The Health System Sanity Project

Two Steps Forward - One Step Back

August 31, 2016

Two steps forward - One Step Back!   I am learning more and more that for every peak, there's been a valley.  For every leap forward, there been a stumble backward --- sometimes just an inch, and other times, what seems like miles.  I am starting to realize that progress isn't always what I pictured of being a steady, constant ascent of perfection, but that true progress isn't always linear.  Just like a muscle needs to tear to grow stronger, sometimes we need to wade into our own darkness to find a brighter light.  Here I am in the darkness, and trying to read my blog right now makes me nauseous and angry especially the post I have been working on which I have pasted below.  I wrote this about a month ago, and I keep not wanting to post it, perhaps out of fear, or feeling like I haven't fully experienced the lesson I am suppose to be learning, or how to even write about it. So here I go, I am surrendering and sharing it regardless and continuing to be vulnerable.  In this moment I feel frustrated, I feel scared, I feel alone, I feel lost, I feel confused, I feel tired, and thats okay!!

August 9, 2016

33 years old!  About a month ago was my birthday.  WOW! What a beautiful life thus far.  Iv'e been wanting to write for a while, but the words have not had the ability to come forward.  The past few times I tried, my hand froze and would not move.  The movement that I was feeling instead were the tears streaming down my cheeks from my eyes.

This morning the phrase came to my mind "fight or flight," which I just looked up the definition of this term, which is:

"The instinctive psychological response of the nervous system to a threatening situation, preparing the body to fight or flee, associated with the adrenal secretion of epinephrine and characterized by an increased heart rate, increased blood flow to the brain and muscles, raised sugar levels, sweaty palms and soles, dilated pupils, and erect hairs.  This situation is readying the body to either resist forcibly or to run away."

I have realized now that throughout the past couple months this body I live in has experienced full on fight or flight, attempting to run-away as well to resist forcibly. Neither route has seemed to work at all, and here I am exhausted.  The aura that is felt right before a seizure comes on, interestingly, feels very similar to the definition above as well. As I was looking up the definition of "fight or flight" a song by artist Jose Gonzalez began to play.  The words began to give me goosebumps as I took them in.  I looked at the title of the song which by no coincidence is called "Stay Alive."  As the lyrics unfolded they defined for me perfectly what has unraveled for me in the past couple months.

Theres a rhythm in rush these days

Where the lights don't move and the colors don't fade

Leaves you empty with nothing but dreams

In a world gone shallow

In a world gone lean

Sometimes theres things a man cannot know

Gears won't turn and the leaves won't grow

Theres no place to run and no gasoline

Engine won't turn 

And the train won't leave

Engines won't turn and the train won't leave

I will stay with you tonight

Hold you close 'til the morning light

In the morning watch a new day rise

We'll do whatever just to stay alive

We'll do whatever just to stay alive

Well the way I feel is the way I write

It isn't like the thoughts of the man who lies

There is a truth and its on our side

Dawn is coming

Open your eyes

Look into the sun as the new days rise

And I will wait for you tonight

You're here forever and you're by my side

I've been waiting all my life

To feel your heart as its keeping time

We'll do whatever just to stay alive

Dawn is coming open your eyes...

Today, I look into the sun as a new days rise.  The months of April and May were the first months in the past few years since the biopsy that I did not experience any auras, headaches, or brain/head activity and my body felt the healthiest it had felt in a long time.  And then, the very end of May was the beginning of a series of grand-mal and petite-mal black out seizures, as well as some auras. 

The first one occurred when I was on my way home from a long day at school.  I went to put my key in the mailbox to get my mail and then who knows how long later I woke up laying comfortably in my bed, with my mail at my side.  Somehow during that time my body had blacked out but was still able to function and move.  Somehow my brain knew what to do, like a robot subconsciously but consciously I was not aware of what was going on. As I woke up in bed, instinctively I knew what had happened, and I lay there exhausted and a bit numb.  The only similar experience I can relate this to is like taking too many shots of whiskey and instantly blacking out and waking up the next day wondering what happened.

Another frightening one occurred about a week later.  I was on my bicycle, carrying a small package in my purse to the post office.  I had my head phones in my ears, listening to music and had almost made it to the post office, when I felt a strange sensation of an aura coming on, like a slight feeling of being removed from my body.  I ripped the headphones out of my ears took a big breath and had the thought to stop my bike and get off when BAM, I blacked out.  I emerged fully out of the blackout while riding my bike home, suddenly thinking to myself, "what am I doing? what is happening?" I dismounted my bike and noticed my bike was completely bent and tore up and then I suddenly started feeling pain in my left knee and looked down to find it tore up and blood running down my leg.  As I became more and more aware of my surroundings, I began to remember that I had gone to the post office and remembered a conversation with the woman that worked there. My tongue hurt and was swollen.  I realized I had bitten it.  I still am not fully aware of what happened that day but know that I had a seizure while riding my bike and possibly a grand-mal (shaking seizure) since my tongue had been bitten.

A week or so later another seizure occurred while in clinic at school.  This one was the most frustrating, as I was near my final leg of finishing my acupuncture program and had been studying immensely for the first section of my grad exam.  After this seizure occurred, the emotion that rose out of me, that seemed to push fear away, was ANGER! I felt as if balls of fire were flaming out of my skin.  The conversation that came to my mind was "Come on universe!! I am in my final stages of studying and preparing to be able to fully help and heal others in the world and you are bringing me these seizures during the worst possible time!  I have been doing my work to help and heal myself for a while now, how much more do you want me to do?? UNFAIR!  I have been patient and I have worked through a lot of shadows and now this? Could it have at least come after I took the exam, or after I finished my grad program?"

August 31, 2016

I believe that I have been waiting and waiting to write, hoping that after I did an MRI I would be able to unravel and shift and have beautiful words of wisdom, or that the seizures would go away. Then I did an MRI which revealed NO CHANGE, NO GROWTH and that the tumor was exactly the same as its been since the first MRI.  As beautiful as this information was I still felt lost, afraid, and confused, but my hands were ready to write.

So I wrote what is written above, but I have been waiting and waiting to finish it, because perhaps I was hoping I would not be experiencing seizures anymore and would have worked through all this shit.  But here I am still having seizures and still in the shit. HELLO SHIT! You smell bad, but you are here, and so am I, so how can we accept each other? The quote comes to mind right now: "I'll see it when I believe it", instead of "I'll believe it when I see it." No more fighting, no more flighting.  And no more waiting and waiting. And my good friend Mark England says, "With my words, I create."  So here it goes, my mantra is in this moment is:

I surrender. I accept. I feel. I love. I live. 

I feel frustration.  Hello frustration! I surrender to you. I accept you.  I feel you. But I am here and I am alive and I love.  A good shouting and yelling and screaming and punching and letting it out, and then reciting this mantra and loving all of it, even the shouting and yelling, is keeping a smile on my face.

I am currently researching treatment centers world wide, not just in the U.S. that have had a large success in healing brain tumors as well as seizures.  I will keep you all updated as that unfolds, as I will need help creating a wonderful experience. If anyone has any knowledge and research of such places please feel free to contact me and send my way.  I am reaching out as well and asking for your vibration, love, and prayers.  I have always been an independent, confident, do it myself gal, but I am learning more and more the beauty and power of asking for help and fully receiving.  So thank all of you.  I love you. 

Inside the Womb

Hello my friends, I am grateful to have you here today, taking the time to read what is written. For those of you who are new to reading my blog, feel free to check out My Journey: The Beginning or feel free to read what you see here.  Whatever you feel is perfect!  This thing called "cancer" makes me giggle as I continue to unfold on an awakening journey.  Many shadows full of light continue to arise and here I am...still alive and breathing!

I have tried to write this post multiple times since my last official post in September, and every time I write my fingers cramp up and my mind blockades not even knowing where and how to unfold.  My last post I wrote touched on vulnerability and not being afraid of sharing my authentic self with people in my life as well as with myself.

This past year has been a whirlwind, filled with many challenges, shadows, fears, emotions... but more importantly much growth, unfoldment, and so much joy!  This past year has felt like the year of digging in the dirt so that I can plant the seeds so that this coming year my garden can begin to grow.  In my last post I wrote, "I am realizing more and more the importance of allowing darkness into my life and accepting it, like a seed in the ground.  The seed in the ground needs to be comfortable in the dark and accept the water that is coming in and the dirt all around, in order to be able to slowly grow upwards into the sunlight."  I feel as though my seed is still in the ground.  Its like my body has been shoved back inside my mothers womb to be able to experience a re-birth, into a new world.

I am each day recognizing the beauty of the science experiment of my own human body.  Author, Dennis Merritt Jones, refers to the body as a biodegradable vehicle that the soul drives.  I couldn't agree more! This past fall I started undergoing some hormone therapy, because we were able to recognize that when I was feeling seizure activity seemed to be happening between when I was ovulating and when my period started.  I underwent an in depth assessment testing my hormones, which were all over the place.  Boy has it been an experiment!  The partial seizures  have lessened in the past few months.  I have adjusted somewhat to the sensation of having them, but it is still a bit scary.

I have never taken part in an ayahuasca ceremony but what I am experiencing is strikingly similar to the experiences of those who have, in the sense of feeling removed from my body, while in a lucid dream-like state, where I hear voices and seemed to be removed from reality looking in.

None of these have included the body shaking which is why it is medically called a "partial" seizure.

The most simple way to describe it would be that it is like having an aura, or being in a lucid dream state.  There are three stages of it, 1. the coming on,  2. the full on state,  and 3. the come down. I know what it is coming on because I hear distant voices speaking, the voices and sensation seem familiar, but each time  I experience this "aura" it is a bit different but still "familiar." Once I am in a full on state, I am present, but incapable of communicating verbally. This lasts for usually about a minute, but seems to be MUCH longer.  The concept of time feels muddled. Then following the experience there is a hangover, as I feel as though my soul is slowly coming back down into my body.  Occasionally following these I feel cold to the bone with chills and chatting teeth, as though I have walked through a blizzard.

I wanted to include the journal entry written below, from this past fall.  This entry, I have  printed and placed by my bedside, so that I can read it anytime I begin to feel fear encasing over me. This entry is one of the most detailed and intense, well written and legible descriptions detailing how it felt to be fighting against this body I am living in which seemed to be trying to have a seizure.  Every time I read this, I feel gratitude for the ability and the strength that the human body has to face itself, or for the "self" to face the human body.


November 29, 2015

This past week has been up there, one of the most physically straining and most intense episodes of my life.  Not sure at all what is going on in my head right now, but pain as well as fear seems to have amassed my brain and body and taken over. I don't even exactly know what I am afraid of.  Am I afraid of dying?  Am I dying? Am I dead? No.  Am I breathing? Yes. Somehow.  The sensation that keeps coming about, which I am feeling a little of right now, hopefully is either passing or perhaps I am just getting used to it and allowing it.  Either way I am still feeling it and I feel stoned, and removed from my body, like an onlooker looking in. I feel abdominal sensations of a piglet running in my belly, playing games, giving me symptoms of wanting to deficate but not being able to get up from my bed to be able to even try.  Being able to take a full breath into my body seems to have become a challenge... My head is POUNDING!!  There seems to be a drum battle with my head against my heart to see who can beat louder and stronger!  My brain is wanting to hide away and hear silence!  

My throat is dry and burning and raw.  My sinus cavities are pounding with cold dry and painful air shooting up my nose and into my brain, and I wish it was going fully into my lungs instead and opening up my heart, which feels like it has been constricted into a metal sharp, cold, and pounding prison ball.  My chest is tight like a hard knot and seems to be putting pressure on my left side where my heart is, as I can feel it pounding and shooting pain up into my shoulder.  My entire body feels tingling and numb.  One second seizure like activity keeps happening every few minutes.  When it does I feel removed even further from my body for an instant and my chest, shoulders, and body seem to twitch forwards and upwards abruptly as my eyes blink strongly and my jaw clenches inward and tightly as I abruptly push air that doesn't seem to exist out of my lungs.  

My body feels succumbed and motionless, drowning into painful numbness.  I want to scream and run far far away from it all, but my mouth seems to be closed and unable to move and my legs seem incapable refusing and forcing me to embrace the darkness and to surrender to the fearful pain... and not need to know the answer to where this experience is coming from or where it is taking me, but to just recognize that all it is is just an experience and that is all and to not put meaning into it. 


Re-reading my journal entry above as I write this blog post brings tears streaming down my face.  Being alive fascinates me! Fear intrigues me!  I have been treating a patient with acupuncture and herbs whose cancer has spread from his bile duct to his liver, stomach, and intestines within a short period of time.  He was scared, and felt afraid to die, as well as felt physically in immense pain.  Being given a death date by the doctors seems frustrating and fearful. The dictionary definition of fear is : an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or threat.  The "belief" is an interesting way of phrasing it. And what is a belief?  Definition says that it is "an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists, trust and faith and confidence of something."  So in stating this I am finding beauty that believing that death is peaceful and magical and not a threat or painful is a powerful way to change a belief that seems to have been ingrained and is only a belief.

This patient has now passed along into the next realm that we call death. It was beautiful getting to know him for a short period of time and I did feel the emotion of sadness and tears rise up when I heard of his passing.  Like I mentioned in previous posts, I feel in a place at this moment in time where I do not feel afraid of dying.  What I fear most is others around me dying because of the feeling it feels to feel loss.  What is death?  The definition of death is: the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism, the state of being dead, the permanent ending of vital processes in a cell or tissue.  Does anything permanently end?

This body feels like a speck of stardust in a massive universe, connected to all the other specks of stardust in the universe.  And I love living in it.  My last post talked about vulnerability and making myself alert and aware of vulnerability has heightened vulnerable opportunities in my life, and I feel that I am faced with these exciting challenges often these days.

About a month ago I was experiencing sinusitis and severer pressure on my brain and had some very intense auras for a week straight.  Herbs and acupuncture helped release that and I am now feeling AMAZING!  Right now has been the longest I have gone without experiencing an "aura" seizure, and for that I am grateful.  As far as the tumor and its existence... I don't know! Its been a while since I checked.  When I do I will keep you posted.  More importantly right now I am in the works of creating and putting together a documentary to follow my story as well as unfold and to help others who are facing their shadows, as well as be able to raise some funding to go down to Mexico and undergo some healing at an amazing institute where surgeons and energy healers stand side by side.  My goal is to be able to give more awareness to our country of how this integration of medicine can be beneficial.

This blog feels incomplete, and thats okay! I am learning to embrace incompleteness and love every moment of it.  I will leave you with this: Below is a video of how much fun can be had while sitting in the shower and hearing my voice echo!

My album has also been released which I refer to as "surgery of the soul"! This album tells its own story and has come about from this tumor experience.  For anyone interested check out:

gabriellesundhari.com