We woke the Balrog. We were walking through the Mines of Moria, doing okay, not too much happening, minding our own business and then we woke the Balrog. You’ve seen the movie. You know how it ends. But the thing is, he needed to be woken.
Dr. Natasha talks about the body being ready to take on a deeper level of healing during different parts of the healing journey. There are layers to the onion of healing and as the body works to peel them away symptoms come and go, worsen and improve. And when we woke this giant some interesting symptoms have returned, and even some eczema has presented in places we’ve not typically seen it in the past.
This healing journey is not linear. I’ve said it many times, and I’ll likely say it again. We move forward, we move back. We wait.
I feel like one thing I’ve been learning the last year is how I simply cannot trust my emotions, and I can’t allow them to be the driving force of my day. That’s much easier said than done, and I’m not very good at this. Someone said to me a while back, “quality of life is not quality of skin” and that really struck a chord with me. Many times I have allowed my emotions to hang upon how Raleigh looks. That has been a very challenging part of my personal journey in this entire journey.
We are all plagued to some extent with how we are perceived by others. No one likes to be judged. No one likes to be stared at. I don’t care much to have to take Raleigh to the grocery store with fresh cuts on his face or visible eczema somewhere to have someone pepper us with questions. But this, too, is part of the journey. It is humbling. It is challenging. The mind is a battlefield and every emotion is fair game.
We are headed into a parasite protocol for Raleigh next. Since we are coming up on 2 years and 6 months (December 2019) and some eczema still persists, the next step is a parasite cleanse. Now for those of you out there who don’t particularly like that word — we all have parasites! Wonderful. Delightful. Slimy. Nasty. Gross. But we have them and sometimes they grow out of proportion and the body loses it’s ability to keep them in check. We are wondering if Raleigh falls into this camp.
My never-ending research has led me to two subjects that I’ve kept at arms length this entire time. Two subjects I’ve hoped would be left on their respectable ledges, but it seems we’re coming to them. I’ve wondered about parasites, and I’ve wondered about heavy metals. Often, or perhaps always, the two go hand-in-hand. I’ve read and heard that parasites will coat themselves in heavy metals to keep safe in the body. Again, gross. But you’re here reading for a reason so I’m trying to keep it as real as I can.
So parasites are next. We gotta get the little buggers out and see if that will provide for us another piece to this healing puzzle. I’m hopeful. I’m a bit queasy. I’m anxious about it. I will report back.
When we rounded out two years I was wrestling back some mixed emotions about still being here at two years. I had clearly set a time limit in my mind even if I had not really vocalized it. I was never going to quit at two years, but some part of me thought we’d be done. He’d be healed. On to the next chapter. Clearly, this is not the case and that is 100% okay. This journey is ours. It is healing Raleigh. There is no time limit. It is teaching us many things. It has led me to my next path, an exciting one at that, and for all of it I feel gratitude.
Next, we go parasite hunting. Stay tuned. I may have pictures to show!
Follow me on Instagram for more day-to-day updates: Findingforrester4
Danielle
Joel 2:25
