ETIOLOGY

It was Sunday February 11, 2001. A perfect mild Santa Ana day and I went for my usual Sunday hike in the Santa Monica Mountains. On this day I chose the 12 mile loop through Santa Inez Canyon, up through Topanga, past Eagle Rock and back through the fire road. Starting out about 2, I wound up finishing just after sunset when all is quiet and that satisfaction of a long hike permeates and a treat and rest are the final reward. As I was coming down the hill on the last stretch I heard an owl and looked up to appreciate it observing me. A perfect ending to a gorgeous day unaware that it would be a very long time before I could do this hike again.

On Monday when I woke up, my right knee was swollen and I could not bend it. Thinking this would be quite temporary, since the same thing happened about 5 years ago and it worked itself out, I decided to lay low from working for the day and cancelled all my appointments. I figured that one day of rest would ease the problem. By Tuesday, the problem persisted and was accompanied by an unusual fatigue. Since my day was full of appointments and the week would be busy since I let go of Monday, I got to work. By Wednesday, I could not continue and cancelled the rest of the week. I was contracted with a CPA firm as marketing and sales manager, and was solely responsible for presentations and bringing in the business, so the CPA insisted on my seeing his Chiropractor. I did not think this was what I needed, but complied. Her office was in the San Fernando valley in Encino and the drive seemed daunting as I felt so weak and tired. By the beginning of the next week, I had set up appointments for treatment as the ultrasound relieved the growing pain if even temporarily. By this time, I knew I had a problem. I had no health insurance or disability insurance and had bills to pay, so had to continue working. Fatigue and pain were put aside as my phone work continued and I managed as many presentations as I could.

The swelling moved into my left knee and the fatigue continued, but somehow I managed as the CPA I was contracted with was very understanding. The swelling and muscle pain continued to worsen. It was spreading to my ankles, elbows and wrists and the worst was that my car door was broken on the driver's side and I had to climb over the shift getting in from the passengers side. The car was a standard shift and I had to shift by pulling up my leg with my left hand as the muscles were so painful on top of my thighs that I could not lift my legs.

I kept on with the chiropractor as long as I could since the treatments eased the pain, but eventually the fatigue and time involved was just too much. I was about a month into a routine of getting up at 5:30 to get ready for 10:00 appointments. I had no energy for anything but work and could not cook or eat much. My morning routine included a shower, wrapping my ankles, knees, elbows and wrists with supports, after manoeuvering around my apartment slowly with the constant ache of every move. I would do 2 or 3 appointments a day and come right home, get changed and sleep by about 7 or 8 until the next day and start all over again.

Mid March, I saw an MD on a Saturday. If I did not have to go to work, I felt OK and could get to a doctor and get home again for rest. He thought I had arthritis and took some tests finding a high cholestorol read. My joints were not painful, it was the muscles around them that were achy. I was getting weaker and the problem was spreading to my neck and the bottom of my feet and could not walk, actually using crutches to get to appointments. I had to go into the office from time to time and this was rough as the walk from the parking lot was fairly long. My knees could not bend so I walked like a stiff when not on the crutches.

I am writing about this almost 10 years after the initial problem with my right knee. I have been thinking about it lately as I have a bit of problem with that same knee. But the main purpose is to document it and showcase how my belief that the body has the tremendous ability to heal itself along with natural remedies and in the good hands of practitioners who also hold this belief confirmed by experience after experience. At the time there were a few people who did not believe me, including Jim until he saw what had happened to my legs. A dedicated hiker, my legs were strong and toned, but now my knees bulged and my calves were stick thin with no muscle tone. Whatever this was was attacking quickly. I had to get something more done to ease the pain and stop the spread of my weakening muscles. On the morning I awoke and could not turn my neck, I started to think this thing would spread internally to my heart and that would be it.

I made an appointment with the acupuncturist who was just 2 blocks away from my apartment. The treatments worked to stop the spread and alleviated the pain and swelling, especially on the bottom of my feet. I could walk again without the crutches. He gave me an herbal tea treatment which nourished me to the soul. I kept up the treatments an started to feel better, but the pain and fatigue were still haunting me. The back of my right knee felt like there was some kind of glue sticking my muscles to the bone. One of my clients told me about sam- e around April and I found that helped with the fatigue. I never gave up that I could get to the bottom of this and somehow get well again. That winter was particularly rainy and getting into the car in the rain on the passenger side climbing over the clutch was a challenge that each day became routine. One particular rainy day, I stopped for lunch and could not get up to get the food I ordered. I asked the wait staff to get it for me and they were very accommodating. When that day ended, driving home through the rain, and hobbling up the stairs, I remember feeling extraordinarily grateful for my comfortable couch and cozy apartment. I found a chair that would drop forward, so that I could get out of it easily. Things were improving slowly as far as the fatigue, but the pain and need to wrap up every day continued.

As April moved into May and the rain ceased and the weather became warmer, I had more energy and started to look for a new car....with an automatic shift. In June, I bought a luxury Volkswagen Passat. A bigger car, it took some getting used to and with my tight neck was harder to park. But it was luxurious to be able to enter a car again from the driver side. Everything was automatic including the seat adjustments and I did not have to shift. Still in pain, I decided to take some yoga classes again. It helped, but was amazing to me what I could not do. I started taking short walks and got used to the pain as the fatigue was lifting with the longer days and abundant sunshine.

In late August, I signed a new client who had a physical therapy studio. I told her of my experience and she mentioned a Naturopath who rented space from her. I set an appointment. He was a Chiropractor and a Naturopathic Doctor, ND. He offered an in depth exam asking lots of questions and hooking me up to a machine that had some ability to diagnose body problems using the principals of physics. He asked me if there was TB in the family as the machine showed exposure. I had been a microbiology lab tech and had been exposed culturing specimens so that was all I could relate. Was not sure what was going on, but the instrument indicated that my body and symptoms pointed to dengue fever. This made no sense to me since I had done no traveling in Africa or Asia. He prescribed a cocktail of rhododendrum, miatake mushroom d fraction, olive leaf and something called petrochem. I had the perscription filled on Friday at the homeopathic pharmacy that had been in Santa Monica since the 40's. I took the remedies according to directions on Labor Day weekend, almost 7 months since my ordeal began. Saturday I started to break out in ichy hives. I called Dr. Hershoff, the ND and he said not to do anything to stop it as it was part of the clearing process. An OTC cream not associated with any homeopathic remedy would be OK. By Sunday I was swollen and covered from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet in hives. My whole body was red. Jim was in Boston and I had to pick him up from the airport. When he saw me he thought I had fallen asleep in the sun. I was itchy and uncomfortable, but no longer in pain. He said the itch and that discomfort had masked it. But no. I could bend my knees without muscle pain and I felt lighter and relieved in all areas of my body. I felt cured. I put up with the hives for a couple more days, but after that I had no more problem. It was as if my body was filled with health giving pac men eating up all the mess in my body that was causing the problems. To this day, I say I had a muscle virus. One day maybe I will have a serology test to see if dengue fever is indicated in my blood, but for now I know that I had a miracle cure. I carried this virus for months and by some miracle found the right cure. My experience confirms for me that mysteries exist within and without the body. We are a long time in evolution and we have evolved along with plants and animals and are all connected. The healing process can be long, but mine so far was permanent. I had a 7 month journey of pain and fatigue that ended with education and some deeper understanding of something greater not associated with immediate relief and side effects. My belief after working in the medical system for many years was that there was something more than chemicals, drugs, surgery and a linear way of thinking about health. The medical profession as it exists today can be helpful, but they tend toward extreme and expensive procedures toward a hopeful cure. My ND charged about $400 for an extensive 2 hour consultation and a prescription that was about $70. That was it. I never needed to return. I wonder if I had health insurance what western medicine would have discovered and what it would have cost in dollars and stress to my condition. The experience highlights the closeness I felt toward Nature and how ancient remedies born from our Source are often lost to modern medicine.

As I normalized and returned to my usual healthy state, I stopped the remedies. Exactly one year later, I came down with a flu, that was debilitating and turned into pneumonia. I think my body may have weakened from the muscle virus. After that, I followed the advise of the ND and regularly take Olive Leaf. He insisted that was the main ingredient in my cure as it is a strong anti viral. I have not had a flu or other incident since. In chatting with a friend who is also a believer in natural healing, she mentioned that the olive tree is ancient and has come through the evolutionary process producing food products as well that promote health. All of this makes logical sense. I made an appointment again some years later with Dr Hershoff ND and he did not remember me or the illness. This is his life, practicing healing. What for me was so profound was just routine to him and maybe for others just unbelievable.

Some time after my healing, I remembered an incident that may explain a cause. Just prior to the onset, I had purchased a futon. One day when I was changing the bedding, I noticed a bug that looked like a tick on the bedding. I routinely ignored it. Then I remembered a red mark on my left leg that I thought may be a benign skin tumor. Maybe this was the clue. The futon came from Japan and may have been manufactured in an area of Asia where dengue fever is a problem. The insect in the futon may have been the carrier. I have no way of knowing for sure if my remembrance is a proper theory, but I do accept it as an answer to the mysterious illness that plagued me, taught me and finally enlightened me further through an experience that tested my courage.