A change of plans

Hey everyone,

This is a difficult post to write, but I realize I need to make an announcement.

I finally caught Covid for the first time last month and it has been absolutely brutal. I was only able to get one vaccine, as I had an adverse reaction, and I have really been struggling since catching it.

The freakiest thing about this is that I’m one of those people who had a totally “mild” case and thought I was done with Covid after about 7 days. I wasn’t as tired, my fever was gone… and then, all of a sudden, my shortness of breath actually got worse in week 3.

I have honestly spent a few days in the depths of despair. I have had to put my coaching calls on hold for the time being, as I’ve found it’s too difficult on my lungs to do a lot of speaking.

I am fortunate that I already have a great medical team — a silver lining of having already gone through past challenges.

One thing that surprised me is that this sort of “delayed” reaction is not necessarily unusual. I just met with my immunologist, Dr. Castells at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, this morning and she expects I’ll be feeling better in another month or so. She attributes my symptoms to a “cytokine storm” — that is, my immune system really freaking out and releasing a ton of inflammatory chemicals, which are going to take a while to clear out.

However, I’m also well aware of the many people struggling out there with long Covid, where they have symptoms like these (and worse) which go on for a very long time. I’ve begun spending time researching and networking in patient groups because I believe the best way to face these things is head on.

Contrary to the way the media makes it seem, there are a ton of people struggling with long Covid who were completely healthy and in great shape before. So I don’t think my age and previous health status are any sort of guarantee.

So, I’m well aware that I could be up against something very big. However, I’m going to do everything in my power to fight it and get ahead of it. If I learn something that can help others, I’ll definitely let you all know.

I wanted to write this post because I feel there’s really been a tendency towards minimizing Covid in our culture these days.

I remember when I first got sick, the first telehealth doctor told me that based on my age group, I might be feeling completely better in about 5 days. (Lol).

That is very much not what has happened. My lungs felt way better after 5 days of Covid than they do right now.

Moving forward

So, I am temporarily putting my coaching calls on pause. I hope to resume them as soon as possible.

However, I am going to take this opportunity to pivot and work on something that’s been an going dream for a while– to create some sort of an online course where you can read and learn all of the concepts I found helpful, laid out for you step by step.

Ultimately, my vision is for the course to be an offering along side my one-on-one coaching calls. We’ll be able to do calls as you need them, however the course will be a place for you to log in and see a roadmap for recovery – like a blueprint that you can follow, when you need hope.

Looking back, I do think that one of the limiting factors, in why it took me so long to find answers for SI Joint dysfunction, was that I didn’t truly know if recovery was possible. I was kind of stumbling through the dark, hoping I’d find something helpful, but I didn’t really know where to look. Sometimes, when one treatment or approach thing failed, I’d completely take a break from trying new things for months.

Now, I know that I truly knew SI joint dysfunction could get better, I would have handled the situation differently, and it would have been more of a straight shot.

Today, that vision is what I want to share with you guys.

Ultimately, I think that taking the space to create this course could actually turn out to be a very good thing. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for a while.

I absolutely love, love doing my coaching calls, but this is something that will let me help even more people.

I’ll let you in on a little secret — I feel there is actually a certain magic that takes place on these calls.

It’s hard to measure it, or put it into words, but it’s the alchemy of knowing that I’m helping someone — in the moment– and watching their life start to change. The paradox is that the more I’ve taken on new clients and gotten busy with these calls, I haven’t necessarily had as much time to devote to my sites.

So, I actually think that taking time out to work on a course could turn out to be a very good thing, even though I will of course miss talking to all of you right now. I’m going to take more of the lessons I’ve learned about how to help people on these calls, and the common struggles and pitfalls you all are going through, and use that to create the course framework.

The course will be a way for me to help even more people, and you’ll be able to log in and access anything you need, at any time.

Hope

I’m also going to be dedicating myself to work on my sites, because right now I need hope. It helps me so much to remember there were previous times I was up against an insurmountable health challenge, and somehow, and with the help of some really great people, I found a way.

In addition to SI joint dysfunction, some of you may know that I previously dealt with an immunological condition called mast cell activation syndrome. (Genetically, it’s something that tends to go along with hypermobility syndromes, and is also thought to play somewhat of a role in post-Covid).

I started my Mast Cell Healing site for a while, and have even been doing some coaching for mast cell clients. However, it’s taken me some time to fully throw myself into that site, because a big part of overcoming mast cell activation syndrome has actually been to implement a mind-body approach called neural retraining, where you actually don’t focus too much on topics that set off “danger” signals in your brain. (I explain more on my site).

One thing my experience with post-Covid has taught me is that I’m actually in a pretty good place to write and talk about MCAS. It was once a truly upsetting topic for me, right after my initial diagnosis, but I’ve experienced so much healing on that topic, it’s actually a relief when it comes up in the post-Covid forums! Now, it’s something that I feel I understand.

So, I’ll be working on all this, as a form of healing for myself as I face my newest challenge.

I realize this was a bit of a longer post than usual, but I really just wanted to put all of this out there.

I know many people want to move on from the topic of Covid in 2023, however I hope my story can serve as a cautionary tale. I do want to urge all of you to continue to take all of the steps you can take to avoid infection, or reinfection.

However, I’m also looking forward to seeing what good things can come out of this situation, and hopefully, I’ll be creating a new way to connect with you all!

Has anyone else out there had a rough experience after Covid? What has helped you?

Let me know in the comments below!