Coming Full Circle

It was at this juncture in my personal journey for health,  success, and happiness that my friend and former colleague reconnected on Facebook. I had met Patti when I first moved to California 17 years earlier. Introduced by my mom, we soon became friends and   Patti helped me get my foot in the door at the marketing department for Loma Linda University Medical Center where we worked for the next 10 years.

Simple Simon's in Riverside

After leaving Loma Linda and moving to Los Angeles in 2007, we'd lost contact, so I was thrilled when I got an email from her through Facebook. We immediately made plans to meet for lunch at Simple Simons - a local cafe. Over warm hugs and coffee, we talked about her recent nuptials to a childhood friend. It seems cliche to say my friend fairly radiated, but I had to admit - she looked wonderful. She'd recently lost some weight and her level of energy was enviable. While I'd definitely been aging - Patti looked like she'd reversed the clock.

Herself an entrepreneur and business coach, Patti agreed to help me get my own business endeavors off of the ground, including a promise to edit an e-book I'd written. But our conversations kept going back to her weight loss and health transformation.

"You have got to tell me how you did it, I gushed."
"Well I was part of a beta-test for a new weightless product and I lost 13 lbs in about three weeks."
"What kind of product works that well?"
"They are homeopathic liquid drops, called Slenderiix that work by helping your body reset it's set point."
"Well, I laughed, obviously I could stand to lose about 60 lbs. How can I get some?"  

In the back of my mind, I would've been happy just to lose a few pounds - anything to help me feel like I was gaining some control over my health and therefore - my LIFE. I'm happy to say that what I got was far more...

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Taking stock...

Armed with this new-found sense of entrepreneurialism, I began to devote more time to considering my future. I dreaded the idea of going back to work for someone else. I didn't know how I would manage any sort of 9 − 5 job in my poor health. Every day was a battle of wills - me against the pain. My treating physician had scheduled me for another series of epidurals to manage the sciatica pain - and added yet another prescription to my growing dossier. My quality of life was a daily downer and still fodder for my friends with the old lady jokes.

My hot red pumps go to Mom

I kept thinking that any day now, my knee surgeries would be approved by worker's comp, I'd have 6 months of physical therapy, and then get on with my life like nothing had ever happened. Ha! Now I had to come to the realization that I might never be able to wear high heels again (which would be a travesty for me but Christmas for my girlfriend, Kathy and my mom who share my shoe size). I reluctantly put away my biking gear and eventually shipped it all to my mom in Michigan who wanted to get back into cycling again. I was on my third knee brace and second cane - who wears out a cane at 42?

@ Disneyland with Jay
(knee brace and cane)

Being considered disabled does have some advantages, like not having to feed the parking meters in LA, and being able to skip to the front of the line at Disney Land - guaranteeing me an invite whenever a friend wants to go. Total strangers open doors for me and I get to whiz (literally) through security at the airport. But I want my old life back. One where I can go hiking with a buddy, or pick up my nieces without wincing in pain. I want to have two free hands when I go to the store, and not have to think if one or both knees will need to be strapped into a brace that day. 

But I was tired of my pain and injuries dictating my life. How was I going to go back to work and keep a job in that kind of condition? I had many good days, but also some very bad days exacerbated by stress, or cold weather. Then, no amount of medication seemed to help. I'd spend the day trying not to think about how much it hurt to be touched, or lie down, or just BE. 

My weight didn't help either. The more sedentary I became, the higher the numbers on the scale climbed. I tried not to be too alarmed, but my clothes were getting tighter and tighter and I could hardly afford (nor did I want) a new wardrobe. Before my eyes, my weight climbed to an all-time high of 181.9 lbs. I'm only 5'3" on a good day. The extra 60 lbs started to feel like 600 lbs. I knew I wanted to do something...but what?

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Hello, I am an Unemployed Millionaire

I cannot say the change occurred overnight. But slowly and surely I began to pull myself out of the depths of despair. I began to notice and appreciate the little things in life again like wanting to get out of bed in the morning, or how green the grass was. When you are severely depressed - the world really does seem like shades of gray, devoid of color and light, and sounds. As the days turned into months, I began laugh again and enjoy the love and support of those around me.

After my "stay" in hospital, I put my belongings in storage and commenced the life of a nomad - staying with various good friends and focusing on getting better. I still didn't know where my life was headed, but now at least I wanted to find out. It was in this state of mind that I was wondering through Barnes and Nobles (I think it's an addiction) and came across a book entitled The Unemployed Millionaire by Matt Morris. Three little words. The total summation of where I WAS and where I wanted to BE. I snatched it off the shelf and was soon engrossed in a story that reflected my own.

I bought the book and then raced back to the room my 7-year old godson was sharing with me. I'd read for hours, highlighting and making notes in the margins, marveling at this young entrepreneur's insight and tenacity. It started me down the road to a radical change in my thinking and my belief in myself. What was I capable of? Could I really live the life I'd LOVE to live? Could I really create the type of wealth that would change the course of my family's "bust-your-butt-for-someone-else-middle-class-struggle" forever?

Matt spends a good portion of the book addressing this issue. You have to say you are doing it before you actually do it. It took me nearly a year to rewire my thinking. To say I am instead of I hope I will be. It was like learning a whole new vocabulary. Woulda's, coulda's, shoulda's -  BANISHED!! The idea, that one must tell one's self that one is already what one aspires to be, was used quite successfully by someone everyone knows the world over: boxer extraordinaire Muhammad Ali. "I am the greatest!" he declared over and over. He never said, "I will be the greatest" or "I'm working on being the greatest" (besides, it doesn't quite have the same ring to it). It was always "I am the greatest."

If you take nothing else away from this post, I hope you take these inspiring words with you. Your dreams don't have to be just dreams and you can change the trajectory of your life. You are the greatest and you are making it happen!

Post note: Mr. Ali was our country town's claim to fame. He lived in my neighborhood when I was a child and became acquainted with my cousin and his family who lived right next door to us. I can still remember riding my little bike down the road to his farm - hoping for a glimpse of him. :-)

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To hell...and back

The Scream by Evard Munch

It is tempting to glaze over what happened next, but by sharing it, I hope that someone else out there in cyberspace will find strength when things get tough. I knew I would have to give up my apartment - there was just no way to keep up with the rent on my disability check.  What's more,  there were always snags that would delay my check for weeks.  I had to start borrowing money - another huge afront to my sense of independence. I knew I was depressed, but with no health insurance I didn't know what to do about it, except to try and stay positive.

Three days on lock-down.

The more I smiled, the worse I felt and after several days fantasizing about how nice it would be to go to sleep and never wake up, I realized I needed professional help fast. I asked my best friend to drive me the 50 miles to a private hospital in Loma Linda that I knew would help me even without insurance. With tears in my eyes, I was processed in the emergency room and soon transferred to the mental health facility on a 72-hour hold.

Collect calls only

How do you make that one collect call to your mother and say "oh by the way mom, today I checked myself in to a lock-down unit for the severely depressed and suicidal, but don't worry, I'm fine"? (To her credit, she took it well). I was stripped of my personal belongings, shoe laces, and medications and assigned a sterile hospital bed with a roommate who never emerged from under the covers. Surrounded by drug-addicted teenagers, most of whom had tried to kill themselves a number of times, I was soon singled-out by patients and staff as the Den Mother. 

Yummy hospital

What a joke. I needed help - as badly as the rest of them. Almost immediately I began to seriously doubt my decision to sign over my rights for three days of hell - especially when I was informed that I would not be released if the staff felt I was a 1) a danger to myself or others 2) non-participatory or uncooperative in group "therapy" or 3) did not follow all the house rules (like eating all my meals). That was the longest weekend of my life and despite my exemplary citizenship, my release was still delayed by half a day!

Like a prisoner out of jail, I'll never forget walking out of those doors and the immense relief I felt. In the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr, "I was free at last, free at LAST. Thank God almighty, I was free at last!" The experience was not all bad, however as I was then provided with after-care therapy which, three years and three amazing therapist* later, have put me on the road to recovery.

Special thanks to Dr. Jennifer Kawase, Dr. Denise Persichino, and Dr. Desiree Montez. 

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You're Fired!

You're (indirectly) Fired!

I never realized when I went to see my doctor that afternoon that I would never return again. My blood pressure was through the roof and I'd started having minor blackouts. I say minor - one night I had no idea how I got home from work (remember it was 50 miles one way!). I was over fatigued, stressed out, and had started having a lot of pain in my knees and back.

Some of my Rx's!

Two weeks into my FMLA (family medical leave act) my boss managed to fire me indirectly by hiring  a permanent replacement for my job. Yes I know that legally he couldn't do that, but then again he never was much for those "pesky" HR regulations. By the time I had to appear in front of a judge to fight for the unemployment my now former employer was withholding (yes I won the case) I'd discovered I had torn meniscus (cartilage) in both knees and a disc bulge in my lower back. Plus some minor injuries to my neck and elbow. I was using a cane and knee braces. Physical therapy wasn't helping and I was recommended for surgery, epidurals, cortisone injections, electro therapies and a lot of medications. I lived at the doctors while my worker's comp attorney played me for the naive fool I was and only did his job when I demanded it.

R.I.P. Beau 2004 - 2009

Soon I was faced with bills and living expenses I couldn't pay and had no idea how I was going to manage. Then my precious dog, Beau died unexpectedly and that was the quintessential "straw that broke the camel's back." Somewhere in the black fog I celebrated my 40th birthday - making me the recipient of every over-the-hill joke and gag gift my friends could find, including an actual hospital body bag... It would have been funnier if it hadn't been so TRUE. I was an old lady. A dozen meds and counting - even my dear late grandma never took so many meds and she was 80! Shortly thereafter, I had to give notice to my landlord and realized my life of fierce independence was over. It was too much to bear...

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Going from bad to worse

...But I am getting ahead of myself.

We have heard the terms "more to love," a "few extra pounds," "pleasingly plump," heavy-set, chunky...we have so many euphemisms for fatness. It's like a social denial of the truth - our arteries are clogged, are heart overworked, our blood flow is sluggish, our immune system compromised and 67% of us are just plain FAT. Stroke, diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions like acid reflux, high blood pressure, and insomnia can be traced back to poor diet, nutritionally compromised food sources and questionable water supplies. But does that make us helpless? We see the train coming but say we're too busy or too tired to move out of harms way.

I suffered from 6 of these. How about you? 

Obesity has become a national pastime and it's "cure" a gabillion (that means a whole lot) dollar industry. We find it easier to eat pre-packaged foods, get the fat vacuumed out, staple our stomachs, wear Spanx, or try the latest Hollywood starvation diet. To make matters worse we are bombarded with food at every turn. Ads, billboards, commercials, the office, corner markets, sporting events, movie theaters, fast-food joints...some don't even try to veil the truth, (like the popular burger joint, Fatburger). We make fun of fat, capitalize on fat, and die of fat. Obesity has become more than an epidemic, it's an obsession, and I was an addict...

In the mornings, suffering from sleep deprivation and desperation, I stopped at the McDonalds (they put the creme and sugar in your coffee for you which is far more convenient than trying to balance tiny pots of creamer and steaming coffee with one hand while speeding down the 405 freeway with the other). If I was especially dreading the 50-mile commute, I'd order a cinnamon bun too. At work, I'd throw down my purse,  order a latte, and cram down anything the morning chefs had on hand before dashing off to set up an event or meet with a client. I missed a lot of meals but always made up for it with a muffin or bagel on my way home or Happy Hour with colleagues when I could.

The Sports Club/LA - Irvine
now Equinox Sports Club

Now, I'm not sure that it is in my best interest to mention that my office was located inside of a upscale private health club (hence the access to a restaurant, cafe, and bar)... I know. The irony. But that further proves the point that we simply make our lives too busy and are too tired to make better choices. I was one floor away from some of the best trainers, equipment, and exercise classes that money can buy, but my priorities were screwed up and my health was paying the price. Keeping the boss happy was more important than looking after myself. So, as it happens, just when I thought things couldn't get worse - they did. I sustained back and knee injuries on the job and before I knew it, was out on disability.

We all make excuses - Until it's too late.

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A Change is A'Comin'

There was no indication - no ray of light or voice from heaven to announce the change that was about to take place in my life. I was having lunch with a former colleague  and dear friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a few years. Our lives had changed drastically since we had worked together and we ended up talking at length about where we were in our careers. We are both strong, independent women who thrive on the idea of doing something worthwhile without the confines of four-walls, a boss, or political drama. She asked me if I'd ever heard of a health and wellness company called Ariix (pronounced ar-ex)?

Me now

Me in my dreams

My friend, Patti and I, have both been loyal customers of another health and wellness company (shout out to Melaleuca, Inc.) for more than two decades, so I was immediately interested. When I found out that she had lost 13 lbs on something called Slenderiix, I couldn't have cared less about the company's curious propensity for double "iix's" (slenderiix, ariix, rejuveniix, restoriix...) Like nectar from the gods, I figured if I could get my hands on some of these liquid weight-loss drops, that had obviously worked for my girlfriend, I might lose a few pounds, thus scoring in my favor in my "Battle of the Bulge." 
How did it work?, I asked her. She rattled something off about hypothalamus glands, metabolic syndrome, and set points, but I was already dreaming of a new thinner me...

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