TAMMY MURPHY  AMP

It all started in 1988 on my daughter's first birthday. When I stood up from scrubbing the floor, my heart started pounding and racing out of control. I thought something serious was about to happen. Like, my death!

The doctor that saw me ordered blood tests, an ECG, ETT and an EEG. I was worried about what he was going to say after receiving the results of all these tests, but what he had to say was something I was not expecting at all. He told me nothing was wrong. I said something must be wrong as I have never had my heart do this before. He suggested I may have been stressed. I said I was not stressed about anything today. In fact, I was quite excited because it was my daughter's first birthday. He said stress can cause this so perhaps I was stressed about something. Then he handed me a paper bag. He instructed me to breathe into this bag whenever I felt an attack coming on. This would help avoid hyperventilating. He assured me this would all disappear in time. Having the paper bag made me feel ‘somewhat’ secure the attacks would not get out of control. So, I always kept it on me. I continued with life the best I could, living with this anxiety every day. Sometimes a panic attack would come about from it, sometimes it would not. But hey, I had this paper bag, right? I would be fine.

 

This continued to be my normal for the next couple of decades. Then I started to experience other signs and symptoms. Going from wanting to do a million things to not having enough energy to brush my hair. So, I went through more tests and exams only to hear that nothing is wrong. They blamed my lack of energy on the low light of winter and concluded I must have winter depression, so many people suffer from that then shake out of it during the spring, he said. So, they prescribed a lamp for the winter months that mimics the sun, but it never shook me out of this winter depression, it made me feel nauseas and never helped with the anxiety at all.​

 

They ran more tests. All vitals were good; blood tests came back normal; scans of the brain were all normal. I just thought, what is wrong with me? New symptoms would come while existing ones got worse. Yet doctors would constantly say it must be in my head. That my mind must be playing tricks on me. I just could not understand this.

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After living this way several years, I began gaining weight at a rapid speed. I gained sixty pounds in just one year, and 30 lbs the following year. The doctor said my eating habits must have changed. I said they have. I have been craving sugar. I also feel quite weak/faint like if I do not eat something every 15 to 20 minutes it seems, so I keep a box of crackers handy.

He said to stop eating sugar and start exercising, that should bring my weight down. I told him I was doing these things prior, so why did this happen then if that is the cure? There never seemed to be any real answers for me. I knew there had to be something wrong. How does a 105 lb person shoot up to 195 lbs in such a brief period of time? So, for 16 years, I kept deteriorating with no explanation because all tests came up clear.

The anxiety attacks started to become a daily thing for me. I was experiencing extreme exhaustion, feeling dizzy, and, as time went on, depression, slowed speech, and I could no longer drive. Swallowing became difficult. I became extra sensitive to everything, losing balance, and was at a point I had to crawl up the steps to get into my home. I would get angry quickly but knew that was not normal, so when I would feel that huge anger, I would hug one of my kids and say, "I'm sure lucky God gave you to me." The anger would disappear when I did that.

I could tell my system was completely out of whack. I stopped seeing the doctors. I just concluded I was going insane because all I kept hearing was that this was in my head. I thought, Is this what insane is? I wondered how can I control my brain to stop making it make me so sick? I became scared of my own brain.  I feared if I keep complaining, they will lock me up in a hospital somewhere and I will never see my kids. So, I just shut my mouth and tried to deal with it as I raised my six kids the best I could.

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I isolated myself from friends. I did not want them to see me like this. I went from someone whose hair and make-up were never out of place to someone who barely had the energy to brush her hair. I could not even sing anymore. I did not have enough strength to sing. No one really understood and so I had to deal with so many negative comments, such as: "She let herself go", "she is lazy", "why doesn't she work? she’s just looking for a free living". Such hateful and hurtful words. I realized people have already made up their minds about what they want to believe about me, so I thought let them!

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I could not change how people were judging me, but what I could change was my environment. I realized that their opinions did not define me and that I had complete control over removing myself from their lives. 

The days I felt my worst, I would lay in bed wondering if I was going to die that day. My dad became a huge help during my weakest times. He did all he could to support me, like doing my grocery shopping, helping me with laundry when he could, doing my Christmas shopping, and picking my kids up from school when they needed to be as I could not drive. My oldest daughter also had to do more than most kids her age would ever have had to do because I needed her to be like a mom to her siblings. My mom would make supper when she could to help me out. What a blessing to have the parents I have and an amazing daughter who did not complain. Thank goodness this stage did not last too long. But it lasted longer than it ever should have. 

My one sister-in-law was going through health issues of her own during the time I was at my worst. Although she never knew the severity of my condition, she knew something was not right. So, she decided to drag me to see this naturopath she was seeing. When I saw him, he figured out what was wrong with me on the first visit. I was completely overjoyed when he said he knew what this was and that it has a name. He cannot legally diagnose me because he is not a western medicine doctor, but he did say that I will need to have my physician check my thyroid as he cannot prescribe the medicine I need. Then he reassured me everything would be okay in time.

 

With the naturopath picking up what was wrong with me so quickly, when my doctor was unable to pick up anything at all, it blew me away. It was perplexing how this naturopath was able to figure out my thyroid was struggling, yet all the tests ran by my physician and specialists produced nothing! I wondered how common it was for others to hear there is nothing wrong with them when they develop symptoms that are out of the norm. And why was I not given alternatives when the doctors had no answer for me? 

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Instead of gaslighting patients, medical doctors should be referring people to alternative practitioners when they have no answers. Had the doctor  referred me to one from the onset, I would never have become as sick as I had, nor gained so much weight.  But at the same time, had this not happened to me, I would never have had a passion/drive to study integrative medicine using a quantum physics approach to healthcare, so that I could help others restore their health.

If you are experiencing symptoms out of the norm for you, book a consultation with me. I would love to help you before these symptoms lead to disease. Too late? You already have been diagnosed with chronic disease? It is never too late. Discovering the root cause and fixing that, will allow you to live your best life regardless of disease or age.  

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