Total Recovery

It is not often that I am mesmerized by a non-fiction book, but Gary Kaplan and Donna Beech’s book “Total Recovery” did capture my attention.

My vasculitis disease is cause from inflammation. Inflammation is my enemy, though its design is to help in the healing process. Have you ever noticed when you sprain your ankle or cut your finger it swells and turns red? That is inflammation making its way to the damaged body part to promote healing. My body uses inflammation to attack itself. Through a serious of chemo drugs and other types of medication I have finally found maintenance for my body so that I can live a functionally life again.

The one section of “The Pain Solution” that drew my attention the most was where he talked about past trauma’s and abuses that trigger inflammation and chronic conditions. Here is a small excerpt from that section that touched me deeply:

“Depression and pain are extreme outlets for microglial inflammation. There are many other manifestations. When the microglia are creating neuroinflammation, the symptoms may show up first as depression, then pain, then fatigue or anxiety or a backache, but it’s all the same; It’s inflammation in the brain. If we treated only the physical manifestations of pain, the emotional manifestations would flare up and vice versa. With the microglia inflamed, the pain always reignites, quashing the ability to heal and quite literally hastening degeneration and disability.”

Before I read this, I always thought that somehow my choices in relationships during the time I started getting sick correlated with me getting sick. I was in a destructive friendship. The toxicity of how we showed each other how we hated each other and then in turn saying we love each other for the past 5 years felt like I was on a roller coaster ride through the depths of hell. I did learn a lot about myself in this relationship. Now I am wondering without blaming this man if this could have aided in my illness. Could this destructive relationship been the culprit of why my body started attacking itself? My relationship with this man wasn’t the first destructive one I had been in. I had a couple of them and now they are gone out of my life. One by death and one by finally having enough and walking away from each other which was a hard choice. Looking on this and reading this I am realizing that God was looking out for me and making this man leave my life so that I can truly heal and be who I am.

At the end of this delightful book there is a road map in getting healthy from inflammatory disease. I like it. I am doing many of the things he suggests. I am always a work in progress.

Anyone who suffers from a chronic illness would benefit from this book. I know I did.