ABOUT

Hello fellow readers! My name is Christina McCarty, and I have so much to tell you.
I am a 49-year-young woman who is a wife of almost 30 years, a mom to 3, and a very proud Grandma! I am a believer in Jesus Christ, and I am very blessed.
The reason I have decided to start a blog is because, as blessed as I am, life has not been easy regarding my health. In fact, it has been a serious battle, and because of what I have gone through, I have a great compassion for others struggling with their health.
My blog is called: “Healthful Tools” because I want to give you informational tools to have in your pocket to be successful in your own health.
I hope you will read my story below, and we can continue our health journey together!

MY MYSTERY ILLNESS STORY

            Let me start from the beginning. Up until I was about 5 years old, I was a very happy and active little girl. I had spunk and determination and was full of energy.  Then, around 5 to 6 years of age, everything changed suddenly. I developed asthma and severe allergies and started having concentration issues in school. My mom even had me tested for ADD, but they said I did not have it.

            How could I go from being a smart, healthy little girl to an unhealthy and struggling child? I have a pretty good idea that I was vaccine injured through childhood innocculations.

I  did okay in school but struggled with concentrating, and I honestly do not even remember 1st and 2nd grade. I was on so many allergy meds and steroids for my asthma that I was knocked out most of the time. That was during the time people just did whatever the Dr. told them to no questions asked. Think of the 1985 movie, “The Goonies,” and the boy who was always using his inhaler, that was me!

            As I got older, I was not forced to take my medicine as often, so I improved some with my concentration levels. I still occasionally had symptoms but not enough to take the meds constantly. I played sports, was in dance, cheerleading, and was actually pretty active. I lived by the ocean, so I was able to enjoy the sun and the ocean breeze. I do believe that’s why I did not get colds or the flu hardly ever. I made it through high school and graduated, but it was actually not easy for me. I continued to have concentration issues through my whole academic years.

            I met my husband when I was 17 years old and was married at 18. I thought  that I felt fine, I mean, nothing major was going on, just the occasional asthma flare-up or seasonal allergies. Then child #1 came along right about when I turned 20. I thought it was a pretty easy pregnancy and relatively easy birth. However, this is when I did start to notice some problems with my health. I was also very tired all the time, and I got mastitis more times than I could count.

            Baby #2 came along a couple of years later. I actually got pregnant when I was still nursing, so that took about everything I had left in my body to give. Unfortunately, I only took Flintstone vitamins for extra nutrition because everything else made me sick. I started getting colds easily and felt run down. I did not gain much weight with this pregnancy and was very thin.

            Baby #3 came along 3 & 1/2  years later. This time, my body had some time to recuperate, and I took better vitamin supplements, I gained a nice amount of weight and overall felt pretty good. Pregnancy and birth went as well as the other two did. I did not need to take any kind of medication for any health reasons. Then 2 years after I had my 3rd baby, and right when I weaned him, everything went to pot! It’s like my body was shutting down, and I can only explain it like it exploded. My gut was a mess. I could not sleep, I had no energy to take care of my small children. My heart was racing constantly, and I dropped down to 109 lbs, and I am 5′ 7″.

            I could not gain any weight, and I was losing it fast. I had to stop homeschooling and place my children in school. I had to stop any and all functions I was a part of. It was really a very bad time. I went to a Naturopathic Doctor 1st when I realized this was not going away any time soon. Unfortunately, several thousand dollars later, out of pocket, he was not able to help at all. Then I went to a family practitioner MD, and she had no idea what was wrong. She put me on a medication to calm down my body. It worked for a while, but then it started to cause some strange symptoms. I decided to stop taking it. Around this time, my symptoms returned fiercely, so I went to a TCM practitioner (traditional Chinese medicine). He helped me to stabilize so I could somewhat function. Then, I went to a chiropractor who was trained in nutrition. He actually helped me more than all the others. He was the first person to tell me he thought I had a thyroid problem, even though the basic test showed I was in the normal range. Although there were much bigger problems than either of us realized, he did get my body calmed down enough for me to function for a while.

            During that time I started a very stressful job at a bank. I did the best I could, and honestly, looking back, I have no idea how I managed that. I then quit that job to try and home school my 3rd child, but that didn’t go as planned. So, at this point, I was at home, and it’s a good thing I was because my body really broke down again. I could barely get out of bed, and all the symptoms came surging back full force. So I went to an MD Allergy specialist thinking he could help with my hormones. I thought maybe my issues were hormonal. He said something very derogatory about me being a woman, and I really didn’t like him. However, he took a full panel of my thyroid and finally found something. I chose not to continue with him and went to an endocrinologist, and to make a long story short, I had hyperthyroidism. My thyroid had completely shut down, and a nodule completely took over and was doing its own thing. I chose to get that half removed, and things started to get better. I did not have to go on Levothyroxine until about 1 year later.

            At that time, they saw something on the other 1/2 of my thyroid in the ultrasound and thought it could be cancer. I chose not to get it looked at, and I prayed hard for a year that it would go away. (This is just what I did. Everyone has their own story). Anyway, I went back a year later, and that thing was about nonexistent, so they were not worried about it anymore. My medicine was keeping my thyroid levels in the range they wanted it so I have continued that until now.

            So fast forward to over a year ago. I decided to go to a functional MD because although I was feeling ok, overall, I felt I wanted to improve some things. I had read something about EBV (Epstein Barr Virus) and knew about Candida, so I wanted to get that blood work done. Sure enough, I had both systemic Candida and chronic EBV, as well as low B12 and high inflammation. I was sort of upset but happy to know I was getting closer to the root. Although I didn’t know at the time I was not at the base of the root yet. She put me on supplements, including high doses of olive leaf and other antioxidants. I went on the Candida diet and refused the antifungal medication. I wrote a journal and was excited to see how I progressed. Unfortunately, after at least 7  months into it, I couldn’t really say I noticed much of a difference.

            It was about that time I noticed some rectal bleeding. I had had 2 benign polyps removed when I was 35 years old, (now at 48 yrs old)  I assumed I had more that needed to be removed. I went for my colonoscopy, and to my horror, I found out I had 8 polyps, one slightly bleeding, and a larger mass that could not be removed during that procedure. The Dr. went on to tell me she thought the mass looked cancerous. I waited a week for the results, and sure enough, it was. I also had a cancerous polyp they removed during the procedure. That’s enough to turn ones life upside down and enter into a whirlwind of events. Two weeks later, I had 5 inches of my colon removed, including the cancerous mass, through open surgery. I had a lot of people praying for me, and I spent a lot of time in the Word of God and worshiping. That is what got me through this mess, and I can say that overall, I felt peaceful through it all.   

            Everything went very well, #1 surgery was better than expected, #2 recovery went well, and #3 my biopsy results were as good as they could get. 17  lymph nodes were taken out, and cancer cells were not in any of them, and they staged me at a stage one. I had specifically prayed for all three things. I believe the power of prayer got me through all of that, and I am so grateful I don’t have words to express it.

            The Lord led me to a functional therapist who told me things none of the other doctors had ever mentioned to me. I have been to just about every kind of doctor there is, and she was the only one who explained how much I needed digestive enzymes. I recently had my gallbladder removed, and before that, it was not functioning properly. I was not making the kind of enzymes to digest my food properly, and the poorly digested food was basically sitting in my colon. She also explained in detail about Candida and how to deal with it.

            So what exactly was my mystery illness? For one, I was misdiagnosed with anxiety when it was actually major thyroid problems. Second, I had a subtle gallbladder issue undetected for years that was causing me to not digest my food properly. Thirdly, my body could not heal properly because of the systemic candida overgrowth and biofilms that my body harbored. My body basically was severely out of balance and toxic. I am still on my journey, and my hope is that you do not have to go through all that I have dealt with. Maybe some of the things that have helped me will help you as well. I hope you follow my blog to see what I have learned over the last 20 years or so. I believe God has given me a 2nd chance, and I am well aware that not everyone gets that. So let’s go on this journey together!