A little back story…

Let me take you back …. Wayyy back when I was a wee little Aut. I seemed to always get strep throat. Freshman year of high school a family member died in a car accident and I was incredibly upset. I ended up with mononucleosis. I missed my second semester of high school. The fatigue was not something I could forget! I used to run track and cross country back in those days and I remember always feeling so exhausted…I know what you’re thinking… Aut you were running… that’s why you were exhausted. Nope. Turns out I have had Epstein Barr Virus or EBV my entire life. I’m not alone in this as 95% of the population has this virus, but most are able to keep it dormant. Although, I did not know this at the time. Well, as life continued on after high school I certainly had bouts of healthy times, but always managed to have strep throat. Now if you are familiar with strep throat… then you are familiar with a million rounds of antibiotics. Talk about a gut punch. Fast foward to me becoming an elementary teacher. More specifically first grade. AKA the best grade!!! Also, It is the strep throat build-your-immune-system grade. 🤣 I recall getting strep throat so many times that during my first 2 weeks of the school year I taught them how to NOT sneeze or cough on their teacher. In one year I had strep throat repeatedly for 4 rounds of antibiotics and at one point the pharmacist said, “oh your Drs bringing out the big guns!” I thought this was odd, but I was so naive and allowed the Drs in their 7 mins of time to keep on prescribing more antibiotics… because the 5th round is probably going to be the one. 🤦‍♀️ Then the Dr suggested I get my tonsils out. Made complete sense to me. WRONG! If I were to have regret in this life, it would be getting my tonsils out. This was 2015. One if the most painful experiences of my life and I lost so much weight it was terrifying. Then I got strep throat…. AGAIN! You have got to be kidding me! Nope, I’m not. Wish I was. True story. Then bronchitis and constant colds which I had never experienced before. Turns out those tonsils serve a purpose. Why are we so quick to remove body parts? Tonsils, gall bladder, prostate gland. I digress. That’s a story for another blog. In 2018, I had arrived back from a year in Thailand to go on a journey of supporting my father through his prostate cancer. The insomnia kicked in immediately. I was not about to lose my father from this planet. I searched to the end of the internet. I’m telling you I nearly found every remedy under the sun. I do my best research during insomniac evenings. Thankfully, with a loving community, Drs open to different ways both allopathic and eastern medicine, my dad was never sick. Not even a day with stage 4 prostate cancer. However, I noticed pretty quickly that I was feeling pretty miserable and fatigued. I tried a new school to teach at and found out that was very misaligned with my previous years of being an educator. Every day at that place made me sick full of anxiety. Stress was at an all time high. Insert Mono AGAIN! Mono in my 40s… whattt!? Turns out the underlying cause for Mono is EBV. Mono is miserable. There is no other way ti describe it. I was completely unaware of this virus (EBV) that had been wreaking havoc on my body for my entire existence. Then in October I got the Rona. I have so much to say on this… more blogs to come. Needless to say, I’ve been sick with reactivated EBV for 2 years and 8 months. It’s an incredibly long time to be sick. For the first time in a very long time, I have hope.