Case Study – Appendicitis

I awoke one morning, early, to that all too familiar mouth watering and stomach cramping.  Throwing up is one of the least enjoyable activities a person can experience, so even one time, you remember.  I didn’t know yet that it was the purging of Appendicitis.  

My initial assumption was something I ate, which is a bummer, but my body would purge and I would be fine by daylight.  I went back to bed and got up a few hours later for my day, still feeling nauseous, but initially thinking I would be ok.

I dressed and went to brush my teeth and didn’t even get the brush to the back teeth and my body purged again.  Ok, I need more time.  Cancel the morning and rest until lunch.

I filled up with Agrimony and Usnea, my past helpers for appendicitis (did I know?), and a little Cats Claw, which has helped some others through the pain of diverticulitis..

I went back to sleep and slept through lunch and woke groggily about an hour before my first afternoon patient.  My stomach still hurt, and I could barely lift my head.  I texted my office manager that she would have to cancel the rest of the day.  She was already doing it.

Another nine hours of sleep, and I woke to relief.  The stomach cramping was gone.  I carefully rolled from side to side and I felt no pain,  thinking about my next move.  I rolled toward the edge of the bed to get up, and it felt like something ripped in the area of my appendix.  The pain was incredible, now localized to “McBurney’s Point,” the medical name for where my pain was focused.

I briefly wondered why someone would name this excruciating point of pain we use to identify Appendicitis, after themselves!?

The pain was breathtaking.

I struggled to find a position that offered relief but nothing was working!  Sonya watched helplessly as her doctor husband twisted and flopped in pain.  My mind raced considering options, including the option that doctors say is the only way to relieve this pain.  But, with some precarious pillow wedging, I found a spot where I could catch my breath.

And there I stayed.  I believe I dozed a little, but any movement activated the pain.  And the resting pain of Appendicitis was nearly too intense to sleep.

In the morning, the pain was slightly less.  I could move a bit more, but I was still unable to stand.  I asked Sonya to text Laura the update.

The next 24 hours was this routine:  Roll to find the least pain.  Sleep until the pain woke me up.  Squirm to find the least pain, and repeat.

Sonya fed me my medicine.  All day and all night.  My only sensory stimulation, aside from brief visits, was pain, and the pressure of the bed on my body.  I listened carefully to the communication, and noticed a trend.

Over time, I was able find more positions that would allow sleep.  A tiny sign of a positive trend!  I ask my patients to listen to the quality and quantity of their communication (symptoms are messages).  No, not painstakingly documenting and analyzing; just listening and trusting that they will learn from their pain.

The Body Talks

If I had listened to my head, and the scary stories I had heard, I would have given up.  The body speaks the truth, and in the experience of Appendicitis, my body was screaming for attention.

I listened for another 24 hours and I was able to stand again and get to the bathroom.  More positions were comfortable.  I was feeling hopeful and confident and began to evaluate the communication or symptoms, which felt like a churning in one place and wondered what team or tools were being used to repair my appendix.  Tiny little seamstresses sewing, and construction crews removing debris.

I added True Lymphatic Cleanse to assist with carrying away the debris.

With my confidence growing, my family packed and left for Sacred’s soccer tournament.  I was the wounded deer lying in the field, waiting and trusting that nature was perfectly responding. 

This was my third day of fasting.  Only medicine and water had entered my body.  Into the night, my dreams started getting vivid and bizarre.  Maybe it was sensory deprivation or maybe it was more messages.  The dream that was most vivid and memorable was a cave collapsing on immigrant workers.

What did it mean for my Appendicitis?

I was hopeful for Saturday to be the big turn around, but it was more the day of bed sores.   A new communication began, the ache of my body from the pressure.  That complicated my “laying in the field,” causing a more restless day.   And instead of the trend of decreasing pain, it woke up a bit, but different.  I imagined the construction crew now doing a remodel (or repairing the cave collapse?).

But it still deflated my confidence, this new trend so I started looking up the cost of appendectomy.  The pain increase made me wonder if my body was telling me that it was time.

I asked God to heal my appendicitis and asked my central nervous system, which I call Regulation, and my appendix for help.

A couple websites that I found described natural protocols for appendicitis, and not just how one person overcame appendicitis, how a doctor was doing it in a clinical setting with regularity.  Both sites suggested to start with enemas, one suggesting that they use multiple enemas until the PAIN stops.  Huh?  Are they suggesting a fast track to stop the pain!?  So, when a friend stopped in to check on me, I requested an enema bag.  Three enema bags in (and out of course!), and no pain relief!  I thought of the deer in the field…waiting…and trusting…and he wasn’t sticking anything up his butt.

More sleep

After a disappointing Saturday, and my fourth day of fasting, it was back to bed for the night. Bedtime is a strange concept when you haven’t left your bed in 4 days.  At least the enemas had me move my body a little, so the bed sores were less intense.  But more of the same.  Sleep, pain, roll, medicine, sleep and repeat.

Now I was starting to get visions along with the dreams.   I had been sleeping almost non-stop for 4 days, and it seemed my energy was up.  Or I just couldn’t sleep anymore, because I had slept almost 80 hours in 4 days!  The visions were images of how to share my healing mission, and walk on my hands, or an educational video I should create.  I started typing the ideas into my phone.

But still, mostly sleep.  I slept another 10 hours, not waking until noon.  Only this time, I woke and felt something other than pain.  A different sensation…was it…hunger?  I decided it was time to end my fast, 8 hours shy of 5 full days.  I got up, and that felt different.  Less pain!  I could almost walk upright!  Time for some food. I sliced up half a potato and chicken, tossed it in a pan with butter, and sat down to let it cook.  I got down a couple of the potato slices that had actually cooked (most were not) and most of the chicken.  And back to bed.

My hopefulness was back with the lessened pain, although I still wasn’t on a good track to be able to work on Monday.  But maybe, this was the day.

Feeling thankful

I couldn’t believe it myself, I started feeling thankful!  It was like I just came home from a grueling ropes course, designed to push you to your limits of fear and then one step past.  I have done a couple of those in my day.  But this felt even better.  I started feeling a sense of achievement and all I did was lie there.  It wasn’t an action I took, it was the trust and connection, the intense communication with Regulation, my innate wisdom and connection to God.

It felt like a spiritual journey coming to an end, successfully.

My body was still weak and pathetic.  My voice was weak, but that voice inside, not the head one that makes up stories and worries, but my heart voice was full and proud.

Sunday was a good day for my heart.  Thankfulness and more visions, ideas, expanding into connection and purpose.  The energy was high in this voice, contrasted by the physical body and voice I felt and heard.  But I was healing!

I was up more.  I had another snack later that day.  Still just bites, but something.  I managed to walk downstairs and step on the scale.  Hmmm…15 pounds less than Wednesday.  I was a different person!

My family arrived home just before bedtime.  (LOL, that sounds SO funny after 5 days in bed.)  I wanted to share this inner journey and healing with my wife,  but the energy just wasn’t there.  I was still exhausted and mostly sleeping, now from the fasting and the intensity of the past five days.

Back to work

I woke Monday morning perhaps not ready, but prepared to meet my day.  We pushed a couple appointments later into the week, leaving a lengthy lunch time to sleep, but I was able to be focused on the patients needs, with some pauses for cramping.  I was up for around 4 hours total, and as soon as I was done, I went back to the bed and stayed there through bedtime and into the night, when, around 3AM, I woke up.  And I mean really woke up this time.  I tossed and turned, but no sleep would come, now worrying about my physical energy in the morning.

When my alarm went off, I hadn’t slept for five hours.  But not from energy, it was the wired and tired exhaustion of an insomniac.  We made a request to push my morning back, but my first appointment was already on her way.  The appointment was surreal.  I walked in thinking just a quick check in, recheck what she needed, make any changes, keep it to necessity only.  The patient had different ideas; after a quick check on symptoms, she wanted to talk more about moods.  Her message, paraphrased, was that she is irritable and “not good enough.”  (Not eating well enough).

I tried to share the message of evaluations vs observations.  “Not good enough” is an opinion, where the observation is I had chocolate every night.  I was likely short with her, which prompted another evaluation.  You are a jerk.  I pointed out that that was an evaluation too, trying to get to the detail that led to her opinion.  But, my logic was lost in that moment, resulting in her leaving with the promise to never come back.  Wow…what just happened?  And that was my morning.

Well maybe not quite ready

On the plus side, the morning shift was short!  I went back to bed, wondering how that experience played into my journey.  This time, quick sleep.  I slept straight through to 2:30 and woke with a start.  Oh, crap, my first appointment was at 2:15!!  Luckily, I live close to work, I just had to walk downstairs!  I moved quickly and felt the best I had so far.  I even had some energy!  The pain had lessened to low intensity, with random high intensity cramping pain, but slowly decreasing in frequency.  And that was the trend, the rest of the week.

The flashes of pain were decreasing to rarely.  But a kid on the tummy was still not advisable.  They were sweet and gentle with me, and if I cringed, I got hugs and kisses.  It was clear and nearly finished, I was on the mend, appendix and all.  Plus, I have been witness to a larger scale trend, in that when I have gone through a tough health challenge like this, my health has been stronger and more resilient on the other side.  While still tired and tender and painful at times, I looked forward to full healing and a new level of health!

A couple BIG LESSONS from this journey:

TRENDING:  If not for my practice of pulling the trends from my patients, and listening to my own, I don’t know if I could have endured the pain.  I was able to notice small increments using multiple variables: how long I could sleep and lie in one position and how many positions I could lie in.  And of course the intensity and frequency of pain. 

Without the certainty of a healing trend, I may have thrown in the towel on one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

MOVING INTO THE MESSAGE:  We may be missing the most amazing, beautiful, growth enhancing experiences of life by running away from symptoms.  This was the first time that I was so completely in communion with Regulation and its messages.  It was just me and pain… loud, softer, grinding, pulling, twisting, cramping pain.  The trust I felt within all that…it was my deepest knowing of Regulation, and it was transformational.  Not only do I eagerly anticipate my health changes, I am excited for what I might become, and do, as my energy and health return.  I don’t feel the same, it is a humbled, vulnerable, and cautious feeling, of amplified passion and purpose for my life.

So what did I learn?

The appendix is considered of no use in our modern culture.  Ironically, my healing art is considered of no value to most of our culture.  And I have a chip on my shoulder about that.  My appendix does not, perhaps there is a lesson from appendix to me.  The appendix just keeps plugging away, performing its job, which is believed, by the few who do not buy its uselessness, to be a critical component in the vitality of our microbiome (the cultures and populations of microorganisms that that literally partner with us to contribute up to 80% of our immune defense).

Taking that one step farther, in our human culture, we have epidemic proportions of our population feeling completely disconnected from their innate value, perhaps feeling useless like an appendix, with no system of expressing or even discovering their innate value.  Our culture focuses more on learning the right answers to a bunch of standardized questions than nurturing our unique gifts and talents.

Yup, we have a culture of appendixes.  Somehow, a vision is brewing to protect our physical appendixes, and our human appendixes, humans of no use (or not discovering their innate value) that society could just as well live without.  Nobody should feel useless, and everybody should feel significant, which is just a heart expression away.

Significance

Think about it, read the comments of any article on the internet, and you will see a culture of useless people screaming for significance.  And their only resource to BE-coming significant, from their cultural education, is to make someone else wrong.  Even better, make them “STUPID!”  “There, now I am important.”

Nah…significance only comes from improving someone else’s life, which only comes from discovering your innate value, which only comes from nurturing your unique desires, abilities and talents, and living life from heart desire.

This is not vastly different from what I wanted before my appendicitis adventure.  But something is different.  I am different.  My first inspired article in the aftermath was a bit bolder than the past.  It had to do with the lady that walked out, and shared that I am more willing than ever to be unpopular, if it means my purpose is fulfilled.  The funny reality of that visit was that I was calling her on her own self criticism, because my purpose is for YOU to be the best YOU possible, all of us!  If someone else had come in and insulted her, I bet she would have thanked me for correcting the critical evaluation.

I was surprised by the article.  As if someone else were writing it, because I…I was feeling weak, vulnerable and humbled.  So, perhaps another part of “I” is coming out, to further this vision, thanks to the bravery and selflessness of my appendix, and my painful act of trust.  Along with the validation I gave that little guy, by hurting like hell to show that I know it’s value!

I had to go through another painful journey to get here, which you can read here, but 2017 birthed my heart expression!  I called it Care Without Expectation!