Tag: Mental Health

The Fruit of Myasthenia Gravis is Priceless!

On By IreneIn Affirmation, Celebration, Coaching, Courage, Faith, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Mental Fitness, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers WellLeave a comment

Growing up things has not been that hard for me. I also have the tendency to take the easy way out. Seemingly blessed with good brain, being born in relatively stable home and having the privilege of being native of the land has also given me easier opportunities. I get into uni with my native quota and upon graduation it was relatively easy to get a job. Then changing job gave me a huge leap in my paycheck. Being a driven person, hitting target was my aim because earning a bigger paycheck was of utmost importance. It was not too hard but it was not too easy either. Being raised by my strict father, it was in my system to make things work for me. Even when I cried over my decision, I have to try to make things work and not giving up too easily. Those foundation has given me a good starting point.

Despite all the worldly successes that I experienced in the past, my heart was never satisfied. I was yearning for something more and that yearning eventually led me to quit my job and be in mission fully covered by God. Boy the lesson was tough. I grumble often and still did not learn my lesson of trust until Myasthenia Gravis (MG) made an entrance to my life. In the first few years of living with MG, I still did not grasp the real value of patience. Only after the crisis in 2023 did I finally grasp the meaning of patient suffering.

My desire for complete healing, I mean complete healing was and still is strong. I am only settling for the best and so I set myself to a heck of a journey. I know for a fact that allopathic medicine can only bring me to the point of monthly maintenance subscription. The management protocols are not designed for healing, only for control. But control is necessary to buy me time and give me clarity on what needs to be done.

In my quest of reversing MG, I learnt patience. At first rather reluctantly but eventually I understood the value of my suffering. God the Father invited me to live a life as the beloved who suffers well. I said yes though I did not know what does that entail. I was still restless and eager in an impatient (or lack of trust) way to get rid of the modern medication I was on. When I woke up in the ICU room realising that the cup of suffering was not to pass me, that was my moment of victorious surrender. I began learning patience as I was well aware I needed time to heal. I needed to be patient with myself and trust the process. I made a remarkable recovery journey. Got us a new off roader to serve us for our land that I signed the S&P of a week prior to ICU admission; travelled to the neigbouring country for a friend’s wedding – all within 6 months post ICU.

However, I was still a slow learner of patience even through the physical need to suffer. My life was still chaotic and God came to bring order to the chaos. I restarted scripture reading discipline which I thought was too hard after having my child. It was not the easiest restart as my nervous system was still on a high alert. I literally fought with my four year old back then to secure my sacred hour in the morning. Even though I knew I needed to be patient, my disposition was still an impatient one – deep in I did not give myself the space to really be. I still did not know how to properly allow myself to feel, I was swinging the pendulum between hope and despair. But I also noticed the time of recovery becomes faster and faster.

Then came the minor flare end of 2024, it was not too bad, even turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I know now that all my physical actions worked to heal my thymus and shrink the thymoma. That flare became the turning point of helping me to realize I have allowed stress to consume my being. Stress that resulted in a flare. It took me quite a long time to stabilize again. Through that I learnt the value of patient bearing of suffering. I also learnt that I had heaps of unprocessed and hidden fear. Those fear were false evidence appearing real. When I decided to face them, they came out bigger and scarier! Faith and techniques I learnt through the years was my remedy of these fears. My faith was put to test and I was willing to walk the rugged terrain of suffering to get to the side of victory. This victory was also fueled by our dire financial situation which I will share adventure of it in my next post.

Months after months of practicing simple breathing exercise has helped me to calm down relatively faster. I first learnt of pursed lips breathing after my ICU stay. It was a necessary part of my lungs healing. Till today I am still struggling with phlegm built up two years post extubation. I came to realize that I am only affected at a certain time of the day, most likely coinciding with the trauma of the time of reintubation. That helped me to learn about the power of mind body connection in healing. I started making it a point to build a stronger mindset that serves me using all sort of hacks from dopamine hacks to positive self talk to applying scriptures in my specific situation. The stronger mindset resulted in me being able to handle difficult things much better. For example, I used to think that exercise was too hard for me. What actually happened was the underlying fear of triggering MG with exercise. But I had a lung condition that took too long to heal, so I started walking on the treadmill for cardio exercise. It was initially hard but as I kept telling myself I was doing hard work, my brain kept rewarding me with quality dopamine. It gets easier and I even expanded to the bicycle as well as weight exercises.

As I keep expanding my mindset to one that is ordered towards the Word of God using physical and tangible techniques, I found myself more and more able to handle stress and challenges. I just show up in life together with MG. Knowing my limit and keep expanding it as well. My nervous system has become more regulated and calmed down. This greatly helped with healing. Not only that, the pages of the scripture jumps out in real life for me. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” – Philippians 4: 13; became my theme of this season. Truly I can only do all things because of the strength I received from Christ. His strength helped me to patiently bear my suffering, learnt from it, grew in endurance and that endurance produces hope that does not disappoint.

Dear friends, what sufferings are you carrying? How would you like to grow in the virtue of patience and perseverance? What are your hope for the suffering you are carrying? Let’s connect to share more about this.

With lots of love,
Irene

Lifestyle Modification for Healing

On By IreneIn Commitment, Faith, Grace, Healing, Hope, Journey, Myasthenia Gravis Healing JourneyLeave a comment

I was at my routine acupuncture appointment when another patient asked me to help with translation. At the end of it, I was amazed that she refused acupuncture when that treatment was likely to help her heal the pain she was experiencing way more effectively. When I talked about it with my TCM physician, he made a comment that the pain was not enough for her to take up the treatment. It made me realized my motivation to change my lifestyle was mainly driven by pain of Myasthenia Gravis (MG). I don’t actually live with physical pain but MG gave me different kind of pain. I used to be active, fun, talkative (still is although limited) and adventurous. With MG, I learnt (or rather I have to) to ration my energy usage as my muscles gets tired easily. So I cannot be as active and as I used to be. I love going on hikes and quite an outdoor person; with MG even that has to be rationed. I’ve always imagined myself being a fun mom, one who would bring her children out often and play with them; with MG I have to ration that (and it breaks my heart).

Talking about children, we’ve always wanted a bigger family; with MG or rather with the immunosuppressant I am on, we are forced to avoid pregnancy. That really breaks my heart (and my husband’s too). I am a person who enjoys my independence, hence the pain of not being able to drive confidently due to double vision was such a great motivation to change and find my remedy. Pain is indeed a great motivator but we need to take action in order to move away from the pain towards our goal of healing. I am grateful that I had some training on what to do when faced with sickness. When I married my husband I took over the role of nourishing him with food that heals. He lives with ulcerative colitis and I learnt first hand how lifestyle modification has helped him to be in remission. So the first thing I did was to look into my diet.

Diet Adjustment
It takes some trial and error to find what’s most suitable. I started with cutting off gluten, progressed to cutting off carbs and after being in the ICU, I cut off store bought broccoli and severely cut down my plants intake. That’s when things started looking much better. When I ran a research on diet for MG, there were several testimonies that said plant based diet worked for them. So I gave it a try and it did not go well with me. The vegetarian diet is not suitable for me. Switching to meat based ketogenic diet has helped me. I still have my herbs and spices because I love the flavor in my food. My diet still consist of some carbs and I also find that I can handle “these”troublesome” food much better now than when I was sicker.

We have an amazing eating out culture here and I enjoy our local food a lot. So when my husband’s income shrunk, the first thing we do to cut down our expenses was to not eat out. Just three months after that, I started driving confidently. It was so amazing that now I would think a few times before deciding to eat out. The problem with eating out lies not just in the carbs, I suspect carbs is the least of the problem. My biggest issue may be the additives in food which are mostly chemical. Well, I am grateful that the fruit of our financial crisis is improved body health.

Reducing Toxic Load
The second action I took in my effort to heal was to reduce my toxic load. I changed all my cleaning agents to natural based agents. Chemical absorbs through the skin and inhalation, so my thought is that reducing the toxic load at home would be helpful. I’ve also been replacing my plasticware to glass or stainless steel. This is to reduce the potential of hormone disruption from plastic. Glass or stainless steel ware are also easier to clean. I am aware that it is challenging to completely get rid of the use of plastic at home, so minimizing my exposure is the best that I can do.

Managing EMF Exposure
We discovered the detrimental effect of EMF exposure by accident. My husband has been on the sensitive side with food due to ulcerative colitis, so his list of avoidance was pretty long to begin with. When we first got married, the avoidance list was not good but also not too bad. He could handle tomatoes better back then but after a few years of moving to my homeland, he started getting more autoimmune reaction with the sensitive ingredients like tomatoes. It got so bad that I completely cut off tomatoes. It was frustrating because tomatoes makes food delicious. On the other hand, the restrictions made me creative with the way I cook. I make sweet and sour dishes without tomatoes or pineapple and it’s still delicious. The frustration however, got us to start looking back at what changed. We discovered that 5G was rolled out in 2021, it was not long after that my husband started getting more and more reaction. That realization led us to action. We know that EMF does not cause disease but it certainly hinders our body’s ability to heal.

We quickly got a new grounding mat as the old one does not work that well anymore. The EMF guarding is especially crucial for sleep, because that’s the time our body recover and heal. Sleeping with grounding mat has helped my husband in reducing the pain that resulted from autoimmune reaction. I still remember when I was in a serious MG flare back in Dec 2022, grounding helped me to manage the symptoms. I could sleep better and the attacks were not as bad. This is because grounding help our bodies to discharge to the earth. With the free radicals discharged from our bodies, inflammation is reduced. The other thing was sewing EMF blocker sheet on our curtain. It is very effective to block out EMF wave coming from 5G towers. There are so many of them in the cities. Ugly but serving an important function. Who doesn’t like good cellphone reception? I certainly appreciate that. So the best we can do is to manage our exposure.

As we’ve discovered, we cannot completely get rid of unhealthy food, plastic and EMF exposure, so periodically we do need to detoxify. In my next post, I am going to share my detoxification protocol over the years. Hope you are blessed and encouraged by what I’ve shared. Do share it with someone who may benefit from this.

With lots of love,
Irene

mindset matters thymoma healing myasthenia gravis

Mindset Matters In Healing Journey

On By IreneIn Faith, Grace, Healing, Mental Fitness, Myasthenia Gravis Healing Journey, Season of Life, Suffering, The Beloved Who Suffers Well, WorthLeave a comment

The difference between a strong mindset day and a weak day can be felt in my body. On days I feel strong and possible, it normally go that way – strong and possible, symptoms at bay. When my mind are being cluttered with objections to what’s possible, my body gets the bashing – symptoms flare. After years of living with Myasthenia Gravis (MG), my observation is that it is way better to have a strong mindset. It takes time to build up those mental muscles and the good news is that our brain is pretty dynamic to serve us better.

Mindset in the context of healing basically covers how strong or how deep is our belief that our body has the capacity to heal. Do we believe that healing is possible? Knowing the answer to this will help us to see how far we will go. If our belief in healing is not that deep, we can change that because again our brain is dynamic and those mental muscles can be retrain towards serving us better. The next question to ponder is; are we willing to do what it takes to get to our desired bodily healing?

I sure am willing but I was also painfully aware of my own limiting beliefs. It was like a tug of war in my head; I really desire and believe that healing is possible for me and at the same time there’s an opposing voice throwing doubts. My prayer at times like that mimics the father from Mark 9: 24 – Lord, I do believe, help my unbelief. His grace indeed does not disappoint as He continued to help me to strengthen my belief.

During the early days of diagnosis, things can be overwhelming and I was not spared of that. I remember hearing so many noises and I did not know which one to believe. All I knew at that time was that the journey of healing is going to be grace-filled for me. I started learning about more about MG just to gain better understanding on what’s going on with me. The things I learnt did not always sit well with me; in fact some of the information or medical labels was personally quite discouraging. One example is the definition of autoimmunity. It is commonly expressed as your body fighting against you. That did not sit well with me because I believe in a God who made all things well and that includes my body. Our body is made to fight for us, not against us. It is made to protect us but why autoimmune happened then?. That question led me to dig deeper into the health rabbit hole that I got into and I found a definition that resonates better with me. 

What causes disease is first of all a weak body as a result of toxin accumulation. The accumulated poison in our body can then confused our immune system. Therefore my body needed of help and time to detoxify, and then heal itself. With a picture like this, I felt at peace with my body. Knowing full well that my body is not at war gave me confidence and even built up my endurance in the healing journey. Just the change of view or label if you’d like that; change my whole perspective which in turn change my belief system to a more life giving one.

The opposite of life giving is life taking and what often caused that is FEAR. Fear is an integral part of life, necessary for survival but there is also fear created by our hypervigilant mind. These fears are often a result of a traumatic experience. For those of us who live with a chronic condition, it is a traumatic experience to be diagnosed with something that change our lives forever. For me I can no longer be that energizer bunny I used to be; my level of efficiency dropped and it takes me way longer to complete a task that used to be easy for me; at the peak of the symptoms I cannot even tie my own hair. There was a period of time when driving was so hard that I gave up for safety reason. It was hard and it can be scary. So I recognized how my hypervigilant mind would “warn” me about dangers that were often irrational. If not properly addressed, these fears can cripple us to the point of not living well.

Just a few weeks ago, I went for a walk on a lonely road surrounded by beautiful forest accompanied by the sound of the river. On the side of the road were lands owned by independent farmers, so on one of side of the road, I spotted a few empty chemical barrels. Immediately fear kicked in; my heart rate went up and I started to feel symptoms rising. In Apr 2023, I had a myasthenic crisis requiring ventilation that was caused by chemical induced pneumonia. Long story short, I was exposed to pesticides while walking at a park. The memory of the ICU stay came rushing in and it was not pleasant. My survival mind said: I do not want that again. Thanks be to God I became aware of what’s going on in my mind, it was my hypervigilant mind going on high alert and it was irrational. I started doing pursed lips breathing to calm myself. As I calmed down, I started thinking more clearly: I was in a way better state than I was in 2023. I’ve done a lot of work on my body, so my body has way better ability to detox, plus the thymoma shrunk by 50% and scripture said that no poison shall prevail against me (Mark 16: 18)!. I said a prayer and told myself that it is safe, that I am strong enough for this and that if any chemical has been sprayed, it would have been some time ago as evidenced by the appearance of the grass.

Regulating back to safety reinforces in my mind that the irrational fear can be overcome. I finished that walk feeling stronger, climbed about 800m of distance in a 200m ascend without the need of mestinon (the anticholinerase drug I used to help manage symptoms). 

Stronger mindset is a life time of work. As we build our mental muscles, we will also grow more resilient and will be able to do things that was seemingly impossible when we were not living with chronic illness.  Do you find this helpful in your journey? Let me know in the comment what helps you to build a stronger mindset. Let’s connect to support each other in our journey of building stronger mental muscles.

Our being is body, mind and soul. To achieve bodily healing, actions need to be taken to give our body the best chance. I will share more in depth in my next post.

With lots of love,
Irene

Remembering Dad

On By IreneIn Faith, Family, Fatherhood, Grief, Healing, Hope, Journey, LoveLeave a comment

It’s been 11 years since I said goodbye to my father. The memory of him losing consciousness when the stroke took a sharp turn; of us offering him the gift of salvation through the little means we had at that time and then the memory of that fateful morning 11 years ago when the young medical officer who was almost in tears breaking the news of my father’s passing to us. We took turn to say our final goodbye and I still remember telling him to hold on to Jesus and follow Him. Just 2 days prior to that, I was telling my dad to not leave us, telling him that he still have to see me getting married and to hold my children. But it was his time to go and when his heart stopped the second time that day, we decided to let go.

Death is never an easy topic to speak about or think about. But death is the only sure thing in life and whether we like it or not, it will sure come. If we are willing, death has a lot to teach us about life. In reality, we are never too ready to let our parents go, no matter what our age are. It is a sad separation from someone who is so important to us. Therefore it is important to grieve well, to grieve with gratitude. When my father passed away, that was the first lesson I learnt – grieving with gratitude.

Shortly after that, I left home for a year of community experience in New Zealand. Some thought I was crazy to leave so soon and some even thought I was selfish to leave my mother in that state. It was super hard for me to leave but the invitation from the Lord to trust Him in His plan was stronger than what my logical mind can conceive. So in obedience, I left home for mission. That year was the year I felt like my smile was not as bright, I easily tear up, missed my dad every day. There were tears and unspeakable pain in that time of grief and through that God spoke the loudest. Never once had I suppress my sadness and pain, but every time I’m done crying, I proactively seek gratitude of my father. I thank God for the time I had with him, the privilege of being his daughter and the traits I inherited from my father. With that practice of gratitude in grieving, my episode of crying was slowly contained to shorter duration as time passed.

My father was far from perfect and I recognized that he and my mother did their best with the knowledge and resources they had. Lessons that he taught me became precious and I was able to see my father for who he really was. That time of grief also clarified what’s important in life – relationship. The petty bickering amongst family became something unnecessary. But it was not always easy to talk in peace without yelling at each other, especially when it is not our family culture. For my part, I learnt to prioritize the relationship over being right. It took me some perseverance (and the grace that comes with sickness) to work on my part of communication with my family till this day.

The beautiful miracle that I experienced from that time of grief was the softening of my heart. Through the loss of my father (and the subsequent loss of my younger brother), I see myself allowing God to turn my heart of stone into a heart of flesh. I became more compassionate and a little more patient with people. Through that time of grieving, I never stop living. I kept moving with the pain and at the ripe time, I was able to bring a close to the grief. Today I cherish the fond memory of my father and also cherish those of us who is alive. We live life to the fullest and we learn to live with grief. When grief is done healthily, it is life giving and it helps us to put things in the right perspective.

Have you been grieving the loss of someone significant? If yes, how was the experience? Would you like to make sense of the experience? Let’s connect!

With lots of love,
Irene

Healthy Mindset Makes Healing a Great Journey

On By IreneIn Celebration, Coaching, Faith, Grace, Hope, Journey, Kingdom Lifestyle, Myasthenia Gravis Healing JourneyLeave a comment

A very important but seldom talked about element when it comes to bodily healing is mental health. We are a whole being, therefore mental health is vital for any healing journey. It was clear to me one of the biggest aggravator of Myasthenia Gravis (MG) in me was chronic unmanaged stress. Hence managing stress and regulating my emotions became a primary goal. I learnt to let go of a lot of unnecessary worries, grudges and heaps of things not in my control. I began to set better priorities and strengthen my boundaries all the while learning to live with MG as well as learning to mother.

What helped me to stay on the course was an overall healthy mindset. I am determined to beat MG and thrive in my life. I know well the reality may be difficult at times, not denying it in a bit. It was tempting to get into a pity party when symptoms hit hard. In all honesty, symptoms are discouraging and hard to live with. I felt like I want to get over and done with it fast whenever it hit me. However, there’s a hard reality that my body needed the time and conducive environment to heal. So, bouncing between “yes, I got this” to “I just want to give up” were common occurance especially in the beginning. I am so blessed to be surrounded by people who support me in this journey, constantly reminding me who I truly am.

Those reminders were fuel for me. Every time I felt beaten, I face the giant instead of running away from it. I allow myself to acknowledge how I felt and also decide not to stay in that low state for too long. How do I rise above the feeling of defeat? – that has been a question I asked myself over and over again. Friends, this is where it is so important to have someone (or a few people) you trust that you can share your life with. I have a few people that I share deeply with; just being able to talk to someone who love you for who you are, is healing. It would be extra awesome if the one you share with is able to just listen and ask you meaningful question. Effective questioning practiced by coaches has power to unlock certain perspectives that would otherwise be blind to us.

In our fast paced world, so many of us lack the time to even be present to ourselves. Some of us due to childhood trauma may not even know how to regulate our emotions. When I was on the peak of taking steroid as a means of MG disease control, my emotions were so messed up. I cried for small matters and it was hard to even regulate my emotions properly. Thank God my husband was really understanding and supported me through those tough times. This is where having some tools in hand would be helpful. When we feel a certain uneasy emotion, it is important to take a pause. A simple way that I practice is to first name the emotion, then ask Jesus how would I like Him to minister to me at that moment?. These kind of pauses helped me to calm down. With a calm mind, then I can tackle the source of those uneasy emotions. From then praise will rise. In the same way, I think it is also good to take a pause when good emotion arises – just taking time to thank God for the blessings and share that moment with Him. I am pretty sure God loves celebrating with us.

Whatever journey we are on, the path would sometimes be smooth and sometimes there are potholes on the road. Whether it be a nicely paved road or some bits where we are met with holes, always remember to look up – I bet the view is beautiful. Dear friends, I wish you a great adventure in your journey. If you find it particularly hard at this moment of your journey, reach out to someone – a family member, a true friend, a coach or a counsellor. Please share your life in all sincerity because it is normal to want to be known by someone. Indeed it is very good for our mental and overall health if we are able to allow ourselves to be truly seen and heard. I leave you with this quote and pray that you are blessed in your journey.

With lots of love,
Irene