started Semaglutide
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Q3 2012
Birth of First Child
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Q4 2013
Foot Structure Repair
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Q2 2015
Ears Pulsing, Misdiagnosed
Q3 2017
Become Pregnant, Traumatic Pregnancy
Q1 2018
Hysteroscopy
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Q3 2020
Sinus Surgery
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Q4 2020
Cool Sculpting
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Q1 2021
Gut Microbiome Testing, Start Probiotics
Q2 2021
Test Allergies, Start Immunotherapy
Q1 2022
Twice Weekly LIPO-C Shots for Weight Loss
Q3 2022
Started with Weight Loss Coach
Q4 2022
Experimental Surgery for Pulsatile Tinnitus
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Q2 2023
The Summary Wasn't Enough for Me- Give Me All the Deets
2016 found me opting to undergo Lasik surgery. Still one of the best choices I have made, but another stress on my body.
In comes 2017. I lost a precipitous amount of weight. I can proudly say that I felt the best I’ve felt as an adult. I was exercising on the daily- we are talking jogging and biking to the office, lightly lifting, a whole lot of P90X and other Beach Body programs. I was feeling fit and better than ever, but was carefully watching my calories and scared to death my body would betray me by putting on weight despite my best efforts.
Life took a turn when we made the mistake of letting our four-year-old son participate in a water slide made slick by untreated ditch water, resulting in his contracting a myriad of bacteria with the official diagnosis being E Coli that worsened into HUS. We spent four days in our local hospital and after being released, he had a nosebleed that we could not stop which indicated things were not yet where they needed to be. We promptly went to the ER and were fast tracked by ambulance down to Primary Children’s Hospital in Salt Lake City. What a gift to have such an incredible facility at our fingertips. We spent a little over a week there with him in the best care undergoing several blood transfusions and other treatments the doctors deemed necessary. Keeping this piece brief for privacy. This whole scenario was extremely taxing on our family. As we were nearing the end of the experience, I realized my period was late. That’s right, this is headed where you think it is: I was pregnant with our third baby.
Look, I know cynics will say I deserved a tough pregnancy after being lucky enough two have two pretty easy pregnancies. I hear you, but I’m still here to say it was really hard. I had extra water for some reason that prompted lots of Braxton Hicks contractions. Lots. So many, that every time I experienced them, I worked on a rag blanket we now call the “Patience Blanket” meaning I was attempting to be patient for my sweet baby to arrive. I ended up putting on an inordinate amount of weight with this pregnancy and as you will see shortly, proceeded to punish myself for it for years. What I wouldn’t give to reach back to this former self and hug her. Tell her that the weight was a symptom. Please be kind to
your body. It’s trying to tell you things aren’t right. They weren’t. By the time I had the baby, things were already declining quickly.
My youngest child was born in Spring 2018. The excess in water caused a herniated belly button which I promptly had fixed. It was painful and unsightly. I remember the doctor requesting I lose weight
before he operated. My already self-hating, body conscious self was mortified to receive that request. He didn’t know it, but he’d just shoveled more pain on top of a heaping mound of anguish.
Perhaps this is where we discuss that back story. Let me briefly pop in and mention that I battled (or perhaps embraced because I loved the results) bulimia through high school and the first part of college. I
felt pressure from those around me, but more so probably the voice in my mind, to look a certain way and being a young, immature girl, found the easiest road to that body. The niggling voice in the back of my head telling me that I needed to be smaller to be better, to be loved, never went away. That same voice walks with me daily. She lives in a corner of my head that I am working to heal. I have done so much work around forgiving that voice in my head and learning to love the magic that is my body. More to come on this topic, I have strong opinions around how we discuss our bodies.
Back to the story at hand, I recovered from my belly button surgery but was not recovering from the weight gain and the lethargy that haunted me from my last pregnancy. I know, oldest story in the book, woman has a baby and can’t lose the baby weight. Please understand it doesn’t have to be this way. There are reasons our bodies hold onto weight and it’s NEVER because your body hates you, despite what my voice in my head says.
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The birth of my third baby marked the end of my child bearing. My husband and I agreed that our family was complete and chose to have a hysteroscopy or in other words, an endometrial ablation destroying the lining of my uterus so I was no longer able to become pregnant. At the time, I was elated that I would no longer have any bleeding in my cycle, but now that I am looking back on this decision, I am saddened that I did not see the value in the beautiful cycle nature had given me. Our cycles have countless benefits for our female bodies, and there I was trying to erase it.
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I’ve always had sinus problems. I had surgery to help clear sinuses when I was 18. My sinus head aches built up again forcing me to seek relief. My doctor reviewed my case and decided he could do further work to relieve sinus issues via surgery. I had sinus surgery in Fall 2020.
Here’s where it gets real ugly. When I looked at this body that had given me three babies and had undergone a number of traumatic surgeries, all I saw was fat. I hated it. I was so mad at it for not letting
go of the weight. My voice in my head took complete control and shamed me day and night. There is so much more to be said about this topic. As I mentioned previously, this topic deserves its own attention. I will leave this here, but suffice it to say, I wish I could have had the strength to love my body through this hard time. Instead, I punished it. That’s right, I went in for liposuction in a move of desperation. I had liposuction on my mid section in Winter 2020. Listen, I will never throw a stone at anyone that chooses this as an option. It works for some people, but my issues were internal and were never going to be resolved by further punishing my body. However, that self didn’t know that I was only worsening
my issues.
So there I was, still bigger than I’d ever been having put my body through hell. Instead of seeking a path to heal, I punished my body more. In Winter 2020 I went in for Cool Sculpting and attempted to freeze the fat from my body. As you might guess, this was not a solution and did not provide me anywhere near the results I was seeking.
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While I was undergoing a series of Cool Sculpting treatments, my eye doctor found a concerning pinguecula in my right eye and advised me to have it removed. Another surgery.
At this point I was like an unmoored boat, drifting at sea, grasping for anything firm that might lend me peace and still the unrelenting search for weight loss. Notice I did not say health. I still didn’t understand that health was what I was supposed to be searching for- instead, I was desperate for weight loss. The weight was always a symptom of my lacking health. After consulting doctor Google, I decided to jump into taking expensive, tailored probiotics, thinking that would solve my issues. I had my stool tested and was provided an individualized recommendation for probiotics. I can still very clearly remember reviewing the test results. They called my body type ‘heavy’. Heavy. Heavy. The results were heavy. And I almost couldn’t finish reading the results. The probiotics did not solve the heavy issue either.
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After all I put my body through, I’m not surprised that my ears started pulsing again in Spring 2021. I wasn’t listening to my body’s communication, despite it trying to get my attention several different ways. My pulsatile tinnitus came back with a vengeance and tortured me every night. This increased my food intake to find relief from the pulsing and stole my sleep. My body was screaming at me, yet still, still, I thought the solution was weight loss.
And then there were the allergies. Oh the allergies. I didn’t have them earlier in life, but they found me and had been making my life miserable for a couple of years. I went into the allergist to be tested and he found numerous environmental allergies and suggested I undergo immunotherapy by having allergy shots in both arms once a week for several years.
The allergy shots seemed to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I was sick constantly and putting on weight at an alarmingly rapid rate. Additionally, the shots went on for a little over a year until my brother, who is a Doctor, suggested I discontinue the therapy because of the toll it was having on me.
In Winter 2021, only a few months into the immunotherapy, my husband read an article about hormone replacement by a local Doctor. Fortunately, I was able to connect with him. He tested my
hormones and we found that my testosterone was critically low. He placed a pellet in my back to correct the issue. This pellet did help- I had loads more energy and began to see a bit of weight loss. I thought I’d found the magic pill, however, my ears were still pulsing and my sleep was declining.
Next, that’s right, the saga continues, I had a Doctor recommend Lipo-C shots. I had no idea what was being injected into my body, only knew that it was being done twice a week and promised swift results. I did lose a bit of weight, but the injections made sleep a distant dream. Not only were my ears pulsing, but I was now so wired and unwell I couldn’t have found sleep if it had hit me in the face.
And as if I didn’t learn my lesson, I dove head first into another body treatment called EmSculpt. This claims to flex your muscles and provide you an intense workout via the paddles within a short treatment period. I know this is going to shock you. . .but that didn’t give me the results I was looking for either.
Writing all of this out, it seems almost insane that I would think that weight loss was still something I should chase. That weight loss would issue the relief I needed rather than a deeper, healing therapy, but my former self was determined (remember my mention of Type A?). I was all goal oriented, and nothing was going to keep me from my goals, including my health. I had been following a few weight loss accounts on Instagram for a while and, blaming myself and lack of knowledge for my extra pounds, I proceeded to seek the services of one of the Instagram trainers. More about this in another post, but please be so careful about who you let in your circle. Again, this was not the solution. Chasing weight loss was not going to help my body heal.
I became absolutely desperate to sleep. I was rarely getting a full night of sleep and was losing my mind, will to live, and did not know where to turn. I visited with both my hormone replacement doctor and my sinus doctor hoping for relief. Both prescribed loads of sedative medications to help my body sleep through the pulsing. (Sleep through the pulsing! This is important- I had been ‘sleeping’ (ignoring) all the signs my body had been giving me that something was not right). My sinus doctor ran out of ideas and referred me to incredibly talented specialists at the University of Utah. There we discussed my extensive health history and formulated a plan.
In Winter 2022 I had a cerebral angiography, venogram, and lumbar puncture (while I was awake, 0/10 would not recommend) which resulted in me lying on another operating table as they doctors blew up balloons in my head to try to find the source of the pulsing. Unfortunately, the result of this procedure was not terribly conclusive. They think they found a constricted vein which they compared to a finger stuck in a hose as water is trying to flow. They said that MAY be the source of the pulsing and suggested an experimental surgery that involved putting bone paste in my head to try to dampen the noise of the pulsing. The surgery went well, but it did not stop the pulsing.
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This rendered me hopeless and lost. Searching, begging for relief. Not only did I have the surgery without a successful outcome, but I had those close to me treat me as though I was wasting my time and money, claiming that the surgery “wasn’t even real”. I assure you, it was real, painful, and emotionally draining. Please support your friends and family when they are searching for answers. Those answers do not give themselves up easily and the quest is so taxing.
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It's not over yet. My online fitness coach suggested Semaglutide. Apparently the latest and greatest in weight loss solutions. I consulted with my doctor and he was on board. I began shooting this into my abdomen once a week. It killed my appetite, but did not render significant results. I was told this magic drug was the ultimate solution, that even if everything else didn’t work, this would. It didn’t. I didn’t.
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I was lost. Desperate and lost. I turned to some incredibly educational accounts on Instagram to look for answers. They shared their functional nutrition knowledge. Fortunately, one of the best, is local for me. More to come on our meeting, how we started working together, and the emotions surrounding our first interaction. His name is Fitness Dane, and our meeting changed my life.