Shannon Harvey - The Whole Health Life: How You Can Learn to Get Healthy, Find Balance and Live Better in The Crazy-Busy Modern World

First published in Australia in 2016
Whole Health Life Publishing
www.wholehealthlifepublishing.com

Cover design by Blended Creative
www.blended-creative.com.au
Internal design by Hieu Nguyen
www.thinkbigdesigngroup.com

Copyright Shannon Harvey 2016

Shannon Harvey asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the above publisher.

ISBN 978 0 9946466 0 6 (paperback)

ISBN 978 0 9946466 1 3 (hardcover)

DISCLAIMER
The author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book is correct at time of print. However this book contains information sourced from third parties and the author and publisher do not warrant or endorse the accuracy, quality, suitability or currency of all the information in this book or that the information in this book will continue to be correct after the time of print. This book is not intended as a substitute for the medical advice. The reader should always consult an appropriately qualified healthcare professional on matters relating to his/her health and particularly with respect to any symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention. The author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim, to the maximum extent permitted by law, any liability for any loss, damage or injury to any person whether as a result of negligence, accident, errors, omissions, reliance on the information in this book or from any other cause.

The Whole Health Life

By Shannon Harvey

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the people who have seen my film or read my blog and taken the time to write to me and share their own story. You fuel my fire.

Introduction

The Diagnosis

After working my heart out in high school and being accepted into a prestigious journalism school in Sydney, I landed my dream job as a news journalist for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). My whole life had been building to this moment and I was finally there. Then I got sick.

In my first year of study at the University of Technology, Sydney, I was told that only two or three of us in a class of over a hundred would actually end up as paid journalists. I was determined to be one of them. I worked casual jobs at night while studying full time and took unpaid internships and extracurricular courses in film editing and photography to give me an edge for future job opportunities. I travelled overseas so I could pitch freelance stories to news organisations back home, hoping to get a lucky break. I was passionate about my craft and about seeking truth and telling stories that would, I hoped, make the world a better place.

The role with the ABC took me to Tasmania where I was responsible for reporting the news for the northwest of the state. It was a key region during elections and a fascinating part of Australia where folks were mostly farmers or miners and the stories I covered were anything and everything from the Prime Ministers visits to the potato crisis that farming families were facing. There were always two pairs of shoes in my car: heels for when the bigwigs were in town and muddied boots for when the story of the day involved presenting to camera from a paddock strewn with cow dung. I loved my job. I was 24 years old and my dreams were finally becoming reality... then the first signs of illness started to appear.

The symptoms came on slowly. After my regular evening runs my muscles were slow to recover. I thought I was just getting older and committed to pushing harder. Then it became difficult to get up in the mornings. I never felt as if Id had enough sleep. I assumed it was my vegetarian diet and bumped up my supplements. But my symptoms got worse. My joints felt tender and my muscles started spasming, leaving me feeling inflamed and sensitive. Getting out of bed, getting dressed, brushing my teeth all normal activities Id never given a thought to suddenly felt like hard work. The pain turned to agony. It started affecting my sleep and I needed painkillers to get through the day. My mood plummeted. I felt heavy. Exhausted. And worried.

I decided to see a doctor. I assumed she would prescribe some kind of medicine, give me an iron boost, or tell me to start eating meat. Instead she told me that my blood test results showed positive antinuclear antibodies and a positive rheumatoid factor, indicating an autoimmune disorder. The look she gave me said, This is serious.

It wasnt until I saw a rheumatology specialist in Sydney that I understood why my doctor was worried. The rheumatologist thought I might have systemic lupus erythematosus (known as SLE, or lupus) and explained that my immune system was hyperactive. Instead of attacking only foreign invaders, it had also turned against my normal healthy tissue. He warned me that if the disease progressed I could end up in a wheelchair or with organ failure. He also explained that when the time came, I could have trouble conceiving a baby. There was no known cure and no known cause, though he suggested genetics might play a role. He prescribed immune-suppressing steroidal medication, wished me well, and sent me off to live the rest of my life with a chronic disease.

Because many autoimmune diseases have similar diagnostic markers and symptoms they can be very difficult to distinguish. Over the next six years different doctors I consulted gave my illness different labels (such as Sjgrens syndrome, fibromyalgia, or simply connective tissue disorder) and I dutifully took their prescribed medications, trying different drugs and different doses. When these medicines did little more than cause weight gain, increase my sensitivity to sunlight, or fog up my head, I turned to alternative therapy. I tried everything acupuncture, naturopathy, homeopathy, kinesiology, reiki, and every kind of massage. I went on organic food missions, took supplements and vitamins, started eating meat again, and switched to all-natural cosmetics and soaps. I saw psychologists who steered me into thinking I had a subconscious desire to stay sick, or a belief that I didnt deserve to be well. I tried reciting I am well mantras and even turned to tarot card readers, numerologists, and intuitive healers. If my doctors didnt have answers, then maybe The Universe did. I handed my money over to anyone and everyone who promised a cure, but I was still sick.

On one especially dismal day while on my lunch break from work, I remember hobbling across a road, taking each step as if I were walking through thick mud. I felt heavy and slow, with ceaseless pain from my inflamed muscles and joints. A frustrated driver waiting for me to cross saw only a young woman dawdling and holding things up. She beeped her car horn to hurry me on. The urgent, sudden noise was like a bomb exploding in my head. My heart raced; my muscles screamed. After I managed to get back to my office, I sat at my desk and started sobbing. In that moment hopeless, helpless and burdened with arthritic pain no one could see or understand facing the future was unbearable.

I wish I could travel back in time and tell that young woman what I now know . I would tell her there are many reasons she is sick but merely thinking or saying the words I am healthy, even a hundred times a day, will not make her better. I would tell her that the answers she needs do not lie in the exploration of past lives or in visualising glowing balls of light. I would tell her that even though she is frustrated with conventional medicine, emerging research that expands mainstream medical understanding offers her a clear path to follow.

I would start by telling her what I have learned about the latest research in mind-body medicine the scientific line of inquiry to understand how our minds and bodies interact to affect our health. I would tell her how this evidence-based, peer-reviewed academic research coming out of some of the most respected institutions in the world has exploded in the last 5-10 years thanks to advances in modern technology, and that some of this research is so hot off the press that even our doctors havent had time to absorb it. I would explain that there is research linking the brain to the immune system, and research linking the brain to the gut to the immune system. I would explain that there is research about the importance of group support in improving outcomes for sick people and showing how feeling part of a closely-connected community affects human biochemistry in a way that makes it a keystone in the architecture of health. I would tell her about the research showing that stress reduction techniques (like meditation) can flip the switch on genes that affect disease and the rate of cellular ageing in our bodies. And I would tell her about the research showing that the interaction between a patient and a doctor can significantly alter the way a sick persons body responds to treatment.