This is me, June 2015. I had just been released from the hospital due to a major flare up with Crohn's Disease. I was told I needed surgery to survive, but I thought a miracle was possible. After a week in the hospital hooked up to IV's, I convinced the doctors and myself that I could go home. In my mind, I would heal through food, prayer, and mindfulness. In the doctors eyes, if I could gain ten pounds I would be more likely to have a successful surgery removing part of the small bowel and possibly avoid an ileostomy bag. They scheduled me with the surgeon I personally chose (after I refused the first surgeon available who wanted to cut into asap), a woman, who had amazing reviews and had a long waiting list. In two months, I would have surgery. Meanwhile, I had to hope the fistula from my intestine to my bladder, which caused feces to flow through my urine, would remain closed off. Somehow, it closed itself off from the hole it punctured in my bladder and there was hope I could gain weight. I went home on my 32nd birthday. I had spent months in pain and the idea of sitting at my parent's house for two months, awaiting a miracle, yet also working for it with diet, meditation, prayer, music, journaling, and more seemed challenging. But I knew I had to give it my best. I was watching my mother prepare for another surgery for ovarian cancer, and the last thing I wanted was for her to worry about me. But quite honestly, I was wasting away to nothing. I was down to 84 pounds and could barely walk to the bathroom. So I decided to give it my best. I maybe could be an example for my mother, to change all the little things in life that can end up giving us so much stress that our bodies attack themselves. DIS-EASE....dis ease in the body turns into a disease with a medical label. I got a nutritionist/life coach from Massachusetts who put me on a strict healing regimen with diet and attending to all my emotional and spiritual needs. No one could do any of this for me. Only I could take the step forward and work towards healing myself. I knew a lot of the stress on my physical body had stemmed from denying my inner calling. My desire to move home to help my mom heal from cancer, led to me opening a yoga and massage studio to help the community. But in the end, I was taking care of everyone else and not myself. My support of friends who were in my tribe and saw life as a spiritual path and way of living no longer existed. I had entered and remained in a relationship that caused more stress than anything, although I will always be grateful for all the lessons learned. Access to the best nutritional food was not as easy as it had been for me living in Asheville, NC or Central America and I was being poisoned by the food and water in my home town, rather than fed nutrients. I needed to take more time and energy to get the healthy foods I needed, and this meant avoiding going out to eat completely in my hometown, which is challenging because sometimes you just want to have someone else cook for you. I moved into a camper in my parents backyard, which connected to my grandparents yard also. I secluded myself and barely talked to anyone for months. Though my family was concerned for such seclusion, I enjoyed this and found so much healing in that camper. I wrote, I sang, I played guitar, I cried, I laughed, I prayed, and I prayed, and I prayed. And I finally found myself again. The person I had been so connected to a few years earlier. The one who would have recognized the unhappy person I had become long before she could allow it to become a daily routine. The woman who could tune into the higher version of herself and know deep within what choices were the best. I found my strength which was my spirit. I found happiness. I found my TRUST in my path even though I couldn't see more than a few hours down it. And then I stumbled backwards, got lost in some old emotions for a few days, and my gut health deteriorated faster than I could catch up with. My mom had surgery the same week and I couldn't go and support her. I had major tests done a week or so after and found that the worst was true, surgery must happen for me. And in fact, the surgeon I chose had an unexpected opening and I was at the top of the list. So without any preparations, I was preparing for surgery weeks earlier than scheduled, alone and scared. My family in Pennsylvania were all helping my mom recover, my sister was days away from delivering my niece (which I was meant to attend the birth and be in the room with her, an honor that I sadly wouldn't get to do). My biological father and step mother amazingly stepped up, drove six hours to Cleveland Clinic, and were there the first two nights so the doctors could deliver all the updates to someone in my family. I was in denial, all the work I spent the past six months doing was falling apart. I let my emotions take over my gut and was back in the hospital with no choice but surgery. So I went back to my inner higher version of myself. I needed TRUST. I focused on healing quickly, doctors who would be divinely guided to do the best they could possibly do. Nurses who would attend to my every need. At this point, there were so many unknowns. How much small intestine would they remove? Would I need a temporary ileostomy or even worse, a permanent one? How long would recovery be? Would I ever live a "normal" life? I came out of surgery and had a pretty horribly loud and negative roommate but thank goodness my dad and step mom helped me get a new room. I came off the morphine drip as quickly as I could. I made myself walk when I had so much pain the thought alone of moving my foot one inch ahead of me was painful. I refused most of the oral pain meds after a few days. I refused a lot of the food they tried to feed me also. I had family and friends that went to Whole Foods and purchased healthier options. But I found a depression take over me. See, I awoke after surgery to an ileostomy. I was so malnourished that my body wouldn't be able to repair the area that had been stitched together fast enough to avoid infection once I started eating. So they pulled part of the small bowel out of my stomach and fastened a bag to my abdomen, therefore all my bowel movements came out of the bag. I was mostly fed through an IV. I had a temporary PICC line put in my arm where the IV's attached and delivered me 2000 calories each day. The food I did eat came out so quickly that they claimed I wouldn't get any nutrients from it, but I was still determined to put healthy nourishing foods in me and that I would get something from it. I got mad, super angry when a nurse came to show me how to change the ileostomy bag. This wasn't my life. At one point I remember thinking I should have let myself die, I never should have had the surgery. My family members that came to visit me got sad when they saw how my mental state was so unhappy. They didn't recognize me, and I didn't recognize myself...mostly because it was NOT me. I was so disconnected to my truest self and the physical person was not acting in any way that was true to me. But then I had a few days alone. I had an infection from the surgery and no one was there to help me through it. They had to put a long needle in my butt and take out the fluid infection that was settling in my pelvis. In fact, they were in such a rush to do it, they almost mixed two IV's of meds that don't go together and could have killed me. Thanks goodness I was alert and very questioning of EVERYTHING they did and gave me. It annoyed them, but in this instance it possibly saved my life. (It's ok to question western medicine, it's also ok to accept it....but always be aware of all the choices). I ended up in the hospital for ten days. Many of them alone. But by the end of the stay, I had found a guitar and some paint. I knew only I could walk the path back to myself again. I played music in the hallway, I painted my niece a picture. I read books. I slept. But I left convinced I would be back in the two month period which they said would be the earliest they could test me to see if the ileostomy would be able to be removed. At that point, there were no guarantees, but there was a chance I could heal enough and gain enough weight to have it reversed at the earliest in mid October but probably after that. I got home, and was overtaken by a deep sadness of what daily life looked like when you had home nurse visits, daily IV's in the PICC line for 10-16 hours, changing the ileostomy bag on your own, and no one that could do those things for you. I had to learn to hook myself up to the IV. I could only leave the house for an hour or two because of the IV schedule the first two weeks. I had to change the bag every time it filled up. I had to write down my temperature, how often the bag needed changed, and a variety of other things to make sure no infection was taking over. Then I had to email the reports every few days. Self care consumed my life, but it wasn't the kind of self care I liked. I miss being able to be secluded in the camper, but it wasn't "sanitary" enough for the PICC line and IV's. I had nights where the IV wouldn't hook up properly and I would miss out on 2000 calories and drop up to five pounds over night. After one of those nights, I hit my deepest, darkest moment of my life. I wished I had died. I pounded my fist into the table and saw my parents faces of helplessness. And in that instant, I knew I was so disconnected from the real ME and that I never wanted to see that look in my parent's eyes ever again. The next day, I made myself sit on the ground and inhale my arms up over my head. This caused so much excruciating pain because of the tissues binding together in my ribcage and abdomen from so much laying in bed. But I knew I needed to come back to my BREATH. Back to the life force within. Back to myself. I heard an inner voice tell me that I had the option to walk my path now, fully, but I had to trust. I had to believe in the unknown and know that I could be healed and help others just by doing my own work. I had a purpose and I could follow it if only I had a deep TRUST in the unknown. If I could connect to my higher self and walk my path, all would be revealed in Divine Timing. And so, I took the first step. I cried, I laughed, I sung out loud again, I smiled, I cooked meals and filled them with love, and I asked for help along the way- any kind of guidance. I signed up for a Manifestation Masters program online with Jen Mazer and I began it the second week of September. This happens to be the week that I emailed Leo, my baby's daddy and my amazing partner. I wrote him about collaborating on a healing retreat as I had seen some of his posts on Facebook in a group we are a part of and I felt called to do some work with him. We wrote briefly that month and talked about Skyping the following month but it never happened. Instead we both continued our own healing journeys for another eight months, and were divinely led to one another at what appeared to be a random chance meeting the following May in Ohio. In the Manifesting Program I strengthened many parts of connecting to myself, and I found that I was describing a life with a partner and children that I never had imagined I would want. I wrote details on how we would communicate, projects we would collaborate on, where we would live, the people that would surround us and the places we would travel. The feelings were so strong and I didn't know where the details were coming from but I wrote all of this dream life down in September 2015, just 5 weeks after surgery. And never would I expect to be where I am today....but I knew at that time that I needed to TRUST in the DIVINE plan, do MY BEST to work toward the calling I heard deep within. I had a two hour morning routine to deepen my connection and self care. Connecting to myself was so incredible that there are no words for it. I felt connected to the unseen and the seen, the Divine at work, and inner knowledge that spoke louder than ever. And I even surprised all the doctors and had the reversal of the ileostomy at the earliest possible point AND was released from the hospital less than 48 hours later, without pain meds by October 2015. The nurses had never seen such a quick recovery. After nine months of a healing phase, I learned to accept the unknown, and live each day fully with intention and to continue to strive to do my best. So with that, I have entered into a relationship and pregnancy, and soon labor and mothering our first child. I have heard many questions of how do I feel? Many mothers remember the last few weeks of pregnancy being pretty miserable. And quite honestly, last night was not the best night of sleep, and was really uncomfortable with a tight back and belly that is hard to roll over with. BUT I am blessed. I know I only have a few days or maybe weeks left to feel my little guy rolling around in my belly. And while I am so excited to hold him and see his face and count his toes, I will miss feeling him resting safely in my womb. All of this positivity and looking at the glass half full, I believe, helps me to feel good. BUT it's not without moments of struggle. I just found out that my mother's healing with cancer is not going as "planned" and has seemingly taken a turn for the worst. This means, I don't know if she will be flying out in May to meet her grandson. And I can't even imagine not having her along for this new journey I am embarking on. But I go back to TRUST. I trust in all my prayers and those of others that her path will be exactly as it should be. I trust that I have the strength to be able to do what it is on my path of being her daughter will require me to do. I trust that answers will be shown to us. I trust that I can and will support her. I trust that I have learned so much from her and that I will be able to be an amazing mother to my child because of it. I trust that I will have the strength to push out a baby and do so with love and ability to embrace the birthing process. I trust that somehow, my baby will meet my mama within the first month of being born. And I trust, that every single person who has read this ridiculously long blog will take just a few moments to pray for my mother today and her healing. <3 ***IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE MANIFESTING MASTERS PROGRAM I MENTIONED, EMAIL ME FROM THE CONTACT PAGE ASAP AND I CAN GET YOU DETAILS ON THE NEXT PROGRAM STARTING IN MAY!!***
8 Comments
Laurie Griffin
4/24/2017 04:41:43 pm
You look absolutely beautiful Cassie. Your story is inspiring and I admire your strength. I'm so happy you are in a good place, happy and healthy. Please know your momma and your entire family are in my prayers. You take care of you and that precious baby boy. Wishing you all the best <3
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Serina ONeal
4/24/2017 05:17:00 pm
Cassie what a remarkable story! I'm so happy for you that you made such a wonderful recovery and are about to become a mother! There's nothing in the world like that experience. And you're right, enjoy the last moments of feeling him move inside you because that is a special feeling that you can't get back! I had no idea you had been through such an awful illness. My father was diagnosed with colon rectal cancer last July and had surgery in January and has an illestomy bag right now so I know exactly what you went through. It's a rough experience and I don't wish it on anyone. Cancer is an awful, awful creature and I'll be praying for your mother and all your family. I can't wait to see pictures of your precious baby boy. Congratulations and good luck to you and lots of love from your island home! ❤
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jeriellyn
4/24/2017 06:52:52 pm
Cassandra. .I really enjoyed reading about your journey. I am so glad that things have worked so well for you and you found your higher self again. I would like more info on the course! Sending you love...and lots for baby too! Jer
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kim
4/24/2017 07:12:24 pm
Thank you for sharing your story, Cassandra. I'll always remember you at YTT for the way you handled the scorpion sting....tranforming it into medicine. You're a treasure.
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Kim pillock
4/25/2017 09:01:51 am
Beautifully written Cass. Love and miss you honey. You looj wonderful.
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Kathy Jones
4/25/2017 11:46:38 am
Cassie, I saw you while you were recovering from your illness in Warren, but I had no idea how small and I'll you were prior to me seeing you. I'm so happy for your recovery and even more for your healthy pregnancy and little family. You look stunning!! It sounds like your mom is struggling again and I continue to keep her in my prayers.
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Randy Drum
5/16/2017 11:05:08 am
<3
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