From healthy to cancer medicine in 6 weeks

When is a person healthy? When is a person sick? 

It should be a simple question to answer. I have always thought that everyone is healthy as long as they do not have a disease. And disease in my mind has been “strong” symptoms or, to make it even clearer when they have a diagnosis. With that way of thinking, it would mean that if you do not have a symptom or feel sick, then you should be healthy, right? But it is not so simple! With or without a symptom we are always moving along the scale between healthy and sick every day. Just because you do not feel well or have a diagnosis, it does not mean that the body is totally balanced. It can be very unbalanced without giving symptoms. 

From healthy to cancer medicine in 6 weeks

12 years ago I got a real punch in my face. I was healthy, strong, and recently given birth to our first-born daughter. I had absolutely no symptoms, a perfect pregnancy, and delivery. Six weeks later I had a pain in my right shoulder. My first thought was, I must have been breastfeeding in a bad position. One week later I could not move. Every (and I mean every) joint in my body was inflamed. My toes were swollen, knees, backbone, hands, fingers, shoulders - even my jawbone was inflamed. I could not move, less take care of my newborn baby. 

Health Care had no difficulties to set the diagnosis very fast- aggressive arthritis! Stop breastfeeding NOW and start with cancer medicine to stop your immune system, I was told by my doctor.  I remember thinking “but I, who is so healthy and do everything right,…? Can one really go from totally healthy to cancer medicine overnight? The doctor was very clear and said: “There is nothing you can do, you will be my patient for the rest of your life!”. I remember I felt both scared, small, and very afraid at the same time. How could he know?  

From cancer medicine to medicine free

I recall that the anger and the fear became my driving forces, I wanted to heal! I knew that somehow I should be able to. The year 2008, there was nothing called an anti-inflammatory diet, but I started to search, read, and experiment with the food. I took away one thing after another and added more of other things. I came to what I today call anti-inflammatory food. 

Six months after I was put on the cancer medicine, I asked for my healthcare support to take it off. We wanted to have a sibling, and as long I was taking cancer medicine that would not be possible.  My thought there and then was, NOW is my chance to stay well and prove that I no longer need the medicine. 

I was extremely precise in what I did, how I ate, and trained. I became pregnant very quickly after the clearing period of the medicine and I was very scared and thought “ I hope I can make it”. And I did! I have not been needing to take the medicine again during the 11 years that have passed now. When I am careless (which I am sometimes) I start to get pain, then I go back to the basics and let the body rest to recover. 

What is healthy for you? 

What is healthy for you? Is it the absence of a symptom? Is it a good night’s sleep? And what does your body communicate? In which stage is it? 

If I would have known then what I know now, I might have been able to do without my painful experience. At the same time, it is precisely the disease which has given me an understanding of how my body works, and the possibility to direct myself toward a more sustainable lifestyle. Today, I am not healthy because I am free from symptoms. I work with my immune system every day 24/7. I think of what I eat, how much I train, my sleep routines, etc. Sometimes, I make choices that are not optimal for me, but it is a conscious decision and I try to make sure to compensate for it with the other parameters. I eat well enough, I sleep well enough, I train well enough and try to have fun as much as possible. 

The biggest challenge that I am still working on is my stress level - my Achilles heel that is still very present from my previous hectic life as a marketing manager. I have a tendency to be in sympathicus (stress) even if I really do not need it.  And I have, during many years in leading positions in the industry, been training my nervous system that this is where it should be. Now I am working on moving it back to parasympathicus (relaxation) as often as I can. We all have our challenges, and this is still for me to master. My thought is, if I work actively on all the other parameters, I am still supporting my body whilst I am trying to manage my relation to stress in a different way.  

Do you know where your body is on the scale of healthy-sickness?

I was super well until one day I was super sick and had to start with cancer medicine. Today, I know I can and I do analyse my microbiome (the gut flora), my stress levels, my sleep, how good my cells are at taking up the nutrients from the food I eat.  I have learned how I can adjust my lifestyle so I can try to prevent diseases. One does not need to measure of course - for the majority of the people, it is enough to change their lifestyle to a more sustainable way! However, it seems like most of us need to crash (get a disease/diagnosis) before we do change to a sustainable lifestyle. I measure myself as I know by experience that I normally do not feel any symptoms before I get sick. I measure so I know where I am on the scale between sick and healthy.  I don't want to repeat my experience from 12 years ago. I have decided to work WITH my body rather than AGAINST it. We are a team, my body, and I. It shall not serve me, as I thought before, but we work as a team, my body, and I.  

For me there are no magic pills that will make me healthy, it is long-term work and a consciousness about the impact of the lifestyle on my health that will keep my body strong. It is active work and sometimes it is hard - but as it is so rewarding, I would choose this road over and over again. 

Why do I tell this? And why now? 

What I have realised during this period of Covid-19, is that so many are surprised that younger persons can be seriously sick from a disease that “should” only affect older people. And, sure the majority of serious cases are from the elderly or have an underlying disease, implying that they have an immune system that will not be able to manage such stress. BUT Covid-19 does not check your id first to see your age and decide if it should attack or pass to the next victim. It attacks everyone and anything it can for its own survival. Then it is up to our immune system to fight and counteract the virus.  

If I would have got Covid-19 twelve years ago I would most probably have been very sick - if I would have survived - even though I was young and was not part of the risk groups. I simply did not know in which state my body was in as I have come to learn that it was in a much worse state than I could identify myself. 

Even if I work actively on my immune system, am interested in my biochemistry, and know that I am in a pretty good state, I also know that not everyone around me is in the same situation. I do not know if they have an immune system that is weak or has a diagnosis that puts them in danger if I carry the virus which can infect them. 

Newsletter

I will continue to write about the immune system from different angles and if you do not want to miss it and make sure you get it directly into your mailbox, mail me at   hello@funcmedicine.se and write “blog” in the subject and I will add you to the list. 

Take care of each other!