It’s funny how life takes you on a journey that you often have no control over. When it does, you have two choices. You can fight it and try to take a different path at whatever cost. Or you can choose to roll with it, see every twist and turn as a new adventure, seek the positives and accept it as an opportunity. It may not be exactly what you had planned but that’s what keeps life interesting right? We have come into this situation many times over the last 2 or so years and while some kinks in our plan have been easy to accept, there have been a few that have tested me personally both emotionally and physically.
A couple of years ago I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thryroiditis. Quasimodo what, you say? Well, Quasimodo isn’t too far from the truth. Hashimoto’s is an autoimmune disease that creates an under-active thyroid which means that I had little to no control over my hormones or metabolism. I called it the ‘Fat Dragon’ disease as I was working out like a demon, eating next to nothing and still putting on weight. In addition, I would find myself in the car on the side of the road bawling my eyes out for reasons that I didn’t even know. I was moody, cranky, would snap at nothing and cry at the drop of a pin. At the time I thought it was simply stress due to the fact that I was coming to terms with losing my business and that I would most likely have to fold. Alas, I hadn’t just become a fat mole all of a sudden, there was a much more deeply rooted problem. In fact, my cholesterol, blood pressure and cortisol levels had me one panic attack away from a full blown heart attack. At the time, I was a strict vegan who exercised daily, so things just didn’t add up.
Being very anti-medication, I tried to heal myself through more holistic options like herbal medicine, nutrition, yoga and massage. This worked wonderfully for me emotionally and I generally did feel much better. Unfortunately my regular blood tests and body scans to monitor this treatment didn’t quite match my boosted spirit. Over the course of 4 months, my antibodies were still much too high as were hormone levels, and I had lost about 200g in bone density due to my slug-like metabolism. Once you have one autoimmune disease, you are unfortunately prone to developing others. Being that Rheumatoid Arthritis is one of those diseases and I was losing bone density, I decided to go on the lowest dose of medication that I could and keep up my holistic treatments in the hope that they would work with each other. A kink I had to accept and...Success!
I was calmer, healthier, much more nice to talk to and the weight was slowly coming off. I was happy with the decision I had made about treatment and it also made me reevaluate what I wanted out of life. I decided that if we were going to make some big changes in our life, then now was the time to do it. Rich agreed. We were so sick of saying, “One day...” and just thought, “Today is that day!” The next day, we started selling up everything and made the plan to follow our dream of becoming dirtbag climbers in Europe. I paid all my suppliers with what little money I had and decided to walk away from Dynobars. That company was my baby and it was a very hard decision to make but I needed to concentrate on getting my health back and culling the stress from my life. A kink in my monetary future but definitely the right choice for my health. Within 3 months, we had booked tickets and soon were living the dream in the Fontainebleau Forest!
Being away was immensely positive for my health. I was sleeping better than I’ve ever slept, feeling ridiculously healthy both inside and out and was stupidly happy! I did have one little set back when my meds script was wrongly filled and I was taking 4 times my medication dose for 2 months but I got that sorted once we returned home thanks to the help of my amazing naturopath Amy. The only thing that did bother me was the fact that I often lost all feeling in my hands, to the point that they would burn and throb with pain, go yellow and purple and rock hard. This maybe happened a dozen or so times and so I had it checked out as soon as we got home. Another kink....
Along with Hashimoto’s, I now had a second autoimmune disease known as Raynaud’s Syndrome. Raynaud’s affects my circulation and causes an excessive reduction in blood flow to my extremities. It comes on quick and painful and can take up to an hour for my fingers to come back to normal feeling. Needless to say, working in the outdoor industry as a climbing and kayaking instructor has been a (painful) game of trial and error. I have more pairs of gloves than anyone would deem necessary living in Queensland, the Sunshine State, but as I have learnt it is better to be safe than sorry.
On our first morning in the Bluies, I had a really severe attack that took me a long time to recover from. We stayed positive, went into town and waited until noon and full sunshine to go climbing. I got half way up my first climb and lost them again. I was devastated. We had planned to do as many multi-pitch climbs as we could whilst we were there and now had to make the call to not do any at all. Rich actually made that decision for me. I have a tendency to just think “She’ll be right.” As he explained, while I tried to deny anything was wrong, if we got half way up a multi-pitch and I lost my fingers, I would have no way of escaping anything as I literally lose all function in my hands. It would not be fair to either of us. So we chose our crags wisely for the rest of the week and stayed in the sun at all times and I wore gloves EVERYWHERE!
Upon returning from the Bluies, I have done a bit more research into what I can do to help myself and have just spent another $350 on new gloves that I can wear while I sleep that help to repair the damage I have suffered in my tips. The scariest part about Raynaud’s is that if you have too many attacks (and I’ve had a lot) it can create ulcers under your skin which can go gangrene. So I have my new gloves, I have had to give up coffee (GASP!) and we have decided to concentrate more on bouldering so I can have a bit more control over keeping myself warm at all times, especially my hands and feet.
This kink has been a super positive one. Rich and I are both super excited to throw ourselves back into bouldering as we haven’t done a lot since leaving the forest last year. We are training even harder and working to get even stronger. I’m so stoked that there is a still totally an option for me to keep climbing and more so, that Rich has been so unbelievably supportive and has embraced this change as something awesome too. My biggest problem now is the fact that I have had to switch to decaf which is heartbreaking. I almost feel less of a climber because of it. Many of you may be rolling your eyes right now thinking “Pffft, that’s not a real problem” and to that I would like to quote the late, great Wolfgang Güllich - “A man doesn't go to drink coffee after climbing, coffee is integral part of the climbing.” I rest my case....
