Once upon a time (13 years ago to be exact) I was one of the first to jump on the social media bandwagon and I grew my channels to over 250,000 followers. I guess that means I was an influencer.
I built my career through social media and my business exploded early on through referrals from posts, trainings, a column I wrote, etc… Most of my clients in the early days I never met in person—not even once.
Today, I am nowhere near as active on social platforms, having closed several “large-following” accounts over the years and never recovering my hacked YouTube channel with over 500 videos and millions of views. Somewhere, somehow, I lost my social inspiration.
It became crowded, pay-to-play, and fake. Fake was the worst of all. I refused to be a part of it or to participate in the sham. I retreated to the corporate world and some private clients.
I have a few hundred friends today on my personal Facebook account. My usual activity is to browse through how my friends are doing; every day or two I find myself browsing through my own memories.
Thanks, Facebook for reminding me of my past.
I realized something disturbing recently that has been consistent across my personal channel posts: I seem to always be sick. I am constantly recovering from the flu or a cold, or I “didn’t sleep well” because I was not myself. I would post “Up all night, taking the day off. Will be back tomorrow to make magic happen”. (There are even a few posts pleading, “Does anyone have natural remedies for cold? I’m hurtin for certain”). The list of complaints online went on . . . and on!
I was shocked when I realized this became habit over the years. I thought long and hard about health. Was I burnt out and in need of time off? Well, I have mostly always been my own boss, so it wasn’t as if I needed permission to do that. That couldn’t be it.
Truthfully, over the years I have had many unexplained medical issues (even earning a frequent flyer card at my local hospital) and I have always under the care of several specialists. Yet, no real answers or diagnosis have been provided other than having had my gallbladder removed after suffering months of massive stomach pain and not eating.
I have been a vegetarian most of my life and have exercised consistently up until my early 40s. Today at 47 years old (about to become a grandmother for the first time) I have found myself on my knees, frustrated with my usual symptoms. The only difference is that over the past few months they have been hard hitting, too present to just ignore.
Many days have been spent curled up on the couch in pain, or mobile but unable to drive because another symptom has been vision loss. Migraines have also overtaken my life. Oh, and throw in vitamin deficiencies, too. The list of symptoms just kept getting longer. I decided finally that this is not how I want to live. (Side note: I am one of the most positive people I know, and my friends and family will vouch for me on that. But sickness has been a dark cloud for most of my adult life. I have tried to dismiss it by saying it is psychological because there are never any real explanations for my symptoms. Then I would brush it off and rest until I felt better).
That is until October 2020.
Something was wrong and I was no longer able to just push away my symptoms. My husband and I began to make appointments with doctors. We went through a few who, like the others before them, had no real answers. Suddenly, I found a highly rated top neurologist in our area, and I just knew I had to see this guy. A gut feeling told me he was the one.
And my gut was right. After MRIs, ultrasounds, blood tests, (and more tests) the diagnosis almost landed on Multiple Sclerosis. In fact, many doctors might have made that mistaken diagnosis. But this neuro doc who spent hours with me, listening, reading my journal, reviewing all my tests and records, knew that it was something different, something more uncommon than MS.
I will write more on my journey to health and the diagnosis over the weeks to come, but for now, suffice to say I was overjoyed that the answer had been found and that I was not crazy. (And if you are reading this and going through something similar, trust your gut AND find a highly rated and recommended doctor.)
My body kept trying to tell me something, but because I was raised on crystal healing and the belief that thoughts become things, I just assumed it was because I was working too much or maybe upset with someone and making myself sick. (Don’t get me wrong, I do believe the mind is amazing and can work for you or against you, but I also believe in science).
And science stepped in here, leading me on a journey back to health. Thank you for listening.
More soon,
Lolli
PS- this is my sweet little angel dog Archie, he always knows when I’m not feeling good, the little cuddle bug.
