This site is dedicated to those individuals who withstand the confusion, casualties and obstacles involved with taking control of their food and their health.
Introduction
What happens when modern medicine doesn't have all the answers? When the people whom we are supposed to trust with our health tell us, "I'm sorry. We don't know how you came down with your condition, and we don't know what the prognosis will be". These are the answers myself and many others have heard when diagnosed with multiple sclerosis - a nightmare which can feel like an ending. I was barely thirty-four, and my life had not really even yet begun. I had spent most of my adulthood preparing for the future - a future I was told now looked grim. Soon everyone's life seemed almost reckless compared to mine; I was confined to a wheelchair with double vision and slurred speech. With hardly a thing left to lose, I became determined not to passively accept the words of my doctors. Although they were well-meaning people, there was always a strong distance that we couldn't cross to meet each other. They could leave my life and the sad, blabbering woman in a wheelchair who could hardly string two coherent words together. I had to remain with my body and myself.
When I was sick, I noticed a very strange effect: some people (always with good hearts) got a sort of excitement in seeing me thus incapacitated. It's not at all that people enjoyed watching me suffer. It just became a curiosity - a marked distinction from everyday life - which carried with it enough interest to be alluring. It is easy to become addicted to this comfort and attention. You're already so miserable. Suddenly, you're the star of the show. Life becomes surreal, and it's easy to be whisked away towards death by get well wishes and greeting cards. I fought against this attraction. Even though I could only type three words a minute, I spent hours researching and learned that there was a whole other world out there which offered hope instead of a condemnation to a depressing prognosis: the world of alternative medicine. Pure allopaths are often quick to say that alternative medicine is full of quacks and charlatains. My own experience whispers to me a different story. The most important thing I learned was to listen to my body.
Through the Shadows is an exploration of this very special time in my life, a time my husband and I call a gift. Asking the question, "Is aspartame bad?", brought a cause and effect relationship thundering down on us which created great challenges for us both. Only now, years later, can I understand the marked consequences of abusing my body for twenty years with a substance I thought to be safe. It eventually wreaked great havoc.
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