The Dreaded 'T' Word

On October 13, 2010 I heard the dreaded 'T' word for the first time from my fantastic chiropractor (incidentally, the only doctor who was willing to help/believe me). She announced, timidly, that my MRI had shown that I have a tarlov cyst in the nerve sac at the base of my spine, about 3 cm big. Upon hearing the news I was almost elated to finally be finding out what was wrong with me, then the following statement 'There's no conclusive way to treat it'. Shit... I cried for a few days, frantically searching the Internet for some clue that perhaps all of the doctors on the face of the earth had overlooked. Sadly, there was nothing but more bad news to be discovered. I had been bed ridden, debilitated, and in excruciating pain for the last 7 months and now that I had an actual real diagnosis I didn't know what to do with it. The thought of offing myself was near, but I couldn't do that to my husband, to my family, to myself (literally...I don't have the balls for it!).

Being that I have always had a love of the naturalist side of life (although not practiced during my crazy college years!) and I had nothing to lose, I decided to attack it from that angle instead. I found this e-book on treating tarlov cysts and downloaded it for $20 and began my stint with, what we call at the Jones' house, Witch's Brew. To my surprise it started working and some of the pain began to lift! Of course it did not cure me as promised, but it opened my eyes to the 'what ifs' of nature. I began to realize that I might have caused this to myself (again the blame goes to my crazy college years....drinking like a fish probably didn't help!) and there was no reason to think I couldn't fix myself as well. The word 'disease' is a scary one, but once I began logically thinking about it it occurred to me that the western medical world attaches it to everything! Diabetes is a disease but you can cure yourself from that....why couldn't I cure my disease too?

About 20 days after being on my Witch's Brew I rec'd an email from my muse (she is a total guiding light, one of those crazy, free loving hippies who dances in the moonlight and can name every single deitie known to man!) and she mentioned a little documentary called Crazy, Sexy Cancer. This is where the lights began to come on and I was lifted out of despair and back into the land of the living. Kris Carr is so amazing and just what I needed to figure this whole thing out. For 21 days now I have been following her outlined diet from her book Crazy, Sexy Diet and the results are astounding! This blog was created to share my journey, with all its beautiful ups and not so pretty downs, so that people suffering with tarlov cyst disease like me will know we always have a choice in our treatment plan and we don't have to be relegated to our beds while the doctors fight over what treatment may or may not sort of work. Tarlov Sisters & Brothers Unite!