The Gifts...

Oddly enough, MCS has brought me many gifts, and I"ll tell about some of them in the following blogs. Sure, I often want to leave this planet, think of ways I could easily exit, wish I wasn't born, feel like I have Alzheimer's, and despair for my "lost" years. But the divine people whose paths I've been blessed to cross (such as the two brilliant and incredible Annies who lead me to practices that are healing my brain in different ways) and the things I've learned, sometimes, strangely, make it all seem worthwhile.

The following story is about the first Annie I met, seven years ago, and a practice she taught me which helps me to feel much more grounded and clear-headed, as long as I practice this regularly while surrendering to the Universe...

Some people are drawn to places for their beauty, others are drawn there by community, others by an energetic "pull". I like to think that I was drawn to the magical BC island where I learned Reiki by all of the above, perhaps with karma being the source.

After several months of doing mostly Barbara Brennan healing, which showed me that the brain is actually an energy field throughout our entire body and can be healed so that we feel whole again, I found myself on the magical island of Salt Spring where, after several weeks of house-hunting, I surrendered on a yoga mat.

I just innately sent out a prayer into the surrounding ether, as I did my deep inbreaths, that I find the perfect house. Little did I know that manifestation can work so quickly while one is moving energy, and that my new landlord would offer both me and the yoga teacher rooms in her house (well, I overheard the offer to the yoga teacher and I asked if she had anothe room I could rent too!). I needed the energy of a female household after living with a person who knew no boundaries.

Within a couple weeks, Brenda's friend, Annie Klein came to visit, took one look at me lying slumped on the couch oblivious to all the laughter between the two and announced, "you need energy and I can teach you how to bring some in for yourself." Little did I know that I'd have to travel 5000 kms (from Toronto) to meet one of my greatest karmic guides. And, initially, I scoffed, but thought I'd try it. "After all," I thought, "What do I have to lose?". The healings others were doing on me were costing me $90 a week and to remain sane, with my brain injury, I seriously needed them daily.

After a couple hours training, I had Reiki Level 1, but my stubborness hadn't given out yet. I would wait for 8 months to seriously try it on myself, so great was my disbelief I could actually do self-healing like this. I was back in Toronto, lying on the bed of a Howard Johnson's hotel (where I was living till I found a place), and felt like a truck had driven over me. I seriously thought someone would find me dead. "Well," I thought, "Things don't enter my life by sheer coincidence, and meeting Annie was too special, so in honour of both her and myself, I'm going to try this."

I quieted my mind, announced to the universe that "now I'm doing reiki" and just travelled my hands over the chakras of my body. By the time my hands reached my waist about 25 minutes later, I had felt such a woosh of energy enter my body and felt so clear-headed, I jumped out of bed, called Annie long-distance and thanked her for truly giving me an amazing gift..and saving my life.

The grace of reiki is many things, for many people. In my case, reiki saved my life, made me whole, returned me to my sense of self after years of loss from multliple chemical sensitivity due to lead and mercury poisoning which had me often in a state of stupor so severe I could barely function; so bad was it that I had to leave my education in a medical school. But such was the grace that I came to be introduced to reiki which was one of the greatest life gifts than any other I have ever received in my life. And when I do have a huge setback from some huge toxic exposure (such as the recent propane poisoning), I turn to reiki, the Universal Energy, and within time, she brings me back.

The following posts will detail the other gifts I've received along the MCS journey and the woman who told me I'd one day see this "as a gift."

My manifestation plan for a home to heal in

I feel much better after venting about Mexico! I've held my frustration in for four years, so someone (or someones who I can help!) must hear it and a blog's as good a place as any (or better maybe since most people with EI can't buy a magazine due to ink fumes).

I now have a system where I do my feel-good brain exercises in the morning when I wake up, and during the day when I go for a walk, and at night. It works right away in shifting my mood and making me more positive (aside from seeing the world in a much more beautiful light). And, I've set my phone alarm to go off every two hours when I do the exercises too!

And I seem to be handling this carpeted/laminated place I'm in better, without my head feeling like it's TOTALLY crushing in! My memory is better, and I think my brain is spazzing less too (I've been feeling, in the latest place I'm in like I'm having mini-brain seizures in here). So, I'll keep doing this daily along with my heavy metal detoxing and within weeks, I should feel like new!

In the meantime, I'm going to manifest a safe home to live in, and I've coined it THE SAFE HOME MANIFESTATION PLAN which you could try too if you need a safe place to finally settle down and heal as I do. I will do it with strong intention as I've manifested everything else in my life this way (rather than my mind being elsewhere!). Just like Wayne Dyer says! Here's the plan, so stay tuned!

1) A collage of beautiful home photos from yoga magazines and Natural Home magazine; Many authors who have visualized their dream homes did it through this method, and looked at the collage every day. The founder of One Coach (onecoach.com) which has great CDs said he even found he had bought the exact house in his collage, years later without realizing it till he looked back at his collage!!! The authors of Chicken Soup for the Soul books did the same.

2) "I have the perfect home for me" is my new affirmation to chant under my breath as I swim or go on long walks (I learned about affirmations from a Louise Hay book "You Can Heal Your Life" and a course I took from one of her students.

3) I'm writing a list, daily, on recycled paper, of everything I want in the home, what it's made out of, where the home should be, and what it will look like right down to the heated slate tiles in the bathroom and the beach I want it on or near!

Years ago, I read a book called "Writing on the Right Side of the Brain" which is phenomenal and talks about how the author's friend did exactly this, and it worked. I feel especially great when I write the list! There's something about putting pen to paper which seems to make it more real. And, I met a woman on New Year's eve who wrote a list about the perfect man she wanted, and two days later was introduced to him and they've been happily married a decade now!

4) I'm going to visualize the home as I begin my yoga (I once manifested a summer cabin rental this way, and bodily moving energy seems to create a better flow of attraction), when I awake, and before bed, and feel like it's within my reach. All of the above use various methods of visualization which is talked about in my favourite book on this topic which I read 20 years ago, "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gawain.

Manifestations are magical and may come in any form, so being open-minded is key. It may manifest as a ready-made home I find, or a eco home built by a great architect she's selling off as a test home, or something that serendipitously comes my way. (The Secret movie and One Coach explains all!). Intention and love are the most powerful forces in the world, so I'm infusing all of the above to send out the right vibes.

And right now, I'm off to make some alkalizing greens with detoxifying yummy miso dressing that I learned about on the magical, environmental island of Salt Spring, BC!

Sanoviv didn't have the answer...and other Mexican clinics may not either

In order to save MCSrs some of the grief and near-death experience I went through, in Mexico, I feel it's necessary at this point to tell this story which could be the stuff of a 60 Minutes expose on not only bad medicine but on an extremely poor medical understanding of MCS.

In March of 2004, I decided, after much research of clinics throughout North America, and because of my parents' misplaced disbelief in Dr. Rea of Texas, to go to a clinic called Sanoviv, in Rosarita, Mexico, to save my life. The clinic was housed in Levi Strauss's beautiful mansion, in the Baja of Mexico, overlooking the stunning ocean. My doctor in British Columbia had suggested this clinic, and although I had a dream one night to head to Hippocrates instead (a renowned raw food health centre in Florida), I didn't heed my intuition and followed the suggestion to go to Sanoviv. Oddly enough, it looked exactly as in my dream.

With my medical background from studying at veterinary school in Canada, my journalism skills, and because I’d heard great things about Usana Vitamins (which owns Sanoviv) and needed a place that provide colonics plus IVs, I weighed out my options and followed his advice.

I had severe environmental illness (multiple chemical sensitivity), heavy metal poisoning, and was declared, after live blood cell microscopy and other tests at the clinic, the most toxic patient Sanoviv had ever seen (said my assigned doctor there)

Within the first couple of days at Sanoviv, after spending $10,000 of my parents' hard earned dollars for about a week at Sanoviv, I looked forward to medical care which would match the ranks of Johns Hopkins, the Mayo Clinic or Hippocrates.

As my lead levels were way off the chart, I was having severe panic attacks and needed proper, immediate care.

There were fine people I encountered, such as the wonderful colonic therapist, Yvonne, in the spa, an incredible psychologist and meditation teacher, but then there was the other side.

There were several breaches of professionalism I saw regarding other patients…I just have room to include mine in this post. Here are the basics of what happened to me (and I did write several letters to the President of Sanoviv, but received no reply):....

-The intake doctor wouldn’t take, look at, or pass along the fat medical I brought from home to help the Sanoviv doctors do the standard: understand a patient's history, and they told me that “Sanoviv’s doctors are the best in the world" and "We don’t have to look at your Canadian test results." My doctor and the head doctor wouldn't look at it either.

-Because of my severe hypoglycemia and low blood sugar ,I needed extra protein and when m assigned doctor kindly asked the kitchen a few times to do this, they steadfastly refused from Day 1 to carry though with his request, telling me that it was up to the nutritionist to decide (a second, older and wiser nutritionist candidly informed me one night that I shouldn’t even be there but should be building my body instead of breaking it down).

-Dr. Caruba kindly informed me, in the IV room, several nights later, that the latter nutritionist was right and I should heed her advice and leave.

-On about Day 3, because my assigned doctor thought my panic attacks were indicative of schizophrenia, he called in a young psychiatrist. After just a half hour of listening to me (a very toxic person having panic attacks), she declared me Paranoid Schizophrenic!

-Dr. Vasquez, the head doctor, then set up a meeting in a closed, windowless, white room, where we sat in a circle with my resident doctor and the psychologist (which all patients are assigned); Vasquez told me to take the schizophrenic drugs and when I said I wouldn’t, he literally yelled at me that "if I didn’t do this I’d be thrown out," and told me that I didn’t know what I was talking about. that I was "an imbecile", and that "I better listen to him." My doctor told me he wouldn’t be at all surprised if I wrote a letter of complaint.

-Aside from the mental abuse I endured, paranoid schizophrenic is a very serious label to give someone. So, my doctor provided me with schizophrenic tranquilizers, Zyprexa, which he said I must take or they’d send me home. I pretended to swallow them so that my parents wouldn't think they'd wasted their money. (Ironically, the first doctor I ever saw for my symptoms, in Toronto, also thought I had schizophrenia! It seems to be a fall-back label for a crazy environmental disease doctors don't understand!)

- Fortunately, I had seen a renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Abram Hoffer, in Canada, as he specialized in vitamin therapy for various illnesses. Mine was brain fog and feeling I was losing my mind with MCS, but he assured me I wasn't schizophrenic.

-In the l950’s , not only did he discover high doses of niacin cured schizophrenics, but he founded the Canadian Schizophrenia Foundation, the Huxley Institute of Biosocial Research, the International Schizophrenia Foundation, and more.

-I’d seen Dr. Hoffer (who had cured Margot Kidder) one month prior, and he’d me non-schizophrenic (only the HOD Diagnostic Test can accurately diagnose schizophrenia).

-In a meeting arranged by Vasquez, and attended by my doctor and the psychologist as well, Vasquez proceeded to remind me that they didn’t have to listen to any of my doctors, that "ours are the best in the world", and with his face almost pressed against mine, proceeded to yell at me and threaten me regarding the drugs he threatened I must take. Later, my doctor and the psychologist admitted to me their abhorrence.

-Against my adult wishes and privacy rights, my parents were phoned and misinformed that I was paranoid schizophrenic (my mother was then about to commit me to the Clarke Institute (Canada’s major mental hospital). Mind you, I went there as an outpatient upon my return to reassure myself and my mother that I was okay, and the head psych there also confirmed I wasn't schizophrenic.

-I quickly phoned Dr. Hoffer who faxed Sanoviv a letter confirming I was NOT schizophrenic.

-In the meantime, other patients there were shocked at how I was being treated and told me I should leave. I didn’t though because I’d spent the money and was, for some reason, more afraid of my parents' reaction to my bad choice in clincs!

-However, I was becoming severely depleted with mineral loss from diarrhea, and lack of nutrition Then, I was given a sauna (although told by the top doctors in environmental medicine that I should not yet have), a long warm seaweed wrap, and not told to drink extra water.

-The next day, I awoke with severe dehydration, drank 5 litres of water, and may have had a herxheimer reaction (something the clinic vowed I would never get there).the world looked as if it was outside of a large bubble and I was in the fishbowl. A friend told me it’s similar to a bad LSD trip.

-Patients who witnessed this told me my face looked swollen and that I looked severely different. Breast cancer patients were taking care of me instead of your doctors. In the afternoon, I secretly made a desperate, clandestine phone call to my naturopath in Canada who told me to go on an electrolyte IV immediately.

-The lab, completely freaked out by now as to what happened to me, heeded my request (I didn’t tell them it was the naturopath’s request since they wouldn't listen to my Canadian doctors--and told me they didn't need to believe Hoffer either!) and put me on an electrolyte IV. After an hour, my world reverted to almost normal.

-I say almost because I was taken off a bit too early, heard and felt a huge “bang” in my head, and awoke the next morning with a huge headache and a swollen face with numbness that still hasn’t gone away. My brain function has also not been the same after that.


-On the way to the airport, I gave a note and gift, in an envelope, to the driver to give to the person who had helped me most—the colonic therapist—and when I called her days later I found out it was never given to her.
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There may be good clinics down south, but be aware of the glitzy ones.

POST-ANNIE!

Hi!
Sorry I haven't written on here since the workshop, but I've been moving (yet again!). Annie's workshop was great: I've had a lifelong disability of having no sense of smell --but now I can smell things!! And it stays around if I do the exercises she gave us! And, I could photocopy a few dozen pages without reacting to them! That was wild. Also, my memory came back and I also felt a great "connectiion" to the mountains and ocean here as if we were "one", so I can now thankfully see beauty in the world again!

I'll be doing this for weeks and updating people here, so stay tuned or take Annie's workshop and update me!

In the summer, I ordered about $200 worth (eg. more thann 30 weeks worth) of special needles from the William Hitt Centre in Mexico as Urine Shots have been turning people around--within a weeks of shots of your own urine in your butt, some people get off their masks! (You do one shot a week , the same day every week).

Dr. Cline, in Nanaimo BC, does this for people and he has them expose themselves to things that really bother them (like bleach), then they don't pee for three hours, then you collect your urine right then, filter it (nurse or doctors do this in the special needle) and inject it into your bottom within 5 minutes. Dr. Hitt doesn't do the exposure thing, so Dr. Cline's method works better. Don't kill yourself, but give enough exposure so you produce an antigen/antibody response for the urine shot to work.

It costs alot to go to Mexico or BC, but Dr. Hitt may mail the needles too you as he did with me if you call him and say you can't afford to go there. He actually comes to the phone or calls you back! He'll send them if you have a doctor to help you.

Between the shots and Annie's exercises, I predict great hope for myself.

It's better to do these things rather than spending tonnes of money on equipment or remedies that haven't been proven for MCS , so I'm sticking to these two for now.

Stay tuned for my story on Reiki which saved my life and which will make you feel much better until you totally heal! I've been doing it for six years :)