Could the end be in sight????

I have juice cleansed/detoxed before. Many, many, MANY times before. There were years where I would do a 3-5 cleanse/reset with the changing of the seasons, along with a liver cleanse. Looking back I was never healthier.

Then 2010 came. With three fragile little discs in my lower back it was just a matter of time before they gave out on me. I had sustained the first injury when I was seventeen, landed a jump wrong at a dance rehearsal, collapsed on the floor, unable to walk. Scary. The ambulance came, and took me away. But this was THIRTY YEARS AGO, and they didn’t do an x-ray, they didn’t do any testing, they just sent me home as soon as the pain had subsided, and I could stand, suggesting I rest. So rest I did, for a few days. Then life of an active seventeen year old came calling, school, dance rehearsals all back in full swing. I carried on like this for many, many years, not suspecting any long term injury from what I had classified as a freak dance accident.

That was until 2002, in a Yoga class, trying to give my body some reprieve from teaching fifteen Tae Bo class week after week at my studio, for three years running. This time I actually heard, and FELT the snap, my leg went cold, and I just lay there, doing my best to breathe through the pain. Again, some rest, some Chiropratic care, and life carried on. Until my back protested once again in 2004. It was May. I could tell that my body just couldn’t do this anymore. This cold hard fact, combined with dwindling participants, I didn’t renew my lease. Instead I packed up, and put a different kind of priority on my health. Within days of shuttering the studio doors, my back went out AGAIN. This time it left me flat on it for three weeks.

I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on. Still no call for CT Scan, or MRI…social health care…but that’s ANOTHER POST. Within a couple of months I could bend over, stand for prolonged periods of time. It was definitely a transition in lifestyle, to say the least.

Then 2010 happened. My back had, had enough, and one day while getting ready to go to an audition I collapsed in a heap on the bathroom floor, Yannick carrying me to our bedroom. Yes I was stark naked, and not it’s not as sexy as it sounds. Or as it could have been had I not been in pain worse than birthing three children, which I had done naturally. Yay me. Anyway carrying on. What I came to learn because, God bless my best friend, who works in a hospital, and put me through their emergency department, was that three discs were at play. Two were bulging and one had ruptured. The ruptured one was the problem. It was on a nerve, causing me to be paralyzed from the hip down on my left leg. It was an eye opener, I can assure you of that. During the entire ordeal I learned empathy for people who live with chronic pain. In order to “live” I had to go on heavy medication to be able to simply, roll over. I lay in bed for three weeks straight, so stoned on pain medication that Yannick came in one day, kneeled in front of me, and cried. Worried I would be like this for life. Thank the universe I wasn’t; once I got used to the medication, and the illusion it created by allowing me to feel my left leg, I was up and at em, almost back to normal while I awaited surgery.

Post surgery, about one year after, I began training with a male trainer. I stayed with him for a couple of years. After him another male trainer, again I spent two years with him, I added a male trainer in LA, then came home and hired one that trained with the same techniques as the LA guy. Each one adding to the healing creditenals I needed in order to get back to 100% strength. I worked out hard. I ate a TON of animal protein. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Now, it was all super high quality stuff, organic, no hormones all that jazz. Except, for when we went out for dinner, which was often, because I HATE cooking. I love having people over, and I love cooking for a crowd, but cook day in day out…no thanks…there are many things I would much rather do. God knows what they put/have in their animal products in restaurants, but I’m sure even at the most expensive places, it’s not that good.

But I digress.

We’re talking about when/how my health began to deteriorate. The more I trained with men, like I said the more animal protein I ate, the bigger, and unhealtier I became. Antibiotics became a thing I had to take at least twice a year to deal with the pain of chronic sinus infections.

What the fuck was going on?? I DESPISE antibiotics. So much so, that our youngest hadn’t even been on them until she had her wisdom teeth pulled before her first year of college. And guess what? She now has chronic sinus infections, and uses antibiotics at LEAST three times per year.

How did I let this happen to her, and to me? I knew better. I’ve known better about antibiotics and their link to illness since 1995. I’ve also known that too much of anything, especially animal protein is also not an ideal, alkaline way to treat one’s body.

So here I sit. Three years since my last intense, get my body reset cleanse, coming down the home stretch. Drinking my final two juices, and having one last colema before I can break the fast with some papaya at 5pm, feeling clear, feeling well, but mostly feeling hopeful that I will continue on honoring my body in the way that I know is right, and that works for me. Also that I will not allow the naysayers, primarily male trainers, which I no longer work with, to tell me what works for my body. Instead I have a spunky, healthy, female trainer, who is also a nutritionist, and chef, who is in killer shape, strong, and incredibly healthy.

As I prepare to leave the jungle, I can’t help but wonder, if the end to all my health issues is in my sight???

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm…