Fall 2020 Health Update

This time of year is one of my favorites: cold crisp air, the beautiful evidence of the change in season all around us, anticipating Thanksgiving celebrations and most of all it’s my favorite running season! It also brings back memories of where I was on this health journey just two years ago. I felt the worst at the beginning of Fall 2018, and Fall 2017 is when I started having strange neurological symptoms and was wondering if I had brain cancer, or how long the rest of my life would be. 

It seems timely to give an update to all those who have cared for us and journeyed with us. We have lots to give thanks for, some things to continue to work on and some areas that we need some help with. 

I have enclosed some pictures this time. It feels quite the vulnerable thing to do, but I hope it gives evidence for the renewal that’s taken place, for the joy and rejuvenation that we get to experience despite all that we’ve gone through.

How life has improved in 2 years

Strangely, (and I try to say this softly so none will misunderstand) the pandemic has been strategic in furthering my healing. Staying away from all environments (due to the lockdown) except my own and the outdoors has given my body more space for healing and for detox. It has given me new ways to interact with clients and since many have been concerned about their own health, my business has been booming (Luke’s, too)!

This doesn’t mean luxury for us, but rather it means picking away at the health debt we accrued as we paid for almost half of all it took to get us to this point. (The other half was thanks to the generosity of those around us). I wish we had a small house to show for the money that we’ve invested in my health.

Two years ago, our home was an empty condo. Having left behind nearly everything we owned, we moved in with only the clothes and items in our car. I had two pairs of clothes and the kids had one small box of toys. The ladies in Caronport who run the clothes closet, banded together and bought all of the items we’d need for our kitchen for basic cooking. They even picked it all up as I had so little energy for shopping for more than just groceries.

Empty condo, littered with the few things we could fit in our car.

Making due. Bed time storytime!

Brave kids, getting used to our new place and new reality.

At the time, it seemed crazy (even to me!) to leave a moldy place behind and consider all of our household items contaminated (as if everything had become radioactive). But we did it and it has made a world of difference; it’s been life-saving for me.  

Undergoing some tests at Dr. Hoffman’s clinic in Calgary.

A dear friend drove me into the mountains while in Calgary to try to bring me some comfort.

Two years later, I’ve followed all of the advice of Dr Hoffman within the bounds of what we could afford. We’ve been ever thankful for those who support us monthly that makes this a possibility. I feel 75% of my normal self most days. That’s huge for me, given that only 2 years ago I remember hating this condo, feeling like I had moved into a plain nursing home, lying on the floor, wishing I could sleep all day to keep the pain and fatigue at bay. My life hovered at 15-20% of my normal. 

Kids surviving on Netflix while I sleep and Luke tries to get some work accomplished.

I felt so sick in those days — there aren’t many pictures of me from 2018 because I didn’t want to remember much.

My day 2 years ago: 

• Wake up before noon, hopefully. 
• Get the kids off of Netflix. 
• Feed them some food. 
• Try to find food myself. 
• Ignore anything non-essential. 
• Keep in touch with only my family and anyone essential to healing. 
• Nap all afternoon. 
• Make supper. 
• Clean up and drag myself to the couch so I could visit with Luke before I fell asleep. Often I’d just head to bed with the kids. 

Today: 

• Up early, sometimes working with clients or often out running and exercising myself. 
• Back by 8ish to make breakfast for everyone. 
• Homeschooling by 9am. 
• Keeping up with all of the household tasks. 
• Working for 15-20 hours per week with my Enliven Health & Fitness business. 
• Exercising with all of my clients because I have ENERGY in great supply! Luke laughed along with me one evening as I headed back to the office to meet on Zoom with my final client for the evening and I said: off to my 4th workout for the day! I would never have said that just two years ago. 
• And most gratefully, spending time catching up with my family and some dear friends

Rowan and Molly “helping” me lead an online exercise class.

Feeling well enough to feel like taking some family pictures this spring!

Coming to terms with disability

Thinking in terms of “disability” has helped me greatly as I ponder my life and wonder at the limitations I experience. 

• Being able to freely enter a building of any kind and experience the joy of visiting others.
• Receiving hospitality from others.
• Attending church services.
• Taking part in a homeschool group. 

These are all things I had to let go of in order to heal. I felt angry, you can imagine. It seems that the further into the healing process I get, the more I have to give up.

But I’ve learned a lot from my husband Luke about living life gracefully with a disability and being creative with your abilities instead of living in the shadow of them. 

My newfound limitations have caused me to be creative, to devise new ways to connect with others outside, to show love and care, to use the internet as much as possible to connect with my dear family members (I’m so thankful for my sisters and nieces and friend Darcie for joining me in some online book clubs!). 

Thinking in terms of “disability” has helped me to better understand myself, my abilities, and my limitations. It allows me to have patience for myself and to realize that entering buildings is detrimental to my health, and that living within my limitations is important for me – at least for now.

Challenges ahead

I find myself increasingly grateful for this difficult path. It asks so much of me. I still eat very rigidly, exercise faithfully, do all kinds of detox and breathing exercises, and phyiso, etc. And at this point there’s not much that I won’t do. 

This regimen allows me to continue to enjoy life and to contribute to the lives of others as well as take part in the lives of my dear family, our close friends, and our church family – all of which were quite impossible not so long ago. 

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Enjoying some time at Buffalo Pound this summer.

Maybe it’s surprising to see and hear how hard things were for us. I’m known for being very positive ;). But in order for you to understand how much my life has transformed, it helps to be vulnerable and share those moments of great hardship. 

I still have lots of work to do.

• I’m on a waiting list to work with a doctor to continue to improve a lot of my internal detoxification systems.
• I’d like to get to an even healthier place where I can eat all of the fruits vegetables again.
• I would like to learn how to interact with environments in a way that my body can handle so that maybe I can go to church again one day and visit my family out east easily.
• I have some other pesky symptoms that still hang on (burning on my skin, etc.) that I would like to address.
• Continue to rid my body of glyphosate and mold toxins, two of my biggest toxin problems.

Rowan

Rowan, delighted to be reading Narnia on his own!

We’ve had some ups and downs with Rowan this year. We’ve seen lots of improvements in some ways as we’ve used the services of our naturopath. But we’ve seen some weird symptoms continue to pop up this spring and summer. We have done conventional medicine testing (which of course shows that nothing is wrong). He had a 3-night stay in the hospital this spring for a severe fever, which was alarming, but testing showed no known cause.

In response to this, we decided to book an initial appointment with Dr Hoffman to get his advice. There is a lot we can do on our own, but we need his help to determine what path to take. We’ve been able to pay for this mostly on our own and we are so thankful! It isn’t fun spending hundreds of dollars on health consultations, but the progress they help us make is well worth it. 

I continue to realize how much Dr Hoffman has helped me (even though I had been doing a lot of looking into natural health and had already tried many things on my own). He helped me identify the main problems and gave me steps to take towards healing. Our prayer is that he can do that for Rowan so that we can see him fully restored to robust health. 

Just because a blood test comes back clear, doesn’t mean that something isn’t going on that is undetectable by a test. All of the tests I had completed before I saw Dr Hoffman came back clear, but my life was slipping away. I keep reminding myself of this while we await our appointment with Dr Hoffman; he really leaves no stone unturned.

We still need some help! 

We’ve come to realize that “normal life” is going to be permanently different for us. And we’ve found joy in that. We need to be so careful around all toxins, especially for me and the kids. We will always have to be very careful about everything in our environment from the water we drink, the air we breathe, the paint we use and even the items we buy for our place. We have to buy pure and expensive food. We won’t likely be able to travel much or very easily. We had seriously considered moving to Ontario to be closer to my family, but I’ve been learning more about humid climates and the obstacles they present for someone like me who has a severe reaction to mold and water damaged buildings. We have put our moving plans on hold for now. We have been able to make lots of progress towards caring for ourselves independently, but we are not quite there yet. 

We have friends and family who graciously support us each month so that we can afford the monthly treatments. We’ve even been able to contribute some of our own budget money this year (yay!). 

We are especially thankful for this because we accrued no new health debt this year. Instead, we are working at paying off the significant debt we accrued two years ago. All things to be thankful for. 

Monthly support has been a huge help to us. Feel free to ask if you are wondering what this is about and if you are interested in helping us. Every bit means so much to us.

What’s next

We have some things we need to do, for which we have a small amount of funds but not enough to do all on our own. Would you consider helping us in whatever way is possible for you? Here’s our to do list: 

• Annual mold testing of our condo to make sure we have kept the mold level in a healthy range – $1000
• We’d like to purchase some kind of bedding. We’ve been sleeping on floor mats for two years now! (We actually kind of like it, but breathing in carpet fumes is not healthy for us, so we are trying to rectify that.) Since we will need a particular type of bedding, it may cost $2000 to $4000 for all four of us. 
• Practitioner fees for continued healing for me. Approx. $3500 over the course of 4-5 months.
• A second air purifier for our condo, since one purifier doesn’t have the capacity to cover the full area. $500
• Both Rowan and I are very sensitive to EMFs, so we’ve been told to purchase a shield canopy to protect us further when we sleep at night. Approx. $2000
• New costs associated with Rowan’s care. (Unknown cost at this point; the first appointment cost us $600. We’ll know more at the end of October). 

If you’d like to help us tackle some of these things, we’d be so grateful. Send us an email and we’ll let you know how best to help us financially:  jenniferwatkinsjohnson@gmail.com or lukenjohnson@gmail.com

Paying it forward

What do you do when you regularly feel overwhelmed by the generosity of others? 

I’ve found some small ways to help others around us that don’t involve cost, but we’ve also begun the slow work of starting a foundation focused on raising money for families who encounter significant health expenses that the government doesn’t cover, particularly in situations like our own where the cost is insurmountable. 

Most people don’t have the luxury of having so many kind and generous family members and friends who seek to help them along. We’ve named the foundation “Hands of Relief”. Stay tuned for more about this in the future! 

A Litany of Thanks

Even while we are still in need, and still relying on others for help, I have so much to give thanks for. I hope this encourages and inspires you:

• Lots of clothes for the kids donated to us.
• A friend who is giving our children piano lessons for free! Such a wonderful gift.
• Sisters and brothers who regularly think of our little ones and make life so enjoyable for them in tangible ways
• A family member who heard about Rowan’s upcoming appointment and immediately thought to send us money to help cover the cost.
• Some outdoor church gatherings. This has brought me the most joy to see our priest and deacon and lots of other church family. (I can’t go into our 110-year-old church building, so even pre-covid, it had been a year since I had seen some people or participated in a service.)
• Online church! So hard for many, but a lifeline for me and our family. We really enjoy our Sunday morning routine of lighting candles and gathering in front of our computer to sing and read scripture and pray together. A pandemic plus. 😉
• Beautiful spring to beautiful fall, which has allowed us many adventures and time spent with loved ones outdoors. This has been so wonderful to connect and visit without having to be constantly in indoor spaces.
• Luke and I are both self-employed and our businesses have been experiencing new growth this year.
• A fantastic start to the school year! Lots of excitement around learning and energy for me to guide the kids through the lessons.

Many thanks for holding the Christ light for us during the darkest days we have experienced these past few years. Thank you for caring and praying and supporting us.