October: Renewed

Did that change in the weather last month breathe new life into you like it did us? Last month proved to be quite metamorphic...I might remember it as the September of deep slumber.
As I see it, we all shoulder our share of burdens. The last thing I want to contribute to those shoulders and a world navigating through troubling times is fodder for stress, sadness or concern. With that said, I tend not to be too public about struggles that we may experience. However, I know that some things go without saying...folks can sense when energy changes or when a new vibration is pulsing through the air. By the end of 2020 my personal health had gotten to a push comes to shove moment, one where it was time to face the music. An aggressive autoimmune disease which had been benign enough to ignore (by my estimation) for three years, had progressed to a point that the life we created for ourselves had become very difficult to sustain. Rich and I made some changes in an attempt to preserve the well-being of our family and business, while trying tirelessly to dig me out of this hole. Some of those changes being: pulling out of our Sunday farmers market, reducing the volume that we were growing, and withdrawing me from so much of the physical work I typically contribute to the farm. With so much change in our lives and in what we bring to the community, we decided that I would clue our customers and friends of the farm into a vague version of our situation. I'm sure a lot of the folks coming through the market were wondering why I appeared to be so deflated.
As it turns out, by opening a window to our reality, I tapped into a channel of well wishes, prayers, and stories of others' toils with autoimmunity. What a powerful form of love! I don't belittle how medicinal that was for me and for all of us really. Rich and I enlisted everything in our arsenal to work toward healing...Rich poured himself into the medical literature, forums and podcasts, discarding his typical farm or pleasure reading at night and in the mornings before the kids woke up. I attempted various dietary changes, home remedies, and various de-stressing methods. I tried things that I had set my heart against in an effort to keep the wheels from falling off. There were a few rather heartbreaking late night conversations about our outlook. We had to remind ourselves that if it was necessary to give up farming, we still have what matters most to us...our little foxes and each other. I spent this summer watching Rich carry the farm on his back...enough work for three adults really. Then I'd watch him take the kids for a ride in the white truck to give me time to rest and recuperate on the couch, not feeling any better for the break he was giving me. It was sometime mid-summer when I found myself asking for help from something much greater than myself. I saw a handful of different specialists over the past year...I remember May saying "I don't want you to go to appointaments anymore'. I opened my mind to allowing various physicians to dig deep into their arsenals for the cause. Why are we meant to suffer? What am I supposed to be learning?
In rolled September. With a combination of the help of a doc who really stuck with us, the adoption of a new way of life: valuing times I'm sitting still as much as times I'm go go going, and no doubt with that love and rooting from those around me, I started to sleep the deepest sleeps. I feel like I found my way out of a tunnel that had grown so dark. I had gotten so acclimated to being uncomfortable on a daily basis since May was crawling, that I didn't remember how good your body can feel. Best of all, it seems that my body,which had been attacking itself, was able to be at peace and rest, with the chance of I don't know...maybe even thriving? I'm so glad that these last four years happened...they feel like a gift to me. Like my body or that something/someone greater than myself was showing me that life should be relished. That all the while we work away with our heads down, there is that absolutely spectacular sky above us...that any moment we could turn over on our backs and just watch it...shape shifting clouds, radically brilliant rays of light, epic rolling threatening storm clouds, a kaleidoscope of stars, and that brilliant moon.
The good thing about the nature of life is that it is never standing still, it's always moving and changing. Our bodies, just like the earth, are built to regenerate and to survive. This body of mine has done so much for me...carried two babies and fed them, survived the wringer that I put it through living like I was two people in one, and now it found itself healed. I will aspire to spend the rest of my life taking better care of it.
And now I owe you a thank you. Thank you for reading. Thank you to those who shared their stories. Thank you for your support and for your love...the strongest of all medicines.
And now that you know the story took a turn for the better, here's my promise not to fill more of these monthly musings/newsletters with sad stories of autoimmunity ;).