Gratification and Reflection Inspired from People with Chronic Pain This Week

I was planning to write today about two providers who have joined my personal health care team this year, a DO named Ilene Spector and a body/mind/spirit trainer, Analii, as they will be part of the Forums area at Lumigrate.com in the very near future.  We'll be discussing what their techniques are and then how it relates to what they've "done" when they've worked with me and use the Topics and Comments to have a dialog that others around the world can utilize to learn from, PRINT, and hopefully recreate a similar experience in their own community of providers.  (Keep in mind, 'community' now includes Internet resources, visual media such as DVD and video downloads, You Tube as well as the professional on the corner with a 'shingle' that says 'MD'/'DO' or MT, etc.)  But I had a very inspiring conversation last night which I want to share today.

My day started in a funny way, actually.  I'd facebook questioned the Lumigrate: Fibromyalgia Fans and asked about insomnia yesterday and woke up in what I thought was the middle of the night and was thinking 'I was SO TIRED when I went to sleep, why didn't I sleep very long, darn it" and then looked at the phone and saw that it was actually 6 am, NOT the middle of the night.  It's new in the last couple of months that I don't require sleep aid medication -- for the first time in about a decade!  

The routine of late is to get up and make something hot to drink, take pills and eat and take supplements and look at what's gone on in the website and facebook overnight, turn the TV on or radio and start figuring out what I need to do next.  Today the radio happened to be playing songs that the band I sang backups in when I was doing my pre-OT work at Colorado State University, which made me start reflecting back to 1993.  My divorce was just final, and I thankfully had a very friendly divorce -- it was my initiation and it was because he was sabotaging our agreement that I'd return to CSU and complete a bachelors degree, switching from business to occupational therapy which was an extremely difficult program to get accepted to in those days.

My husband had snared a new girlfriend -- ironically a new graduate of the OT program who had been living off of student loans and grants and now had no job/income (as the market was saturated where the college is, obviously), and she likely wanted to keep her kiddos going to school where they did.  How handy!  The house that I'd just poured my heart and soul and a TON of money into for five years was right by campus and student housing so she got a pretty good deal! They'd met through an ad, which in those days wasn't common like today, and in my opinion he pulled a sly move in moving her and her kids into the house before our divorce was final and didn't tell me about it because he knew he'd gotten a sweet deal based on my presumption that he was going to be taking over the payments for a house for HIM, not someone elses family.  He had, since high school, had seizure disorder and hydrocephalus which had caused chronic pain, multiple surgeries, MRSA from a surgery right about the time we met, and complications emotionally for his daughter, who became my stepdaughter and responsibility at the time we bought the house, which was when he was in treatment for the MRSA.  The neurosurgeon shook his hand and gave me a hug at the end and said 'sorry I almost killed you but if I didn't you would have died'.  It had been a Looooong 7 years. And I grew a LOT. 

I remember how I found out my divorce was final and some other woman scored like a fat rat on a free house at my foolish generosity. (My attorney had been good about letting me go by my ethics and not by the law and traditional model about divorce.)  My routine back then was to head from work at 5 to the local hangout where my boyfriend for years had been going right at five for a margarita and chips and salsa before heading to the health club.  I'd just been working with my doctor on eating more salt to get my blood pressure up, so a mini-rita and chips and salsa at that point in the day made perfect sense to me (and to the doctor, actually -- he said 'I don't care WHAT you do, just get salt in you, and I did NOT like salt back then at all, except on margaritas and chips and pretzels, which I kept in my car and munched on whenever I was driving.  Unbenownst to me, though, I was allergic to wheat, so some of this plan maybe wasn't doing me the good I was thinking it was doing. 

One day in the time frame that my divorce was supposed to be final in the courts, which didn't require my involvement or presence at all and mentally I was 'over it and moved along', the big beautiful full sized 4x4 39th birthday present truck of my husband's was parked right next to my boyfriends!  As were the vehicles of his coworkers, who had been my coworkers prior to my deciding I just had to move forward with what I wanted to do with my life professionally.  Same cars that had been at our house for his 40th birthday party .... and many many other gatherings over the years.  (Please refer to a blog from mid-December about my old boss retiring -- I assisted a really BIG and important project from age 24 to age 32.) (I just saw him this past summer and he STILL will say 'you never should have quit working for me' and I hope someday he'll see that I've gone on to do for my field something similar as what he did for his.)  "Oh, the divorce apparently came through."   I personally thought it was kind of tacky for him to celebrate it in such a way -- and at least I heard it from him that he bought a round for everyone of 'Dos Equis' since he now had two ex-es.  But when I went on to the health club and saw my one friend who didn't know him so she wasn't at the watering hole but was on the treadmill, she said 'how do you feel about his new girlfriend and his kids living in the house?' "WHAT?", I responded.  I didn't really know what to say or think about it initially, but in the end I had done the right thing.  He became disabled after the next round of surgeries (to mediate the seizures) and he didn't remember who I am even.  Isn't THAT the best story ever?  He got to be brain washed, literally, about who his ex wife was.  I just found him on facebook in the last week -- with a blond sitting on his lap who looks very much like I did back then, and I messaged him and said I was glad to see he is alive and well and has a blond on his lap!  I have no guilt and KNOW that I stuck to my personal values about right and wrong and fairness with another human being, even though many would say I 'gave away the farm'. 

Within a year I'd done many wonderful and new things -- sang backups in what was actually a very good band and would have been really good for me had we practiced more than three times and told the other singer 'adios' instead of 'we don't want to hurt her feelings so we're just going to turn her mic off, so I had to do harmony (which is not that easy for me as I historically sang soprano/melody) with someone BAD and OFF singing next to me and then stay 'on'.  I did lots of boating which was new to me, I learned and got pretty good at single track mountain biking, I got back into skiing (with the above said boss and his wife and friends).  I was proposed to on the slopes of Telluride by a veterinary medicine professor from a MAJOR University with an equally good OT program to CS Us, which was going to be free OT school for me AND basically a guarantee I'd be accepted to the program if I met their minimum requirements, which I did.  That relationship didn't survive the Colorado/Ohio distance, but I ended up for the rest of my OT school time (2+ years) with a really nice professional guy who had a nice group of engineer friends and more skiing and biking, this time roads, which are not my favorite thing to do.  We even went on a cruise/bike trip for two weeks up the coast of Alaska!  But the changes that happened to me with the onsetting illness of what would later be diagnosed as 'fibromyalgia' -- 30# weight gain, weakness, and a kind of frustrated tearfulness that I didn't have previously related to his lack of ability to relate to me emotionally led to that relationship being called off at the same time as I graduated from OT school.  "Since you're going to Denver for internships, look for a place that you'll move to completely" was how I learned that the direction of my life after OT school was going to be solo. 

Why did my health fall apart in those years?  Lots of reasons.  The University had an immunization policy and health care workers have to have further immunizations and for my body, and for people with FMS, immunizations have a different impact on the body than they would otherwise, I now am reading (online, via facebook, by the way).  The cadaver anatomy instructor didn't retain the information from a pregnant student the semester before so when I said I had chemical sensitivity and was having horrendous headaches that started after the first day of class, I wasn't informed of the filters available an hours-drive away in Denver, and didn't figure it out on my own for a week.  I ate really "well", but I didn't yet know about IgG food allergies and was allergic to wheat, dairy and eggs and had increased my wheat consumptions when cadaver anatomy had grossed me off of eating meat for a long time.  The S.O. liked to go out to breakfast on weekends so I was eating a half dozen eggs per weekend in cheesy omelets, with whole wheat toast on the side.  Since I was paying for a recreation center at the Univeristy and wasn't working, as you can't do the OT program and work plus I wasn't well by then energy-wise, I gave up my $50/month health club membership, which was a 'bad investment' in retrospect.  (I was much older than the 18 year old hot bodies that dominated the rec center on campus).  I'd always used the steam sauna time for meditation and yoga stretches and didn't transition to doing those things at home. 

The bicycle rides in Alaska the next year were physically strenuous and more so for me because the ship staff didn't understand that I wasn't a vegetarian -- my boxed lunches came with 'Nice Lady' written on them and had cheese cube and apple and a vegetarian sandwich on a day that I had a very strenuous ride, so I could only eat the apple and contents on the bread.  I'd trained really hard to get in shape for that and wanted to maintain it afterwards and continued to push myself to ride (and rollerblade, and ski and hike), 'overdoing', and it took me a year to track down the providers who could provide answers.  And for the record, they weren't providers insurance paid for.  I'd had to stop working to return to college and run out of COBRA at 18 months and the OT program was two years, so just when I went to a $10,000 deductible I had a $15,000 MRI and spinal tap!  SO, there was financial stress.  That compounded when I had budgeted for living free through internships and continuing to drive his vehicle at no cost to me and I had to purchase the SUV from him and rent a condo in Denver for internships.  (He was generous in paying for the move and I certainly am wanting to paint this as fairly and positively as possible -- because I was not the person anymore that he'd 'signed up with'.  And I can't really fault him for that because he was a 'data guy' and not a 'heart guy'.)  Our plans for the property we'd shopped for together and the house we'd designed together (with green building concepts -- pretty cool for the mid-90s) were now no longer my plans, which was crushing as I had even done a mid-leve internship at the hospital in rural Colorado where I would have been working had our lives gone in the direction I thought we were going in.  This, however, has helped me to develop my current spiritual system, but at that time I really didn't have one to refer to, so I literally felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me.

I wasn't in a nurturing relationship -- he was a wonderful guy but pretty far on the autism continuum towards Aspergers, which many engineer-types are.  As part of a my psycho-social psychology class we had an assignment to have a family member draw what the family looked like and he drew his bicycle, sports car, SUV.  (I was not in the picture.)  When he accompanied me for my lumbar puncture, just as the neurologist jabbed my spine skillfully, he distracted the nurse who was holding me in position to keep me from moving by asking her something related to her wedding ring, like where her husband worked.  (Helllooo... can we not distract the people doing this procedure at a key moment....)(he was WAY out of his comfort zone).  My family system (of origin) had it's ongoing dysfunction, and it took a long time for them to even start to learn about my medical condition and that continues to be a process which isn't going so well sometimes from my perspective.  This  becomes part of what you "have going on" since they're part of your team, unless you learn how to navigate that connection effectively.  And just in doing so, it is energy which could be going elsewhere.  I had to move away from my friends of up to 18 years and to a city filled with pulluted air (Denver, known for a problem which is getting better continually), traffic (stress both mentally and more exposure breathing toxins).  I was fortunate that I had my 'sisters of my heart' gal pals there, but in a recent conversation someone referred to the stress of moving as a single, professional woman to a place for her professional growth and not knowing anyone.  That later happened to me when I moved to Colorado Springs -- which is about as foreign a land politically and philosophically as can be for someone like me, and it took me YEARS to find health relationships.  I had a solid year of NO FUN with all work with an extremely difficult job and freeway commutes of over an hour each way half the time and every other weekend splitting the care for an aging parent and house/property was grueling.  However, that year of virutally social-less-ness gave me a wonderful gift, just as this illness overall has -- I learned about another aspect of myself that hadn't been brought out before.  And indirectly, in the long term, that has lead to many improvements in my life which have contributed to the restoration of my health that I am currently enjoying.

We'll hopefully have information very soon for you in the Forums and Blogs perhaps about these concepts, such as the "Adrenal - Pituitary - Hypothalamus' cycle" and what to do about that on a number of fronts, from MANY extra-ordinary ... EXTRA-'ordinary' ... providers who are coming to the Forums areas to write and also to work with me on developing future 'products'.  Remeber, anyone can write there, and then I work to find valid,  progressive and FUN people to come in where needed.   I just met yesterday with an amazing businessman in Grand Junction who is getting involved in planning for 'product', promotion (his specialty), providers ... bringing it all together to offer YOU great, GRATE online education about such topics.  Why did I ask him to help me?  Because the reason my health keeps teeter-tottering also has to do with stress, and so I need a team to do this successfully and long-term.  If everyone grabs an oar and there are lots of oars, then nobody has to row that hard but the boat cruises along!

Professional stress -- back when things fell apart on me, I was in the first class of a 'new improved' curriculum and they'd quite frankly, horrendously bungled many aspects and I chose to take some time and energy and my personal money and be part of the solution WITH some of my classmates.  We also had a classmate who was quite mentally unwell and believe it or not, had been so convincing that she'd manipulated the staff and student body into believing she was dying of cancer and I thought it wasn't true and was pretty offended that our class time was being taken up allowing us to 'process it' with her.  My sense at the time about it was "I quit a really amazing job and left a beautiful house and decent marriage for this program and THIS is what I'm getting when I drive in from home to class, exhausted and weak and SCARED because the doctors think it might be MS but don't know what it is and I don't know what my future really is going to hold for me?" 

Now that I've created a new website, I know how difficult it is to project and pull together and get something off the ground the right way in the start and I certainly admire the way the program learned from what was happening and I trust modified.  I know it is still considered to be in the top 10 in the world I believe.  I'm proud to say I graduated from Colorado State AND that it was our graphics artist at my old job who created the logo that we all now know of the green and white ram head!  I was the first person to see it, at 8 am when he'd drawn it out at home the night before in order to enter a contest.  THAT is when I started learning about the importance of a good logo and am proud to say I was standing over the shoulder of a very tolerant computer driver and graphics artist when the Lumigrate logo was designed and modified to be what it is today.  You learn so much about so many things if you're lucky enough to live a while and be doing things such as work and play.   

I shared this today for several reasons.  I thought it would be a helpful 'Share' from me to you since so many people are doing the same via Lumigrate.  Because of the impressive young businessman who 'signed on' to help navigate Lumigrate for at least some things that he's able to do for me right now, and it just "reminded me of me" at his age and how my old boss was pretty smart to see what he did at our initial meeting and that I could 'do' a big job like he had in mind at such a young age, so I've been reflecting on that.  The old boss just crossed the border with his wife, and they will be life-long friends, and there's now a 'learning by travel' forum where they'll hopefully get updates to us about their 3 month Mexico camping post-retirement trip.  And I also then look forward to when it's ME and I can retire.  This has been an expensive illnes in time, energy, and money and Lumigrate has as well, but it holds such promise to help a vast number of people and also provide me with a professionally satisfying mechanism, which ironically, provides others the same thing if it also benefits their enterprises and professional growth. 

MOST importantly, two conversations inspired me yesterday, either through facebook or the telephone, with wonderful, strong, educated women in other states in the U.S. who have fibromyalgia, both touching upon similar aspects of what I have gone through in the past.  I know how difficult it is to get from where they are to where I am.  I know that there is more beyond where I am too, and luckily I have new and talented providers working with me to 'polish up' humpty dumpty!  I'm finding a few things to continue working on with my own mind/body/spirit in my continuing pursuit of getting 'weller'.  (That's what I call it, because I'd love to think that I'll be 'well' but 'weller' will do!)  And please think about the word 'educated' and what that means today to YOU -- in their case they do have higher formal education, AND in addition, they've been learing on the internet from Lumigrate and other sources VERY much.  So people today can be 'educated', just in a new way, which is very exciting.

One of my advisors from the formative stages of Lumigrate, Adam Cochran, is sending his application today into big-league, established University. Lumigrate.com will be one of the models Adam will be using as a source in his post graduate work and dissertation related to new learning methods.  I hope he'll forgive me if I forget to call him 'Dr. Cochran', because he'll always be Adam to me... here from the beginning.... It wouldn't have happened as well as it did without him, that I am sure of.  I very much hope that today's application is blessed with acceptance!

As long as I wake up in the morning and am glad that I am here for a new day, because I was, in the past, in a place where I though "If every day were like today, would I want to have a lifetime of them?" and the answer was 'No'.  MANY people are in that place now, and I had the pleasure of being  part of someone who is in that place finding a connection that she hopes is going to help her, in that I simply wrote a blog on Sunday about Bay Recovery and their involvement with A&E's Intervention the next day/Monday and on Monday promoted it on facebook so the couple thousand people following me and Lumigrate might watch if they wanted.  That let to them realizing it might make sense for me to have a personal visit to their facility so that we can see about collaborating in the future about bringing their 'integrative approach' to pain management and pain medication addictions and dual diagnoses to more people via the vehicle of Lumigrate. (See note in the box below, I'm coming back in January 2012 and adding information to any reference to Bay Recovery.)

At this time last year, Lumigrate was being assembled by a fantastic webmaster. It went way over budget and quoted price. Not good and many things about Lumigrate have been a learning experience for me.  An equally talented woman in Grand Junction had learned all she needed to know about recording, editing and all that ended up being on the videos that you have the ability to now download (3 free, 5 $20 currently).  (Note from Jan. 2012) That was dropped to $0 later on ALL videos ... just get people watching them!) 

And TWO years ago I was telling the therapy clinic I contracted with that I was moving on to pursue a non-insurance based approach through 'integrative medicine' which was going to have an on-line component to it.  And so if you're reading this today, I hope YOU feel included in the process, because it is your reading and writing in Comments under blogs, or in the burgeoning Forums area. 

Your feedback and comments here and on facebook and Twittering allows us to know what is important to people and not so much!  Your telling others on facebook or by hitting the Print buttons on the screen here or simply printing the home page and displaying or showing others -- and we have much more we've planned and are assembling to bring you in the next week -- pod casts, flayers with pull tabs, and as I said MANY new fabulous providers I personally know who are going to bring a vast array of content to make Lumigrate have much more than it has in it's formative three seasons.  A busy weekend ahead for us with that, and I hope if this has resonated with YOU, that the weekend brings you time to peruse and learn and start working from where you are today to be where you want to be tomorrow or a year from now.  "Weller" has happened for many people who latched onto Lumigrate last year, and that is a wonderful thing. 

~~ Mardy 

And if I were lucky enough to meet you personally and hand you a business card you'd see this on the front and back, respectively:

"Lighting the Path to Health and Well-Being" through integrative medicine
Giving each person the light of knowledge to illuminate their own path, empowering them to become their own best guide to health and well-being"

Thanks for being tuned in!  More this weekend about Analii and Ilene, so please tune in again!

Note from January 2012: I have been contacted by more than one former patient of Dr Rand's at Bay Recovery who have asked me to remove all information about him due to their concerns for others based upon their experiences. I appreciate that they are taking the time to research where he might be doing outreach to get his name heard, so thank YOU.  That is true 'generosity of time and energy' which might be translated into 'spirit'.  

I had encountered a change with Dr Rand's behaviors when interacting with me which were very different than how I had experienced him when we spent a day at a chronic pain conference together, so had stopped working to get information from him into Lumigrate at that time.  I have removed all the solo pieces he and his team had posted in the past in Forums but I have opted to keep this and one other piece but adding this disclaimer/caution, because it is "baby with bathwater" as this is an excellent resource for people.  If he was providing good information in the past which is included here and people can learn from it, that's one thing; using him as a physician would be another which I would want people to make their own decisions about.  

To help in your researching this provider (and I suggest you do this for all your providers) here's a link to the portion of the California Medical Board related to Dr Rand's current and past  http://www2.mbc.ca.gov/LicenseLookupSystem/PhysicianSurgeon/Lookup.aspx?licenseType=G&licenseNumber=25749. My apologies for not having done that step after we had met when Lumigrate was only two months 'live' -- I continue to learn with this enterprise and change my procedures just as I have as a medical consumer. Just because a big TV show uses him doesn't mean there's a good history.  Not something I had to know as a woman with fibromyalgia or an OT practicing in Colorado!