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CHRONICALLY HEALED: Kiki’s Chronic Illness Story

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How I Overcame POTS and Lyme Disease: IV Therapy, Marijuana, and the Grace of God!

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO (youtube restricted it because I talk about how medical marijuana saved my life)

After being sick for 10 years, I am now alive healthy and thriving!
My healing journey was non-linear. Watch my full story to get the most out of what I learned from living with and overcoming a chronic illness.

I was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS aka Dysautonomia), Lyme disease, and Babesia.

My symptoms were feeling faint (chronic pre-syncope), low blood pressure (hypotension), low blood volume (hypovolemia), nausea and stomach pain, chronic fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, social anxiety, cold hands and feet (cold extremities), sensitivities, brain fog, TMJ, neck pain, and more.

The treatments that helped me were:
– Biofeedback therapy (InnerBalance by HeartMath)
– Jugular Venoplasty (Transvascular Autonomic Modulation surgery)
– NUCCA Chiropractic
– TMJ Orthodontic Treatment
– Paleo Diet
– Supplements
– Vitamin IV Therapy
– Medical Marijuana THC

BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, none of these treatments would have helped if my heart was not open to receive healing. Spiritual and emotional health are interconnected to physical health. IT WAS ESSENTIAL for me to be healed spiritually before I could be healed physically.

As I grew closer in my relationship with Jesus, I grew closer to his healing. He healed my soul and strengthened me to be the overcomer God created me to be!

If you know anyone with a chronic illness and needs hope, send them this video! It is my new mission in life to raise awareness, advocacy, and hope for chronic illnesses!

Subscribe to my youtube channel, follow me on instagram @chronicallyhealed and check out my website chronicallyhealed.com for more information and insights from my healing journey!

What treatments are helping you to heal from a chronic illness? Please share in the comments, maybe it could also help others!

Videography by Storto Productions

Grand Canyon University Commercials!

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I am so excited to share with you that I was one of 80,000 online students chosen to be featured for GCU’s Thunder in All of Us commercial campaign!

I am earning my Bachelor’s degree in Christian Studies online at GCU, and after that I am planning on continuing to earn my Masters!

With my degree, I hope to help others spiritually who are dealing with chronic illnesses. My faith really helped me cope when I had a chronic illness disability for ten years. Now that I am fully healed, I feel compelled to help others who are in the same situation I was in. The doctors don’t tell you that a chronic illness will make you feel emotionally and spiritually drained, feeling hopeless and helpless. That is why I want to be there for others and lift them up with God’s hope and light!

Keep up with my story by following me on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chronicallyhealed/

Watch below for my commercials with Grand Canyon University!

Suffering: Why do people give me unsolicited advice?

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If you have ever lived with a chronic illness, chances are someone has tried to tell you some easy cure: Just try yoga! Just try thinking more positively! Just pray harder! Just eat vegan!

 

These “remedies” have well intention, and even some of them could have merit. But if there was an easy fix to your suffering, well, you would not be suffering right now!

Not only that, but the unwanted advice can also carry the false notion that you are responsible for your suffering. You are the reason you are suffering. That the suffering shows who you are as a person, and who you are as a person is why you are suffering. These are all wrong!

Who you are as a person does not determine your level of suffering. You can’t be intelligent enough, moral enough, hard-working enough, wise enough, or spiritual enough to be exempt from suffering. Nobody is exempt from suffering and suffering is not your fault.

Someone advises a suffering person to work harder or be more spiritual or try some remedy. But when the suffering is not cured after listening to this “advice” the suffering person is then called things like “attention-seeker” “over-reactor” “ridiculous” “lazy.”

But this tells us more about the “advice”-giving person than the suffering person.

These people like to think that their intelligence/morality/wisdom/spirituality is superior enough to get them out of suffering.

Most of the time, this comes from a hidden fear. They are secretly terrified of suffering and they like to think that if they were ever in that situation, they could easily get out of it because of their intelligence/hard work/spirituality.

But suffering does not determine who you are as a person. And who you are as a person does not determine your suffering.

You could be the most intelligent, most wise, most hard-working, most spiritual person in the world and still be subject to suffering. Because suffering is not your fault!

Of course, there are a few times when people suffer because of an unwise decision. But for chronic illnesses, poverty, addiction, mental illnesses, homelessness, and other suffering, it is not your fault and there is no easy way out! It can happen to anyone. And usually the only way to learn this is to go through the suffering yourself. For those prideful enough to think they could easily cure suffering, suffering will be a big slap of humility.

If you are suffering, please know that it is not because you are not smart enough or spiritual enough or good enough. You are more than enough! Your suffering has nothing to do with you as a person.

Remember that even Jesus, the most wise, most caring, most perfect person, suffered: “And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44 NIV). It’s okay to be in anguish over your suffering! Do you think anyone came up to Jesus when he was in anguish and said, “Just try more yoga!” No! Instead, Jesus was with his friends, who were “exhausted from sorrow” (Luke 22:45). They were weeping with him, just as Romans 12:15 says, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep” (ESV).

It is great to help people who are suffering, but getting angry at them when your “advice” does not cure them does not help!

The best way to help people who are suffering is to be with them in their suffering journey! Show them compassion, understanding, listening, patience, and kindness. Weep with them. Knowing they are not alone and that somebody cares for them will bring so much more healing than unsolicited advice or expectations.

-Kiki

10k

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“Hi! I’m Kiki, I have been living with and recovering from a #chronicillness for the past 10 years. With God as my healer, I am looking forward to a healthy life and to bring hope to others.”

This was what I wrote on my first instagram post nearly three years ago.

I remember waking up one day and a random thought, a direction of inspiration, repeated in my mind: “I am going to be instagram famous now.”

So I started my instagram account, @chronicallyhealed!

The previous ten years was full of illness, anxiety, isolation, fear, and exhaustion. But through the setbacks, and God’s prophetic word over me, I gradually regained my health and confidence.

I had been feeling better for the past three months. During this time, I was regaining all the weight I had lost due to the illness. Once I was back to a healthy weight, I realized something: I am feeling better! I am no longer experiencing symptoms!

However, I was not quite sure what to do then. For the better of a decade, my life was laying on the recliner and going to doctors. What am I supposed to do with my life now? I had reached my goal, my dream: to be healed.

During my illness, I was socially isolated and rarely left the house. This left a depression hovering over my mind. If I did not keep myself distracted from my zombie life, the depression would swoop down and try to drown me with lies: “You’re not good enough.” “You’re a loser.” “You will never amount to anything.”

One of my favorite distractions was movies. Specifically, Disney movies. The colorful cinematography, inspiring quotes, happy endings, and lovable characters helped keep my mind away from the temptation of feeling bad for myself. The characters became my friends, and I could go on adventures with them even in my disabled state.

I specifically related to the character Rapunzel in Disney’s Tangled. She was locked away, isolated in her tower. She filled her day with small distractions and wondered, “When will my life begin?” I dreamed with Rapunzel, wondering when it would be my day to leave my isolation.

Long story short, Rapunzel leaves her tower, goes on an adventure, and lives her dream of seeing the floating lanterns. “What do I do [now]?” She asks Flynn Rider. “Well,that’s the good part I guess. You get to go find a new dream,” he replies.

So here I am: I left my tower of isolation and fulfilled my dream of being healed of a chronic illness. What do I do now? I get to go find a new dream!

I decided I wanted to go into modeling. I had done some modeling in the past and enjoyed it. With my new life of health, I stepped into my new dream. I went on numerous modeling auditions for agencies and sent pictures to others, with the help of some photographer friends.

….And nothing happened. No callbacks and no contracts.

Having an instagram as a portfolio can help models get discovered. I thought about it and wondered if it was worth the effort. I mean, would anyone really follow me? I didn’t feel comfortable posing in bikinis and lingerie, like many instagram models did. I didn’t travel the world or own fancy cars that would get a lot of likes. Also, the “fame” didn’t appeal to my shy character. The doubt wrestled with me as I prayed about it. What did I have to offer to people, anyway?

But then I woke up one day, and all the doubt was gone. “I am going to be instagram famous now.” The thought confidently repeated in my mind. A feeling of hope swelled in me, a feeling I had only felt once before: when I was called to be healed.

I felt like this was my new calling in life! I was not just going to be an instagram model, I was going to be a model of hope for everyone dealing with chronic illnesses!

I was not quite sure myself if I was completely healed yet. I was definitely feeling better, but what if I hit another setback? Nonetheless, I named my instagram, “Chronically Healed.” I knew God’s plan of complete healing was for me and I identified with that healing.

A part of me was surprised when my instagram took off, quickly hitting 1,000 followers, then 2,000, then 3,000. People really want to follow me, a girl who was sick and isolated the past 10 years? But another part of me was not surprised. It felt like this was always meant to happen.

I believe that my suffering was for a reason. I believe that my healing was for a reason. To help others! God blesses us, not just so we can be blessed, but so that we can go out and bless others. God allowed me to suffer so I can better help those going through the same thing. Through living with a chronic illness disability and going through the healing process, God taught me wisdom. I feel utterly compelled to share this wisdom and insight every day.

My heart aches for the millions suffering from chronic illnesses. God gave me a new life, and with this new life, I had a new mission: To raise awareness, advocacy, and hope for people with chronic illnesses.

People from all over the world were messaging me, telling me that I had given them hope. These messages are worth more than gold to me. I suffered for ten years of illness and anxiety. But now God was using that to reach out to others. Just helping one person makes it all worth it.

Also, when God heals, he doesn’t only restore us to our original position. When God heals, he raises us to be more than we were before!

Yesterday, @chronicallyhealed reached 10,000 followers. I would have never imagined this! For so long, I felt alone, insecure, and forgotten. If you told me 10 years ago that I would be healthy, thriving, and a model with 10k instagram followers, I would not have believed it!

There is hope!

And this is just the beginning! God has so much more in store!

Thank you for following me, each and every one of you. Your support is greatly appreciated! You are the reason I keep reaching for my dream.

– Kiki