Overview:
Y.E. presented with a very severe case of West Nile Virus. For over two years weÕve worked to help her survive the debilitating aspects of this disease and to slowly rebuild her systemic energy and stamina. SheÕs put in a great deal of effort into learning to manage her energy and her life in different ways so that she does not exacerbate her condition. Very slowly, Y.E. is returning back to the living. She is gradually able to engage more and more fully with her life.
From my personal experience I
can say that Western medicine only helped at the early stages with diagnosis
and with managing pain. Other than
that the doctors werenÕt helpful at all.
Doug does a combination of physical and energetic work that is enhanced
with psychological self-work. It
is a combination that goes to the root physically and then goes to the root
mentally and spiritually. His work
was invaluable in my healing journey.
Y.E. came to see me with a very new case of West Nile Virus. This surfaced for her as a fairly typical period of flu-like symptoms. After those symptoms abated, she returned back to her normal schedule, opting to push through the remaining flu symptoms. As is very common with West Nile, she came back too soon and had a very severe reaction. For Y.E., that the first phase of flue was just the opening salvo. The effects of the virus were devastating and she went into a very, very dark place both psychologically and physically. She was completely unable to function for more than four months.
ItÕs hard for me to remember my
early symptoms because I was so ill; I was pretty much pickled in pain and I
just have a foggy recollection of how things were. In general, the early symptoms were about ceaseless joint
pain, body pain, head pain, and neck pain. I was unable to have any sensory stimulation at all. Noise, light, other peopleÕs presence,
movement, I couldnÕt stand hot or cold; it was like my whole body had been
derailed so that it couldnÕt regulate or find homeostasis anymore. It was pretty stunning to not be able
to be with my kids or be with my husband.
I couldnÕt talk, I couldnÕt read text because it was too exhausting and
too painful, I couldnÕt listen to music because it was over-stimulating. I spent weeks and weeks, and even
months with that kind of severe nervous system reaction. It took forever before my nervous system was strong enough to handle
external stimuli.
Throughout this time I did treat her to help support her through this very intense phase of the West Nile Virus. The clinical goals for this period were to keep her from going even deeper into the disease; essentially we worked diligently to keep her out of the hospital.
Before a treatment, it was like
I was running at 200 degrees; it felt like pure burning pain, but it was all
internal. Getting a session from
Doug helped some of that drain away.
It was like having my bodyÕs internal temperature turned down and with
that, the pain would drain out.
Also, DougÕs work helped me feel more connected to the real world. The very worst part of being so ill was
that I was dissociated from my body.
It felt like I wasnÕt all there because I couldnÕt handle it; it was too
painful -- everything was too much.
A session with Doug alleviated a lot of the pain immediately but it also
gave me a sense of ÒOK, so I can come back down into my body a little more and
itÕs OK, at least for the time I was on his table, to actually have a
connection with another human being.Ó
That was a really helpful anchoring thing for me; DougÕs work helped me
to be able to come back to my body.
This was pretty darn valuable!
Y.E. came partially out of complete debilitation after about four months. She seemed to stabilize into a holding pattern where she had limited functioning but very little stamina. Every time she tried to much more than get out of bed, the full body ache, the headaches, and the debilitating fatigue would begin to return. Throughout this period of approximately six months I treated her regularly to support her system as it slowly began to reorganize and reorient. The treatments at this time consisted of working with her central nervous system, which was extremely compromised. I also treated various aspects of her energetic system which had also been severely impacted. It was slow going but we did make steady progress.
Whenever I was starting to not
do very well, which happened all the time – relapse after relapse –
it was like, ÒThank goodness I have an appointment with Doug, because I know I
am going to feel better when I leave the room.Ó If my head felt like it was
going to blow up, then I knew that time on DougÕs table would make that go
away. In terms of management of
acute symptoms that kept coming back, a tremendous tool for me was to be able
to say, ÒOK, if I call Doug, IÕm going to feel better immediately.Ó That was fantastic!
Another crucial aspect of this case was to give Y.E. a lot of education about how her system needed to pace its recovery, which was much slower than this lady, who was very much of a go-getter, wanted to hear. Reluctantly, she did change her behavior and her orientation to herself. We began to add in behaviors very slowly so that she didnÕt have another setback. Also, I taught her a number of energetic practices that were designed to gently rebuild and replenish her energetic system.
Doug was able to work differently depending on where I was with my illness. His work changed as I changed during the course of my long recovery. Initially, when I was so sick and so out of it, Doug radiated confidence; he really knew what he was doing. It helped a whole lot that he had already treated several clients who had had severe cases of West Nile Virus. I had total confidence in Doug because what he was saying was coming out of direct experience. I needed to really re-design who I was and how I worked in the world in order to completely heal out of my West Nile illness. Doug had the unique combination of skills to be able to help me with this process.
Two years later Y.E. is doing much better and is able to function on a limited basis throughout all areas of her life. She still has a challenge with exercise and activity if she overdoes it. Because of her personality and history, itÕs very easy for her to overdo it. If she overextends the symptoms do return. Clinically itÕs much easier at this point to bring her out of her symptomatic episodes. For example, the headaches usually disperse in one session. Y.E. has begun to her feel like herself again; she has become very skillful at helping her system center and orient.
West Nile Virus was like a major lightning strike that blew out all my transformers and fried all my wiring. DougÕs work helped me understand the need to move back into my life with excruciating slowness so that I didnÕt re-damage my delicate new wiring, my slowly healing nervous system. In addition to physically helping my system organize and stabilize, my sessions with Doug gave me immediate relief from pain and other symptoms.
I anticipate that Y.E. will make a full recovery from this, but it should take another twelve to twenty-four months before sheÕs able to have more or less normal activity without really paying the price. The risk of overextending is slowly diminishing as she learns different ways to use her energy system. Y.E. is much more educated about what she can and cannot do and how to do the same things differently so that she doesnÕt have an exacerbation of symptoms.
Because Doug works at the level of the cause of things, it allowed a much faster and more prominent resolution of my physical problems. This is something that is rare. Good therapists will do a physical approach with an understanding of energy, but Doug does the physical with the energetic but also with the psychological understanding. This makes his work very powerful. The breadth and range of DougÕs skills were a key factor in my surviving West Nile Virus.