Organize or the Pot Will Burn.

Healing from a chronic illness is a full time job. Dolly Parton style workin’ 9-to-5!  Except it actually feels more like a 24 hour shift most days. 

Before starting the protocol I’m doing now, I researched. I asked questions. I planned it all out. I thought I had a great sense of how this would all go down. And I’m a health veteran! How hard could it be? I’ve done so much for the last 10 years to build up to this. I water fasted, I built my immune system, I corrected nutritional deficiencies, I changed my diet, I cured my insomnia, acne, healed my gut, I detoxed heavy metals and got rid of parasites. I put a huge amount of time and effort to get here. But I still had no idea how much time and effort this stage would require. 

First, I had to get a surgery to put a PICC line in. I had to get trained to do 4 hours of IV antibiotics at home daily. Next, there were the IV’s...I’m in my doctors office from 9-2pm Tuesday-Friday. And don’t forget about the supplements...oh the supplements! A whole box of pills per day. I take about 20 capsules every few hours, plus 10 tinctures. I also give myself peptide injections at home 5 days a week, bee venom injections every 3 days, and get injections in my neck and skull once a week for detox. I do infrared saunas. I do coffee enemas. I do Homeopathics. I do a lot. Then each night I pack everything up and get ready to do it all over again. I’m also maintaining my work and personal life. It’s a ton, to say the least. It’s not easy. And I struggle with it. 

I am not an organized person by nature. I am a total creative chaotic. Which has it’s amazing benefits, sure, but also its pitfalls. It’s very hard for me to be regimented in my healing. I have developed some beneficial Type A skills over the years like being on time and writing my daily task lists. But lyme is a whole different playing field. And last week, I dropped the ball. 

Mornings have been particularly messy and challenging for me. I have a work call every weekday from 7-8:45am. So of course I choose to get up at 6:45! Oy. I’m throwing my clothes on at the BEGINNING of the call. Making a coffee enema MID-call. And slamming my supplements and breakfast in a bag at the END of the call to rush to my doctors for IV’s right AFTER the call. It’s exhausting just writing it. Is it as exhausting reading it? Phew. 

Last week I did what I normally do. Yawn. Groan. Contacts in. Call started. And it was a mad dash trajectory from there. After the call, I grabbed my bags and ran out the door with my shoes not even tied. Standing on top of the backs of my Jordan’s, I literally shuffled out to my car. I hit my head on the ceiling as I got in. I threw my bags in the passenger seat. My man told me to wake up earlier and leave more time...and I was thinking to myself; why didn’t I listen?! And as I pulled out of the driveway, I looked up and saw him watching the whole crazy scene. I waved and took off in a cloud of speed to be on time for my IV.

Ten minutes after I left, as I lobbed down I-5 towards my doctors office...I suddenly had a thought. Wait. Did I leave my coffee enema cooking on the stove? For those of you who don’t know: to make it, you bring grinds and water to a boil and then steep it before straining. I wasn’t sure, but I might have left the pot going on the flames.

I pulled over and immediately called Christopher. He didn’t pick up. I texted him, and tried calling one more time. I knew he didn’t start work until 10am, and assumed he would get my communication before he left the house. So I continued on my way. But after I got my IV put in, I looked at my phone. It was 9:45, and I still hadn’t gotten a response. I figured he saw what I had said, and just had to get to work quickly. But at 9:59, I got a text saying he just read my messages and he was supposed to start work and there might be a burning pot on the stove?! Grrr. His blood was boiling, and rightfully so.

I didn’t know if I had actually left it on the stove or not and it might be fine, I told him. He was upset I wasn’t clear, and felt annoyed that he was having to deal with this at all. Did he have to cancel his client so the house didn’t burn down? Oh man. 

We were texting back and forth and I was trying to find out from the doctors if it was even possible to get unhooked from my IV. At 10:02, I stopped getting texts from Chris. I assumed he went into his work meeting. And after Googling some articles on if you can burn your house down with a pot or not...I made the decision to leave the doctor. They made it happen, and the IV was taken out. And as I sped the 20 minutes back home to check, Christopher let me know he had already gone back to the house. The pot wasn’t on the stove. I hadn’t left it on. Nothing at the house was burning. 

But my insides certainly were. I had created utter chaos for him. He was upset, and I affected him. He had pushed back his client 30 minutes and I affected her. And I had also affected myself. I had wasted $300 on the IV that I didn’t finish. I didn’t get to do my other treatments the rest of the day because the timing was off. I felt frazzled. So I pulled over and cried. 

It was a huge lesson for me. I had to get up earlier. I had to pack my supplements calmly the night before. I had to become one organized healing ninja if I really wanted to get through this. And if I wanted to get through it WELL. It didn’t even matter that I didn’t actually leave the pot on the stove. The fact that I created such a crazy experience was all the heat I needed to put the fire of change under my ass. 

We’re all human, and we make mistakes. But how do I want to get to where I’m going? What good is it if I’m doing all the ‘right stuff’, but I’m a Tasmanian Devil in the process? What does ‘healing’ really mean? I suddenly realized how important it is to slow down, do all the boring I-hate-this preparations, and turn down the flames.

Organize…or the pot (literal or metaphorical) will burn.