In the '80s and 90's I listened regularly to The People's Pharmacy on the radio. I can't recall if it was AM or FM. If I had to guess, I'd guess AM. Seems it aired at 9:00 in the morning.
At the time, I suffered with serious allergies. During my 20ish years of that struggle, I saw over 35 health practitioners -- surgeons, medical doctors, specialists, homeopaths, counselors, chiropractors, naturopaths, and more. Years later, after I was free from the serious asthma and allergies, I called it the Physician Carousel.
One morning in the early '90s, the People's Pharmacy host was interviewing a man, Taylor Hay Jr., about an exercise routine Taylor had developed. (Click here for a 2022 article about Taylor who, at the time of the article, was 92 years old.) I had been a jogger, often running 5 miles at a time 3 to 5 days a week. I loved it. I liked to free roam when I jogged, instead of running a set course. I had jogged enough to know how long it took me to jog one mile. So, I calculated my miles by the amount of time I ran; thus, I could run anywhere I wanted.
After the asthma started, I had to give up jogging. I practiced yoga, Knowles Breathing, and some other breathwork that I can't recall now. But still, the asthma was violently persistent. So many stories, including two ambulance runs. But most of the time I, or someone else, drove me to the hospital when needed. I always carried inhalers and injectable epinephrin with me. At home I used a nebulizer which I would take with me on any overnight stays, including Way Advances and even when I worked overnight as a Camp-In Site Director at Discovery Place in Charlotte.
Anyway, I was always on the look-out for some kind of exercise I could do.
After listening to the interview with Taylor Hay on The People's Pharmacy, I ordered Hay's program called Synergetics. My husband and I learned it together. We practiced it faithfully for about 10 years. It was one exercise I could do and included (and still does) deep breathing as one dips and pivots through the routines. At the ten-ish year mark, in the early 2000s, I got well from the severe allergies, which was amazing. And I could then do other physical activities. I didn't start running again but did pick up long-distance hiking which I loved more than jogging.
I continued practicing Synergetics, sometimes regularly, sometimes sporadically, until February 18, 2024...
Sometime in late January, early February 2024, I felt my back and was a little alarmed. I felt it because the burning pain was getting worse. As my fingers felt my spine, I discovered the scoliosis had moved farther to the right.
Damn. Is my back going to land me in a wheelchair?
I've had scoliosis my whole life, but it was never an issue until I developed kyphosis, which is a rounding of the spine. (Think of Quasimodo.) Typically, kyphosis happens in the upper spine; mine is in my thoracic area which is also where the scoliosis curves. Together the two are called kyphoscoliosis.
Kyphoscoliosis first showed up in a lung x-ray around 2018ish(?), and then in a couple subsequent lung x-rays in following years. At first, I ignored it. I had so much else I was dealing with, and the doctors didn't seem concerned. So, I focused on managing the polyradiculitis and all its repercussions including the side effects of high-dose, long-term steroids.
"Steroids?!" you say. "Those are terrible for you. I'd never go on so many steroids!"
Good for you. I certainly didn't want to be on steroids (again). But neither did I want to be bedridden. And all the natural means to help with the inflammation wasn't enough. Like with the asthma days, the polyradiculitis was relentless. In 2016, after six years of living with Polly Rad, we discovered that my 2008 hip implant had been leaching chromium and cobalt into my body. Like with the mercury toxicity (most likely from my amalgam fillings) in my asthma days, it's hard (if not impossible) for the body to heal when its slowly being poisoned from within.
The kyphosis is the cause of my height shrinkage. We all shrink as we age, but I was in my latter 50s and shrank 3 inches within 4 years. That's not normal. The likely cause? Steroids. I bought an inversion table around 2018 which I use almost daily. Since then, I've not lost any more height; I'm holding steady at 4'11".
On February 12, 2024, I received an email newsletter that highlighted an article about a study: Tai Chi Surpasses Aerobic Exercise For Lowering Blood Pressure. It caught my attention. I had had blood pressure problems for about a year but had gotten it down to normal levels. I chose meditation, breathwork, and herbs instead of medication. It worked and still does, though under certain stressors my blood pressure will sometimes get a little high.
But the article prompted me to again pick up Synergetics which I'd heard the Synergetics founder describe as a type of westernized tai-chi...
I'm not exactly sure when it first started, the feeling that I am unintelligent. But I think it may have been in my heavy-duty drug use days as a teen, when the psychedelic trips started turning bad. I became withdrawn. I had a hard time finding words in order to communicate. Thankfully I had enough sense left to stop the drugs.
I recall the moment as I sat in my bedroom upstairs. I was sixteen years old, my head in my hands, rocking back and forth, trying to rid the feeling of a bad trip without having taken any acid. I thought I was going insane, and maybe I was. But my one saving thought was, If I'm insane, I wouldn't know it. I clung to that thought. And I turned to Transcendental Meditation for help, which it did. I faithfully practiced for a few years interspersed with breaks. I gave up TM totally around July 1977 after I spoke in tongues for the first time at Resurrection Lutheran Church in Charlotte.
I then decided to go to college. I wanted to become a Christian counselor, and I wanted to learn Greek and Hebrew to get back to the "original" Scriptures. I chose Montreat-Anderson College in Montreat, NC, near Black Mountain. I chose Montreat because of the spirit-filled community in and around the school.
While at Montreat I got involved in a small prayer group where people got slain in the spirit and would speak in tongues quite loudly. It was more Pentecostal than Charismatic. I preferred Charismatic; it was gentler than Pentecostal.
During my first semester at Montreat, I was witnessed to by Way believers but not at Montreat. I was witnessed to in Hickory, my hometown, at the time around a two-hour drive from Montreat. This was in the days when Interstate-40 did not yet go up the mountain. That weekend I attended my first Way International fellowship, at the time called Twig. Twig was part of The Way Tree, as it was called.
I was a bit uncomfortable when the Twig Leader called on people to "speak in tongues and interpret." How could one control the Spirit of God moving? I was used to a different format, more free-flowing, where folks would speak or sing in tongues as they were "moved by the Spirit" and someone else might speak or sing the interpretation.
But everything else about Twig felt beautiful, real, like the Book of Acts. The music. The people, The Word. The love of God. I felt I truly had found "the way."
Bill, the Way believer who was one of the believers who had "witnessed" to me, told me about "The Class." As he was showing me the "green card," which is what a new recruit would sign to take The Class, along with $100 at the time, I thought, I can learn all this on my own, at college, as I learn Greek and Hebrew. Right as I was having that unexpressed thought, Bill said, "You can learn all this on your own. But why not try The Class? It can save you lots of time in learning the Scriptures." So, I signed up not knowing where the money would come from. I received a surprise gift from my parents of $100 without them knowing I needed the money to take The Class. This must be of God; He has provided the funds. Once I completed The Class, I dropped out of college to study and serve with The Way.
I don't recall the feeling of unintelligence at that time, but that feeling eventually crept back in. I struggled with it for decades. And it still comes up from time to time, mostly around folks who seem so confident and adamant that their viewpoint of life is the correct viewpoint. According to them, folks with viewpoints different from theirs are "stupid" or have "low IQs" or some other derogatory label. So maybe they'd think the same of me? I sometimes fall into similar labeling, but I endeavor to extend the benefit of the doubt without being naive. I endeavor, as much as I'm able, to put myself in another's sandals and to remember that I too am human.
In 1998 while living in Charlotte and volunteering as a Twig leader with my husband, I landed for a 3-to-5 day stay in the hospital while we were running a Way class in our home. Asthma, which for two decades sent me to the emergency room often. If I recall correctly, this hospitalization was about the fifth multiple-day stay (or the ninth, if I count the four sinus polypectomy surgeries, which were part of the mercury-asthma-allergy package), instead of just an overnight stay in the ER for observation.
During this hospital stay I looked at my chart which hung on the end of my bed. The doctor had written, "An intelligent middle-aged woman...." I didn't know this doctor well, but well enough to respect him. He was the first doctor to discover my mercury levels were sky high. And he had called me "intelligent."
Maybe I was intelligent?
~*~
"He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you Except to be just, and to love [and to diligently practice] kindness (compassion), And to walk humbly with your God [setting aside any overblown sense of importance or self-righteousness]?" ~Micah 6:8
“In my walks, every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that I learn from him.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
~*~
Todd Agnew is one of my favorite Christian musicians...
