You name it, I’ve done it.  I’m that kind of woman.  I’m not afraid to experiment.  I’m game for anything even if it seems too crazy.  And if I’m not satisfied, I move on to the next “big thing”.

Meditation, hypnosis, emotional freedom technique, shamanic healing, pranic healing, qigong healing, ionic foot baths, infrared saunas, pneumatic compression, acupuncture, acupressure, homeopathy, herbs, colonics, cleanses, enlightened medicinal techniques (whatever that means), and every damn diet imaginable - I’ve done it all.

Wait, what?  What did you think I was going to talk about?  Pervs…

Despite the tons of drugs Western Medicine has given me over the past 20 years (drugs that have saved my life on a few occasions), there’s a nagging thought in the back of my head that these American pushers have got it all wrong.  That what I really need is a NATIVE American to take me to some remote, untouched expanse high in the whatever mountains, strip me of my belongings and prescription medications, and chant by my side while I detox the years of poison and side effects from my body.  His many children will rotate who holds my hand for the day, while his wives take turns wiping the sweat from my brow.  And when I come out on the other side, all euphoric and unscathed, he and his brothers will do some kind of dance around me, much like a rain dance, but it’s one that promises the evil Lupus spirits have been cast away.  For good. 

When I told Zack (my bro-in-law) the other day that perhaps I actually need to do something like the above, he said, very plainly, “Please don’t.  Don’t do that.  That’s not gonna work.”

But how does he know that?  And how come I still don’t?  I mean, I’ve tried EVERYTHING.  I once had this woman who made me lie on my belly on the floor while she put crystals on my back.  I would pay her (I’m embarrassed to admit how much) to come to my house and put crystals on my back while she intermittently made these sucking noises through her teeth, which meant god knows what.  Maybe she was sucking the malfunctioning cells out of me?  She did that for an hour.  Once a week.  For a few months.  After my sixth session with her, I found myself in the hospital three days later.  I was exhibiting meningitis-like symptoms because Lupus was inflaming the blood vessels along my spine and my cerebellum.  It was a riot.  Needless to say, I never called that woman again.

I also went to a blind acupuncturist.  You read correctly.  A BLIND acupuncturist.  I let a man who could not see put needles IN MY FACE because he apparently had a gift and saved people with terminal cancer.  

Then came the winner of them all.  She was described to me as a yet another person with the gift of healing but she has some “other world kind of shit going on”.  A few years ago, on a dreary, rainy LA day, I skeptically arrived at her house.  It was the back house of a back house (is there a name for that?), in a not so great area on a street with shitty parking.  So I had to walk a few blocks in the pouring rain while random punks whistled at me from their drunk mom’s porch.  And I knew she was drunk because she was sitting out there with a half-consumed 40oz nestled in her lap with an empty 40oz resting by her feet.  Or maybe her teenage sons split that one.  Because that’s a better scenario, right? 

Anyway, I get to the back-back house and an older woman dressed in all purple answered the door.  Welcomed me in, she was perfectly kind and everything, but was missing a few front teeth.  Hey, some people didn’t grow up flossing, or they ate too many sweets, or they smoked a ton of crack at some point.  When it occurred to me that the latter could very well be the case, I thought, you know, she’s moved on to a better life, of healing people.  The thing I found most disconcerting was that there was purple everywhere.  Purple crystals, purple curtains, purple furniture, purple books.  I was assaulted with purple.  I was too nervous at this point to ask “Wadup with the purple, yo?” because maybe she would suddenly revert to her defensive former crackhead ways and get all violent on my ass.  She then told me to lie on her table while she hovered her hands above me and told me that my “sad little girl inside is still very sad…”  I was like, yeah, no shit.  She proceeded to hand hover for a little while, just feeling for energy blockages throughout my body, then she warned me that she’s going to make noises that might seem scary but told me not to worry, that means it’s working. 

“Scary” does not cut it.  It sounded as if a fucking demon was suddenly in the room giving birth to another demon.  It was bone-chilling.  Thankfully I had an eye mask on so I wasn’t tempted to see the faces she was making along with the noises.  If I had taken a peek, I probably would’ve bolted the hell outta there.  I’m surprised I didn’t do that anyway.  No, I stayed, freaked out on that table for about an hour, and you know what?  When she was done, I did feel a little better.  Maybe I was just relieved it was over…

The above events are the wackiest of things I’ve tried.  I’m not poo-pooing (or doo-dooing) on alternative healing at all.  Some techniques have actually helped me here and there.  I think the main reason they’ve helped me is because I believed they would.  But with every new thing I try, and every new time Lupus sends my body on a self-destructive shit spiral, the less I’m able to believe. 

I’m even having a hard time believing in Western medicine recently.  Remember that plateau I told you about a while back?  Well, I’m still on it.  Even with the two additional Cytoxans at 1000 milligrams a pop.  I go in for my 8th and final Cytoxan today.  If that doesn’t do the trick, then on to Plan B.  Whatever that may be.  Thankfully, I have the best doctors out there putting their heads together to work on my stubborn ass case of Lupus Nephritis.

There has to be something out there that will magically take this thing away.  Maybe it’s time for me to buck up and believe in a man who rose from the dead and now lives in the sky with his dad who looks just like Santa.  I mean, he’s totally made many miracles happen, right?