035 "Disappearing From Society" a documentary about Chronic Illness, Lyme, Chronic Pain, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Lyme disease

Congratulations, Lyme Fighter! Today you had the courage to open your eyes and face another day. Welcome to Lyme Voice. This show's purpose is to help you put the puzzle pieces of Lyme into place. Each episode is designed to inspire, educate, and encourage you on your Lyme journey to wellness. Together we will fight. Together we will heal. Together we will live. Here are your hosts, Aaron and Sarah Sanchez. Sanchez.

Sanchez. Sanchez. Wishing your doctors could communicate and come up with a cohesive plan specific to your medical needs and genetics? At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach, giving you the opportunity to heal. In addition to a commitment of providing radical love and care for their patients, they are strategically located in sunny Arizona because Arizona offers the best integrative medical laws in the country. Call today to speak with one of their patient care coordinators. You can find them online at invita.com.

Welcome, Lion Voice listeners. This is Aaron Sanchez, and as always, I have my wife Sarah Sanchez. Say hi.

Hi. Welcome back to this episode of Lime Voice 2.0. We are super excited to be back on the air, and as always, we're going to talk about fighting is a mindset, healing consists of choices, and living is the outcome of that, and we're really excited to be back on the air.

Yeah, why don't we start out by explaining, because we haven't been on the air in over a year. I know, but we have not been twiddling our thumbs. We have been very busy.

Yes.

Tell us, tell the listeners what we've been up to, babe.

So I'll just start with a quick recap for anyone who hasn't listened to our first couple of episodes. Um, I'm 21 years into having Lyme. I got bit when I was 18, did not know it, was told it was an infected spider bite. Um, from that point forward, dealt with fatigue and migraines, and, um, everything just hit me really hard. All, you know, pregnancies took me a year to recover from. Um, car accidents just escalated all my symptoms, and it was in 2013 we finally got a diagnosis. And at that point, I had been labeled chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Mislabeled. Mislabeled. Yeah, I mean, those are all the symptoms that everyone deals with. So yeah, um, by the time I did get diagnosed, I'd already been in bed pretty much 24/7 for at least a couple of years, but I had on and off been in bed for months and months at a time. So, um, I went out to Invita Medical, got treatment for 2 months, came home and completed the 2-year program that they recommend. I also did an abbreviated Gerson protocol with juicing and coffee enemas every day, and still do quite a bit of the juicing and enemas. And, and then just trying to recover and put our life back in order slowly.

Is it— I mean, when we left, when you left for treatment, you were in a wheelchair. You were no longer able to take care of yourself or our kids. You were on death's door. I didn't know if you would come home from that treatment center. It was pretty severe.

I have never heard you say that.

Well, you were in bad shape.

Oh, I know, no doubt about that. Well, yeah, so, so yeah, we started the podcast in 2015, and, um, or was it '14? I think it was 2015. Anyways, 2016, I felt like for us was, um, kind of trying to heal emotionally and kind of undoing the crisis thinking that we had operated in as a family for a lot of years.

Yeah, huge part of it.

Um, and honestly, I've been somewhat surprised at the amount of time it's taken Yeah, cuz it's been 4— this summer it will be 4 years since I went out to treatment, and, and I feel like it's just been in the last 6 months that I am 100% totally running our house without my mom coming over to help, without, you know, cuz I still just— even though I had healed a lot physically, I still was dealing with fatigue and And but more often just with cognitive fatigue. And so to organize a household with 5 kids just takes a level of organization and cognitive function that I would have on some days but not all the days. And so my mom would sometimes just come over and say, okay, let's do this. She would just kind of help me strategize on what needed to be done. Um, she kind of was my brain. But so I'm happy to say that As a 39-year-old with 5 kids, I'm officially like back to being on my own and being in charge.

Yep.

Yep.

And it's good to have you back.

Oh, it's so good to be back.

Yeah. So there is hope out there for people. You can get better. Lyme doesn't have to take as much as it does. And that's one of the reasons that we created that— this podcast is so that others can see there is success and people are getting better from it, um, and recovering.

Yeah, and I try to talk about how I started getting better all the time when I post, when I blog, because I remember once I got diagnosed reading posts and blogs and all this information, and people would talk about getting better but they wouldn't say how they got better. And I was like so hungry for information. I'm like Well, tell us what you did or where you went or what supplements you took. But I get it now that it— for most people, it's not just one thing. For me, going out to Invito was a huge thing because it lowered and eliminated my pain, right? But there was still all this stuff that I had to heal from.

Yeah, there's not one tool to fix. Yeah, it's a— it's an entire garage full of tools. It's an entire workshop of tools in order to get better from this. It is daunting.

Yeah.

But at the same time, anything worth doing— and getting better is worth doing— yeah, it, it, it takes effort. So we're here to encourage you all that it is going to take effort, but you are worth it. You, your life is worth it. All of you have much to offer to, to the world and and to those around you. And so we want you to be encouraged to know that you are worth fighting for. And that fight has to be the mindset of your own, and your mindset needs to be there where you're, you're willing to fight for yourself and for those that you love.

Well said. So that leads us into You know, we took a break from being on the air in 2016 mostly because we could not find a sponsor.

Um, yeah, someone needed to pay to keep the lights on, literally.

Yes, it's true. Um, but yeah, I just could not find a sponsor. This is a very niche market and, um, it just took a long time. And but I had all these other projects I was working on at the same time, which has been my plan all along. Um, but I'm just, you know, limited in how many projects I can keep going up in the air. But the— everything you were just saying about you're worth fighting for, I'm like remembering from the documentary, which we'll talk about here. So I had the privilege of working on a short film documentary. It's about 20 minutes long. It's called Disappearing from Society, and Doing this documentary is truly a dream come true because when I, years ago, right when I started like getting to the point where I would have to sit down, you know, 'cause I had a ton of neuropathy and my feet were always asleep and I could never breathe. So I'd sit down and have to put my feet up sometimes for an hour, sometimes for 6 hours. And I hated being in bed. And so one of the conscious decisions I made was, Okay, if I have to be in bed, I'm gonna learn something. Like that was my way of rebelling or defying the illness's grasp on my life.

And fighting.

Yeah. Fighting. Yeah, I was fighting in the only way I knew how. And so I do not watch a lot of fiction. I read a ton and it was either like health or self-help or financial, all those things. Like I just chose even when I couldn't read to just learn. And I love learning, and it's empowered me in a lot of ways, but I feel like, um, this documentary is something tangible that like says— I, I don't know if it says I win, but like, does that make sense?

Yeah.

Um, like it's just something tangible that says like, yeah, I can't be beaten, and So yeah, we can—

we're like those, those blow-up punching bags you got when you're a kid. You knock them over and they keep standing back up.

Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, so if, um, if you go to lionvoice.com or find me on Facebook, Sarah Slickty Sanchez, um, I will be happy to send you a link to our Kickstarter project. It's running Now up until May 20th, and we're actually doing a live showing here in Rio Rancho, Rio Rancho, New Mexico. We're doing a live showing because the director who I worked with is also here in Rio Rancho, and she herself has dealt with fibromyalgia and a chronic illness for the last 5 to 6 years, which is why her heart was like with the chronic illness community. And so I wrote and produced it and she directed it, and it was just So fun.

Yeah. And is that open to people if they want to come?

Yes, anyone local. You can buy tickets off of the Kickstarter page. It's $25 a couple, $35 a family, and we're only showing it one time on May 20th in the morning. But if you want to watch the documentary, all you have to do is go to limenvoice.com, sign up for our newsletter, and on May 21st we are gonna send out a free download to everyone on our newsletter. That's super exciting.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah. And then I just finished the book that I talked about in 2015, Little Bite Big Trouble, which is a story about a little bird family who the mom gets Lyme and struggles to keep up with all the little baby birds. So it's gorgeous illustrations. We self-published, it's on Amazon, and that will be available starting June 1st, you can go ahead and pre-order it. But that's another one, like, I'm super proud of that being done.

Yeah, you wrote a movie and a book. Yeah, yeah, not bad.

Yeah, it's been such a great year. Yeah, it's been a lot of work, but it's like exhilarating work and it's meaningful, and I'm so thrilled to be doing it.

Yeah, I know that these— your efforts are going to have a huge impact on those around it because it's written— both the movie and the book are written from the eyes of someone who has struggled directly with this sickness. So if you're at all— if you've dealt with any chronic illness of any sort, you will benefit from the both of either the movie or the book.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, again, it— the movie and the book match our style of podcasting, which is addressing the social-emotional side of things. And that's really important because I felt like I really didn't have anyone to talk to those things, to talk about those things. You spend a huge amount of your time dealing with the factual and logistical issues of treatment emotionally and socially, you're just trying to survive. So yeah, it's good. I also got to do, um, a session, which was another really awesome thing. I got to do a session, a speaking session on the online Chronic Lyme Disease Summit that is going to be available in June. Yeah, and that was really great.

And who's that brought by?

Dr. Jay Davidson launches and runs the online Chronic Lyme Disease Summit, right? And he did it last year for the first time, and I remember seeing it and just thinking, oh my gosh, that is such a brilliant idea. Because we went out to the Lyme Disease Summit at Omega in New York in 2015, and there were several, several hundred people there. Katina Makris spoke, uh, Dr. Horowitz spoke, and it was so healing, and there was so much information, and they did a beautiful job doing the whole 3-4 day conference. But I mean, it was taxing physically. I could barely get there.

Yeah, first we had to fly, which is—

if you've had Lyme, yeah, flying's no good.

Flying is really hard on a body, especially with with the neurological stuff. So yeah, there was people who were basically just from that area. We were some of the furthest that came out for that. But the, the Lyme Disease Summit is an online—

brilliant—

anyone can use it from home without having the taxing travels.

Yeah. And so I will start sending out links through LymeVoice and on different Facebook pages promoting that if you sign up. I don't know the exact fee. I think it's around $60 or $70. When you sign up, you will also receive a copy of the documentary, a download copy, but you'll also receive a free Kindle book from Little Bite Big Trouble.

Oh cool, yeah, a little promotional.

Yeah, cross-promoting all over the place. All right, so yeah, lots of good stuff. Um, and I'm— but I am super excited to be back on the air, and we already have author Katina Makris lined up for an interview here in the next couple of weeks, and Dr. Jay Davidson, who did host the online summit, and several other people.

So yeah, even, uh, an interview on us by Steven and Heather Groeters. Yeah, so that one should be coming up here in the next few weeks. Yeah, which was really cool. We did that back in February of last year and just haven't had a chance to release it, but, uh, I was working on the editing just last night and it's a really good, powerful— it's a really good episode. There's a lot of powerful information there that all of you will benefit from.

Yeah, let me just clarify what he's talking about. Stephen and Heather Groeters were on prior episodes and they came down for the weekend and visited us. They become some dear friends and they interviewed us. Yeah, so they reversed the roles. And what is so intriguing about that interview, even though it's over a year old, is when I was talking to the director, Mackenzie Grunig, who directed Disappearing from Society, the Lyme documentary, I told her about this interview where Stephen and I both said that like our single biggest objectives were to not commit suicide. And that hit her really powerfully. She's like, are you serious? I'm like, yeah, because you want to die. And so what is so interesting is that episode led to that conversation. That conversation led to us driving out to Boulder to interview him for the documentary. Even though this is a short documentary, we get to address the financial issues, we get to address the emotional issues. And suicide is one of those topics that we touch on because it's so horrendous.

Yeah, unfathomable amount of pain. Yeah, that, you know, I've only seen it secondhand and I still don't understand, but I mean, just the amount of pain that Lyme patients have to deal with every day is incredible. It's absolutely incredible. So keep your head up if you're out there currently fighting. Keep your head up. You can do it. It's— I— we know how hard it is, especially Sarah. She knows exactly how hard it is, but it is possible.

Yeah, and I mean, and we're still in this, um, I'm doing really well. We have two kids who have Lyme and have dealt with issues for a lot of years, and, but we're seeing progress. It's slow, and it's slow and steady, but we're seeing progress with them as well.

Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, just to recap, because we haven't been on the air, 2016, I felt for me, you know, you have to heal on all these different levels. You have to heal physically, you have to heal emotionally, you have to heal spiritually, and And it just feels like this journey that you kind of have to walk out. So I have felt like, oh, I, I make good gains sometimes in a certain semester. Physically I'm doing a lot better, but maybe not so much emotionally. And so I think one of the things that happened for me in 2016 was just physically I was able to do more, like I was able to walk up flights of stairs that I couldn't. Um, I— and I'm just getting to that place here in the last few weeks where I can do some level of cardio. And, um, because I haven't, haven't done any cardio of any kind in like 10 years. So that's, you know, it's been slow. But, um, 2 weeks ago I lifted weights for the first time. And I've tried every few months, I tried to lift weights, and all of a sudden like I just felt strong. And it was really fun. Awesome. Yeah. So, um, the other thing that I feel like we've dealt with in 2016 is just recovering emotionally as a household, as a couple, as individuals. It's just we were used to operating in survival mode, in crisis mode, in so many areas of our life. That I feel like you and I have had to just consciously learn how to manage and behave differently because the way we were doing it for so many years was survival-oriented, more reactive and less proactive. And now we've been able to kind of take back our life and plan it and be proactive. Would you agree?

Oh, absolutely.

Wishing your doctors could communicate and come up with a cohesive plan specific to your medical needs and genetics? At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach, giving you the opportunity to heal. In addition to a commitment of providing radical love and care for their patients, they are strategically located in sunny Arizona because Arizona offers the best integrative medical laws in the country. Call today to speak with one of their patient care coordinators. You can find them online at invita.com.

So spiritually, we've had to recover.

Yeah.

And that's been almost a whole separate— I mean, it's, it's a whole nother subject.

Yeah, for, for us it certainly has been.

And not— it's equal to any of the health issues, because if you're not spiritually founded, if you're not spiritually, uh, secure, it can be just as detrimental as any symptoms or any, any, any fatigue or muscle spasms or— yeah, yeah. Let's talk about what we've been going through spiritually, and I'm excited about this especially because we've seen some really— we've seen tangible results. Yeah, supernatural results.

Um, about a year ago, in October of 2015, I read a book called You've Already Got It by Andrew Wommack. And so Aaron and I were both raised in evangelical churches. As I got sicker and sicker Um, one of the things that it teaches in the Bible is to go to the elders and have them pray, pray over you. We did that multiple times, and I continued to go further and further downhill, which, when I say spiritually, it's kind of like your heart, your soul, your spirit, your thinking patterns, like all kind of wrapped into one. And the basic premise of the book is that when Jesus came and died on the cross 2,000 years ago, he not only paid the price for salvation, which is what evangelical churches preach, Baptist churches, you know, salvation. Um, and what Andrew Wommack says is that when he came and did that, not only did he pay the price for our salvation, he paid the price to heal our diseases and our iniquities. Yeah, and it literally blew my mind because I had had a brother who was very, very sick, um, very disabled, and growing up, and my dad and my parents at one point, like, were praying for him to be healed, and because he was living a horrendous life, um, and nothing ever came of it. I remember that prayer meeting, um, in our house, and So it's been this journey that we've been on as a family for decades. Like, how does this work? And I follow several, uh, preachers around the world who have healing ministries, and I just didn't know there were any in the United States. And I, you know, even as I was recovering in 2015, I'm thinking, okay, I'm better because I'm not in pain. I think I was operating at around like 65%. And I could have been happy to live that way forever because of the amount I suffered. But, but there's more available, and I had just never heard that in the church that we grew up in.

And yeah, because what we had heard was if you didn't get healed, if you pray and you're not healed, then it must be God's will for you to be sick. It must be God's will for you to learn through this sickness, which is totally false. That is not at all how God works. God does not give us sicknesses in order for us to learn from. If he was that kind of person, if he was that kind of being, what a horrible creature to, to, to follow, that he's going to give you sickness so that you can learn. God uses sicknesses so that you can learn, but that is way different than him giving it to you. Yeah, using it and giving it to you are two different things. And so I think that was one of the more important lessons, especially for me, to understand and to look at the Bible again with fresh eyes. Because, well, if, if we prayed for your, your healing and we didn't see it, that means that we must have done something, like we, we needed to learn more, we needed to read our Bibles more, we needed to tithe more money, which is not how God works. It's a free gift, just like salvation. It's a free gift of healing that any one of us can have just by accepting it. Now, I know that most of you are thinking, yeah, that's easy to say, but It is true, and the Bible backs it up. And so for us to have read this book and relook at what the Bible actually says on that has been a huge impactful thing for us. And, uh, we will talk more about it because there's real healing here. We've experienced, um, major healing. So even for myself, I used to have seasonal allergies Well, that's an understatement.

Debilitating seasonal allergies.

Yeah, I actually popped a rib out of place because of coughing and sneezing due to allergies, which is a horrible injury to have because you keep re-injuring yourself every time.

And we've never been able to go outside on a walk except for like 2 months in the year because you were all— it would hit you so hard if you were outside at all. Yeah, you couldn't Yeah, I had my own—

I had my own type of chronic illness, which was so— but today, after realizing that God wants me well from this and accepting that, I no longer take allergy medicine. And this last spring was awesome in that I did not have those symptoms. I, I do not have allergies like I used to. We've— and it's progressed from there. We've, um, we've seen healing in the immediate, such as headaches, um, where we can pray on someone and see their headache go away right then and there. We actually had a friend over who was struggling with Lyme, and she was doing the typical—

well, this is so interesting because her name's Jasmine Perry, and she's in the documentary Disappearing from Society, and You only see a couple minutes of each person in the documentary, but we actually had to interview her 3 times because we had some sound issues and we were outdoors with some wind. But when we did the final interview with her, she was so stiff and struggling so bad that I drove her home because I didn't want her to drive because she was twitching. She could barely walk. She was doing this weird shuffle walk that I recognized because I live that way. Yeah. And I mean, we sat with her and her mom for a couple of hours and just talked about some of the stuff we've learned about healing, um, about being able to speak to your pain or to speak to whatever issue or symptom is bothering you. And it was incredible because it was instantaneous for her. She had been there for 3 3 hours— an hour of filming and 2 hours of sitting on the couch talking. She was twitching, she was suffering, she was chilled to the bone. We had 2 blankets on her and a heater under her feet, and she was shaking. And after praying with her, she was up instantly. She was up walking around, acting like a 19-year-old girl again.

Yeah, it was amazing.

Yeah, yeah. And we have seen it. We've seen it with— we've You know, this has been a journey for us that really started several decades ago, but we have been so hungry for restoration and wholeness that when we saw an opportunity in a sense that we could actually get our lives back, and because, you know, here I've had all 3 of my kids have some type of either Lyme or severe learning disability, which I know is common to so many people who were pregnant and had Lyme disease. But then we also have kids who we've adopted with reactive attachment disorder and dyslexia and ADHD. And there's a lot— like, when you are parenting kids with chronic illnesses and chronic stuff, you bear a weight that never goes away. It's with you 24/7, and it requires takes so much of you because you're just trying to keep, kind of keep the fires out. Like, okay, who's in crisis? How, you know, who do we help right now? And, and because of what we've learned through Andrew Wommack and other teachers, we have been able to speak against a lot of it, and it's like brought a whole new level of peace to our house that we've never experienced.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, just realizing how important our words are. I mean, this subject is huge and we could go on for hours about it, but one of the major successes is realizing how important your words are. So even for you guys out there listening now, one thing you can do is guard your words, guard your words from being negative, guard negative words from coming in. So one thing that we've done is we've completely eliminated TV— well, news, the news— which was not hard to do in the past election. That was an easy thing to do because it's such an ugly, ugly season of, of, uh, political season. So, but it really helped. We noticed a significant spirit increase. We were more positive. And just by eliminating those negative influences, it really helped. So that's one thing you guys can do right away is just guard your words and guard the words that are being spoken to you. Stay out of some of those Facebook groups. Stay off of negative commentary. And most political shows are not positive, you know. There's— anyway, you get the point.

But yeah, we've just learned to like guard our energy differently, guard the information that we're bring— consuming or bringing in. And then consciously, you know, I read a book by this guy named Charles Capps, and he was a farmer and ended up becoming a traveling evangelist. And he says words are the most powerful force in the universe.

Yep.

I've, you know, I've heard other people say that, but For some reason, when I read his book, it just cemented for me really the power of our words and how they create our lives. And yet, for people with chronic illnesses, they're at such— they're at a disadvantage because you spend years saying, just to get people to believe you, you spend years saying, I'm sick, I'm hurt, broken. I am this, I am that, I have twitching, you know.

And it's okay to, to, to state what is happening because you can't just fake it till you make it. That really doesn't work. It's— and what we're talking about here is more negative, like, I won't be able to do that because I will probably be hurting. That is a negative statement you don't want to say, you know, something that is happening now, a current issue Acknowledgement is part of the recovery process, but expecting— by using your words to expect pain or fatigue or hardness or whatever the case is— that is more what we're talking about. Those are things that we've had to really guard against.

Yeah, and I mean, we're kind of giving you guys the overview, but since October of 2015, We have been reading, we've read a ton of books by him and other speakers and authors. We listen to a bunch of podcasts and just like, I think, uh, the way I would communicate it is like there are laws, natural laws like gravity and lift, and when you understand those laws, you can build an airplane that flies. If you don't understand those laws, you're you know, you think it's magic that the birds are flying in the air. Well, what we have figured out is I think that there are a lot of spiritual laws that we were not aware of, wasn't being taught in our church. And so we've— I mean, I'm making it sound casual, but we've been pushing in at trying to kind of figure out some of these laws and then apply them to our lives and our family and our kids. And so it's been this kind of a long, long journey with a ton of learning, big learning curve, but we're starting to see like the fruit of it and it's just so encouraging. Like I feel like I can tell people, 'cause one of the things I struggled with when we started the podcast was I get emails or Facebook messages from people saying, I've been sick for 15 years. I don't have X number of resources, you know, I don't wanna live. And that was a heavy burden for me because not that it's my responsibility to help everyone, but I felt like just realizing the podcast is so inadequate for these people. If you're in so much pain you can't even think, you know, yeah, that's great. But if you can't even implement a protocol It's just hopeless and a lot of people are hopeless. And so as I've wrestled with those emails and those messages, I'm like, okay, I know that there's healing out there for so many people. And yet it has to be available to everyone. It can't, you know, we sold every asset we had to pay for Invita and we don't have any more assets to sell for our kids to go through there, but it's just this process of, okay, I know that there's healing out there for people, and this healing is— this level of healing is kind of a journey. It's not this like one-and-done thing, but it doesn't cost you anything. Yeah, that means it's free to everyone. And so if you guys are interested, you want to hear more teachings about it, send me a Facebook message or an email, and, um, I will email you. I have 4 teachings that I've listened to over and over again that just kind of catapulted our change in thinking, change in theology. It's brought us so much peace.

Yeah.

Um, so your email again is, uh, sanchesssmile@gmail.com, and then you can find it on LineVoice as well.

And if you wanted to go directly, uh, to Andrew Wommack's website, it's awmi.net. And all— there's a bunch of free resources. A lot of his sermons and teachings are there free, and you can just download them right off your computer and listen for free. But of course there is books, and if you don't have the money and you would like to purchase the books, one of the things he offers is a um, he offers them at a gift price. So if you only have a dollar to pay for the book, they will, they will send it to you for whatever you can give.

And I know that there are some people out there listening who are like, this is insane, like, what are they talking about? But yeah, let me just tell you. Yeah, and what— so we have been up to Andrew Wommack founded Charis Bible College. It is in Woodland Park, Colorado. We have gone up to several of their conferences and stuff over the last few months, and we have met so many people whose families have been just like ours, where they have multiple people with disabilities. Financially, they're doing everything they know to do. They're drowning, and they're in the same boat. Like, you couldn't— we could triple our income and it could still be insufficient to treat our kids. And there are people who have just been sent home to die who have healed. There are people who have— there's testimonies all over their website. People with fibromyalgia, people with Lyme disease. So for MS, I mean, MS, yeah, every blindness. And when we went, we went last July to their healing conference.

It was 4 days and it looked like a hospital ward being brought in on, on stretchers. They're being brought in on stretchers to this place.

People are in wheelchairs, you know, people had growths and, you know, there's all this stuff going on. On, and we're trying to give it to you in a nutshell. But if you want healing, try to be open to something like this, because we've seen it impact— we've met people now, and we've even seen it within our, our family. And like, for instance, for me, when I went up there, or when we started reading these books and stuff, it was October 2015, I feel like I was operating at about 65%, maybe 70.

On good days.

Yeah, and at times I've said, oh, I'm operating at this level, but then I didn't have back all my responsibilities.

Right.

And so I kept feeling like, I'm like, oh, I'm doing really good. But as I took back more responsibilities, then it would definitely impact how I was feeling. So A year ago I was at about 65%, 60, 75%. Still had a ton of fatigue and cognitive fatigue. Through what we have learned and been applying, I'm at— in that year I've gone from 65% up to like 85, 90%, which is where I feel like I'm at now.

Yeah, consistently. You have not had bad days. In a long time, right? At least a couple months where you've had a relapse or a bad day. I mean, you've overdone it, which you, you're good at overdoing it, but, um, you haven't had the bad days. So one of the things that we're also planning on doing this summer is we are planning on moving up to Woodland Park, Colorado, which is just above, um, Colorado Springs to attend this college and to be around more of these teachings and to be around some of these people because it is really good. You know negative influences when you're around them, and positive influence can have just as big impact. So we want to be around people who are positive and people that are experiencing healing and experience— and not just experiencing it, but but, but handing it out. They are seeing other people and teaching others how they can be healed.

Yeah, it's a reproducible healing, and that's what blows my mind over and over again, is it's not like there's one preacher who prays. It's not like Andrew Wommack is an evangelist who just goes and prays, and if he touches you, you're healed. He doesn't even pray with people anymore. He teaches people how to pray for each other and for yourself. Yeah, for yourself, for each other. It's just really powerful. And I think one of the things that, because of the amount I have suffered, the amount we have suffered as a family financially, emotionally, all that stuff, and knowing I have two kids with Lyme— I mean, you and I have had this conversation— I will never let our kids suffer the way we did, right?

Never, never. And we don't have to. We have the tools.

And honestly, it doesn't matter to me. Like, my healing through Invita was huge, huge. That was like crisis treatment. Then for the next 2 years, it was supplements and juicing and Gerson, and that was huge for me as well. But it wasn't, you know, I wasn't restored.

Right.

I wasn't whole.

Right.

Um, and I, I feel like the healing between 65% and 85-90% that I'm at now, that has come— of course my gut is healing, of course my body is healing, but that's come really through the spiritual side of speaking truth. So that's exciting to me because when I— I mean, that the Hill figures, but Tommy Hilfiger, I think he wrote the book. No, no, no, or his daughter wrote the book about Lyme. And I'm thinking, he says in there or they quote him, that if they could give, in exchange for their kids to be healthy, they would give away every penny they had.

Yeah.

Like if they could do that, they would. And that's daunting for someone like us with limited resources. 'Cause again, I know we could triple our income and not have enough to spare our kids this suffering. And so it may seem extreme that we are gonna uproot our kids and our family and go move up there for 3 years. But one of the things I really wanna do is go through their film program. During the third year, I would get to go to their film program, and I already got to talk to some of the film people up there. This documentary that we just finished is kind of like step one for me, but I know that there's more to come.

Yeah.

Yeah. So thank you all for listening in. We so enjoy getting feedback from you guys. I love when you send a message that says it made an impact on you, so be sure and find me on Facebook. So in closing for this first episode of season 2, I want to leave you guys with one of the, uh, stories that I've written. In 2015, I did a ton of writing, and that is kind of how my brain thinks. So that is going to be my focus here in 2017, is to do more blogging. I'm just going to read you guys of these blogs. I think I wrote it about a year and a half ago. So I don't, I no longer feel this way, but this was kind of some of the foundational concepts that we used to write the documentary. So, okay. I often feel stuck between two different lives. The life I have lived as a disabled person and the life I want to live as an able-bodied person. But I don't belong in either at the moment. I don't have the stamina and cognitive function to work and live in a world of strong and capable people. Simple mistakes that I can't seem to correct cost me time and energy every day. While my legs continue to get stronger, my brain can often feel scrambled and confused. Every event, holiday, and celebration I face brings flashbacks. Some are small and I can get over them. Some are so deep and sorrowful that it takes me days to even understand what I'm feeling or thinking about. I'm technically independent and have been for several months. My mom doesn't have to come over anymore and dig us out of the chaos because of my lack of organizational skills. I can now do most of the things parents should do. Plan meals, schedule chores, remember some parent-teacher conferences. And this last year, I was able to do all the shopping at Christmas. While I got very effective treatment 4 years ago through Invita that saved my life, I was still just at the beginning of the healing process. Of course, these are wins, each one of them, but I still have losses that I don't know how to reconcile. Not being able to afford spring sports brings flashbacks full— flashbacks full of shame and failure. I don't know how to live between these two worlds. I'm no longer disabled physically, but my brain and my emotions are stuck in a minefield full of loss. Just when I think I've reached the land of normal people, I stumble step on an emotional landmine that leaves me quiet, disconnected, and deeply saddened for days. I don't know how to stop the flashbacks. I don't know how to disconnect myself from the sorrows of the past when I still feel shackled by them. I fight to develop new patterns of behavior. I fight to become more organized so that things run smoothly. I fight against the victim mentality that is now deeply ingrained within my soul. I fight for the future I want to have, but I'm not the same person. I have so many weaknesses that play out every day. I can't do many of the things I need to do cognitively. I'm so tired of feeling like a burden. Maybe a burden isn't the right term, but I'm not an asset to our household financially speaking. Financially, I'm a huge liability. No one has ever said that to me, but I know the numbers and that's how they work, that's how they add up. Obviously our worth cannot be counted for in dollars alone, but those numbers have affected every day of my life for years and years. I don't want to weigh my worth in dollars, but when the dollars aren't there, they define your existence. And that is part of the equation when you are stuck between two realities. I want desperately to move forward unencumbered by disease and loss, and at times I can, but something beyond my control happens and my weaknesses and frailties rise to the surface as an ever-present reminder of all that was lost. I'm no longer shackled to my bed by pain and fatigue, but I am also— but I am often shackled by flashbacks, and with that, the emotions rise to the surface As if they were only moments old. I don't know how to bridge the gap. A gap most people don't see. A gap that leaves me lost between two different lives. The life I had and the life I want. They stand worlds apart in my mind. So again, I mean, that was about a year and a half ago, and I really don't feel that way anymore. But I— it's still there every day, all the time. Yeah, those ingrained thought patterns. I mean, how many— we've been saying this for years, but we will multiple times throughout the week look at each other and say, we're not in crisis, right?

Yeah.

And because one of us emotionally, like, something happens or you know, chaos kind of starts to unfold where kids have needs and we have needs, or we're tired, and we have to stop all the time and say we're not in crisis.

Like, yeah, not, not letting the fear set in is really how, how I see it.

Yeah.

Thank you for joining us online, boys. Looking forward to bringing more episodes soon, and we'll keep you up up to date on all of our plans and moving and all that sort of stuff. Have a wonderful day.

Bye. For nearly two decades, Invita Medical Center has been leading the way with the latest in personalized treatment options designed for patients dealing with Lyme disease complex. At Invita Medical Center, they offer a team-style approach and the latest technology regarding treatment and testing at an unmatched radical love and care environment for their patients. Call to speak to one of the patient care coordinators today to learn why hundreds of patients choose Invita Medical Center each year. You can find them online at invita.com. Disease is contrary to life. Therefore, wherever disease exists, life must also fight to exist.

Good job fighting, Lyme fighters. Keep it up. We'll see you next time. LymeVoice contains general information about medical conditions and treatments. The information is not advice and should not be treated as such. 'Kay, Lincoln? 'Kay. The medical information on LymeVoice is provided as is without any representations warranties, expressed or implied. Okay?

Okay.

LionVoice makes no representations or warranties in relation to the medical information on this podcast. You must not rely on the information on this podcast as an alternative to medical advice from your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. If you have any specific questions about your medical matter, you should consult your doctor or other professional healthcare provider. And for you, you consult your parents. Okay?

Okay.

If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention. You should never delay seeking medical advice, disregard medical advice, or discontinue medical treatment because of information on this podcast. Got it, Lincoln?

Got it.