Date: 2009-03-16
To: Where I Have Been
Miles today: 0.0

Back in the 60¢s I was a music and art major in one of the ¢fame¢ New York City high schools.   I would ride the subway from the Bronx to Harlem, NY and walk from Convent Avenue up 68 steps through a park, to my school.   Janice Ian-teen sensation, a number one hit on the radio (Society¢s Child) and the kids who were in the original musical, Hair, waited outside. All of us girls in dresses or skirts. Pants for girls were not allowed in the NYC school system yet. My first class, conducting was on the 6th floor of the school. No elevator! So...it appears that many stairs in early life may point to thru hiking in the future! The high school was right next to City College of New York (CCNY) and I spent a lot of my high school time on that college campus. Doing the hippy thing, hanging out in Central Park and hitching all over the place was taking a toll on my relationships at home. My parents were quite vocal about the fact that it was time for me to get out of the house. At 18, I found myself paging through the local college guide when the following item caught my eye; NYC was paying nursing students room and board in exchange for a commitment to work in a city hospital after graduation. So, the music and art major went off to nursing school! How the divine guides us¢¦A few years later with my RN in hand I started working in the intensive care/coronary care unit at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx.   I spent fifteen years in that intensive care/coronary care unit, nursing people day after day who had heart disease, coronary obstructive pulmonary disease, stroke, diabetes, kidney disease, liver disease, hypertension or septicemia. The list goes on. Many patients got better; some kept coming back, sick again, others died.I started not feeling well in my twenty¢s. I chalked it up to bad genes. It seemed like everyone in my family had some kind of intestinal dysfunction going on. Stomach cramping started and got so unbearable I had to seek medical attention. Soon I was diagnosed with a full blow case of colitis. The symptoms got so bad I had to take time off from work. I could not go out of my house. I needed a bathroom near at all times. Huge doses of Prednisone (a prescription anti-inflammatory steroid), the treatment of choice at that time, blew my weight from 110 pounds up to 150 pounds. The Prednisone helped my gut feel better but it crippled me physically and emotionally. I developed arthralgia from this medication, a type of ¢reversible arthritis¢, I had to walk with a cane and then a walker, I had boils on my face.   I was unrecognizable to myself and others and became more home bound. My immune system was shot, and I seemed to be susceptible to every cold and flu-adding antibiotics to the medication mix.My colitis symptoms experienced relief from the steroid medication, but a chemical cascade of events had been set off leading me down the road to future health issues and more medications. I went in and out of remission, yet continued to work in the ICU/CCU, sometimes thinking I should be the patient, not the nurse. Cocktails of many medication¢s and the dreaded Prednisone continued. I was finally physically ¢stable¢ and I left the ICU/CCU to try to find a less stressful life. I went back to college, art school, to my academic roots, and got a degree in Fine Arts.   I tried to have a ¢healthy, normal¢ life. I went camping, had a crippling event and could not get out of the tent. My doctor gave me the OK to get pregnant while I was on a new less ¢potent¢ cocktail for colitis. By then I was in and out of remission and thought, this is as good as it¢s going to get. The excitement of my first pregnancy was tempered by an agonizing third trimester. I developed total body itching and was told I had ¢liver problems due to my colitis medication.¢ Because of the pregnancy I could not take anything to relieve the itching and my skin soon became raw and bled. The birth of my daughter brought tremendous joy and relief of the itching symptoms, however the colitis continued and worsened. We moved from the city to the country where I developed environmental allergies and asthma. Then muscle pain, tendonitis, extreme fatigue and loss of concentration, brain fog. The birth of my son brought more joy but my body and marriage were starting to fall apart. My chronic stress level was intense. I cried often, I was depressed. A friend suggested I get out of the house a few hours a week and apply for a job at Canyon Ranch in the Berkshires, a health spa that had opened in our town. She said they needed nurses for the medical department. I brushed off my nursing license and applied for the job.   On work days I came home, fed the children and went to bed by 7pm. My body was inflamed. I was on five different medications and soon found myself divorced with two small children and the need to earn a living.   My part time job at Canyon Ranch became a full time job and I proceeded to force myself through each day. My co-workers knew I was not feeling well but never guessed the extent. I felt like I had the flu every day of my life, my body was on fire, my muscles were fibrillating and then I crashed. One day I was in the supermarket and felt a crawling sensation in my body that would not stop. I got home, went to bed and was not able to get up for a month. I was jaundice, dropped down to 100 pounds, my body and brain was failing and thought I might die. No doctor seemed to be able to pin point what was wrong with me. I continued taking medication for colitis and asthma and loaded myself with anti-inflammatory medication. My concentration was so poor that the one time I tried to drive to an appointment myself, I crashed my van into a pole. It was morning, a clear day.   A month went by and I was strong enough to go to a staff meeting at Canyon Ranch. One of the doctors, Mark Hyman, was shocked by my appearance and pulled me into his office. We talked for hours. He took my medical history from birth to present, which included even the most minor symptoms. After a complete environmental history I realized I was loaded with past mercury exposure from playing with thermometers as a kid and chemical exposure from my art school days.   For the last seventeen years, both at Canyon Ranch and then working with Dr. Mark Hyman in a Functional Medicine practice--The UltraWellness Center, I see over and over again how even the most minor symptoms can foreshadow more serious conditions later in life. I experienced the ¢snowball effect,¢ in which imbalances within the body produce a chemical cascade of events that can eventually lead to poor health and chronic illness.It took many months of a strict elimination diet and nutritional supplements to get off my medications, and it took years to be vital, healthy and in my life again. I am very grateful to the healers in my life and here I am, starting a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. That in itself is a miracle to me.These last few weeks at work have been very intense, saying good-bye to patients who have become my friends. This day, I cried a good-bye with one of them. She is struggling to find her path towards wellness and has been at it a long time. I love and feel for each and every one of them, for I know what a toll illness takes on peoples lives. I was there. I will not be back to this job/position again, but my desire to help Mark change the face of medicine will continue. He has already made great strides. He was invited by Senator Kennedy and Senator Harken to present Functional Medicine concepts at the congressional committee on Integrative Medicine last month. Today, I realize how my story and this hike is inspiring people around me to be in their lives. Thank you all for your love, support and blessings of safety. Thank you and love to my children, my family, friends, healers, co-workers, Jim S.-- who is one of the cornerstones of my foundation¢¦and to my Beloved ¢A¢ who supports me and lifts me up. You are all MY teachers.   Monday the 30th I get on that midnight train¢opps I mean plane, to Georgia (sounds like a song again!) and start walking!!!