God is good all the time. All the time, God is good.
We hear this phrase often, but do we really believe it? Over the past 7 months, it would be easy for me to become depressed, discouraged, angry, frustrated and so much more. I mean, who dedicates their life to getting healthy and helping others stay healthy and then gets cancer? Doesn’t seem fair does it…
But because of my faith, I knew from the start that:
There was a plan
Whether I enjoyed the process or not, there was a purpose and
I would come out strong in the end andlearn some yet unknown lessons that needed to be learned
And sure enough, here I am, at the end of this journey (and the beginning of a new one) having fulfilled each of those things.
Plan
Not surprisingly, from day 1, I saw that God had been planning this journey for several years.
I discovered my tumor had been there for 2 years
I discovered later that cancer develops (like autoimmune diseases, another form of immune system dysregulation) over 7-10 years
I knew that had I not gotten sick in 2015, I wouldn’t have become an FDN
Had I not become and FDN, I wouldn’t have gotten to deep into healing, and already put in several years of work
Had I not put in the work, this journey may have been much more difficult for me
Had I not become an FDN and really invested in myself and my business I wouldn’t have gone to Mindshare (a networking summit with some of the top functional medicine docs around the country)
Had I not gone to Mindshare, I wouldn’t have had access to any of the experts I used to guide me through this process (detox expert, emotional healing expert, integrative naturopath specializing in cancer)
Had I not had access to these people I may have experiences loads more symptoms and not recovered as quickly in between treatments. I am walking away with no long term effects on my heart, lungs, or nerves and during the process I never experienced severe constipation, or pain of any kind. The most regular symptoms for me were fatigue, nausea and some acid reflux/discomfort from the epithelial lining being so raw from this process. I didn’t even lose all my hair ( I really think it stopped when I started taking beef liver again!) I had some many people praying for me across the country - I know that God protected me in many ways throughout this process.
So…..You see…..from the beginning I knew there was a plan. God knew that this was part of my journey and he set me up to navigate it as successfully as I possibly could. He blinded my eyes to the tumor ( which I could see in pictures stating 2 years prior) until it was the right time and I knew the right people.
But for whatever reason….this was still something He wanted me to experience.
Purpose
I knew there was some purpose to this. Maybe it was to solidify my stance that there is benefit to both conventional and natural medicines….maybe it was to strengthen my faith….maybe it was to help me empathize with clients and understand the body better….
Whatever the reason, I knew there was a purpose. And while I have learned MANY lessons, and had many A HA! moments, I may learn the ultimate purpose much later….or never at all….
Discovery
The first 3 months were the hardest. My body was shocked with this new treatment, I didn’t know what to expect, and anytime my white blood cells tanked it scared me. Everything was so new. The second treatment was the hardest as I ended up with an infection and an overnight hospital stay. This effectively eliminated my recovery period between treatments and so I wasn’t as strong going into the 3rd. But then around this time, I decided I really needed to continue living my life. I couldn’t just STOP living and so as I felt well, I did things that made me happy like singing and being around people again.
And throughout this last half of treatment I had revelation upon revelation about the kind of person I want to be, the kind of life I want to live, how I want to relate to other people and even how I want to run my business.
This isn’t to diminish the pain, fear, and uncertainty of this process. It’s not fun, and treatment weekends are the worst. Over the next 3 days I’ll spend most of my time in bed, popping nausea pills, sleeping, and forcing myself to drink water that to me tastes disgusting just to avoid dehydration which makes EVERYTHING worse.
But I simply don’t know how I would have navigated this without my faith. Without knowing that God had a plan, I wouldn’t have been looking for it. Without assuming there was a purpose, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my mentality positive and hopeful. Without knowing that there were lessons to be learned, I wouldn’t have be open to receiving all the downloads I was being divinely sent.
This was something I was meant to go through. I’m thankful that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, I praise God for knowing what I needed, and I can’t wait to implement my new life goals. Some of the best things in life come from the most painful experiences. I hope I never have to go through this again, but the battle was worth the win.
