Jan’s Healing Story – NaPodPoMo

In today’s episode of Self Powered Healing, I’m bringing to you another healing story. This one was told to me by my friend Jan several years ago. Jan married young, and after about three years of marriage, her husband was sent to Vietnam. When he came back, he was a totally different person. She told me that he worked out his violence at home.  

Of course, she said the experience was very painful, not just physically, but also emotionally. And eventually, the emotional pain resulted in her body manifesting different physical pain. And that was when she first became aware of the idea that the body and the mind had a connection, that the pain that she was experiencing emotionally was also manifesting as pain within her body.  

She endured this pain for several years until one morning, she was driving to the high school where she taught, and the pain was so bad that she sat in her car screaming. There was no one to hear her screams. She said that it hurt to just grab the steering wheel at all because the redness and the swelling in her hands was so bad.  

That was when she decided that it was time to go see a doctor because the pain was everywhere. It was in her hands and in her legs and her arms and they were all red and swollen and fiery. She described her symptoms to the doctor And he ran the blood work, and he found markers indicating rheumatoid arthritis.  

He told her she had rheumatoid arthritis, and that within three years she would be in a wheelchair. So if she had any vacation plans, anything like that, she ought to do them now, before she was in a wheelchair.  

Driving home from the doctor that day, Jan sat there and said, Doc, you’re talking to the wrong person. She said my life is more valuable than to give it up, to be a victim of pain. I just will not do that.  

She did go on the medication he prescribed and took it for a couple of years and noticed relief in her symptoms. But at the same time, she was also researching and listening to her body and doing some other things. She started drinking a lot of water, forcing herself to drink water, and also eliminating red meat from her diet because she felt that it was impacting her pain and her healing.  

In addition to dietary changes, she started dealing with her own emotions and her own anger because she finally admitted that this whole situation, she had a lot of anger of her own, and that it was literally burning her up.  

After three years, she had absolutely no symptoms, and she’d been off the medication for a while. She returned to the same doctor who ran the same blood work, and he could find no markers of any kind for rheumatoid arthritis, which is pretty much unheard of. You either have them, and you always have them. But she didn’t have them anymore. But of course, he said, well, you’re in remission. And was rather noncommittal on her diagnosis and prognosis. She was still married to the same man, but she’d been learning to take care of herself and also to take care of her two boys and keep them from harm.  

When Jan was first dealing with all of this, she was paralyzed by the monstrosity of her husband’s violence. And it was her symptoms that caused her to realize that she did have power to do something, to do something about herself and her situation.  

She stayed married to him for about five years after her own pain had started. And by the time they divorced, all of her symptoms were gone. She said, it was like I had a new body and a new life again. Shortly after that, she had a complete physical and there were no evidence of rheumatoid arthritis. And that’s still true today some 40 years later.  

As we talked, Jan said that she attributed her pain and the inflammation, those physical manifestations, as being revelations of an internal pain. She also says that eating red meat was part of her problem and can feel its effects to this day. So it was a combination of things for her. Diet and dealing with emotions, not drinking enough water to flush out the toxin.  

Jan has had many things happen in her life since then. She’s got her own health issues now. She lost a son when he was in his 30s. But she said, I’ve had so much grief and trauma through the years that I’ve learned that my only way of experiencing joy is to find something good and beautiful every day. I think that’s solid advice, don’t you?  

When I listen to read these stories, I’m always looking for what it is, is there something special about it? The people that seem to heal when others might not. Is there something that makes them resist just accepting the doctor’s prognosis? And in Jan’s case, she said, she would say that people either have a choice of being a victim or taking responsibility for their own welfare. And perhaps that’s it, that they took responsibility and said, I am not going to be a victim of this pain or this disease. It’s really that whole idea of continuing to believe that there really is an answer.

Thanks for listening today. If you have any comments on this episode or on the whole NaPodPoMo concept in general, you can visit this page to leave comments either on this page or at SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024. You can also find a listing and link for all November’s episodes on that same page: SelfPoweredHealing.com/November2024.  

By the way, Self Powered Healing is still looking for interviews with people who want to share a story of healing. Do you have a healing story? I would love to hear about it and see if maybe you could share it on our show. So if you’re interested in sharing, then visit selfpoweredhealing.com/share to schedule a chat.  

You aren’t committing at this point. You’re just having a chat with me to see what’s going on. It will be confidential unless or until you decide you want to share. And if you get there and there’s not a convenient time for you, send me a message because we’ll always find a time.  

And remember this always,  