Tracy Tatcher

I’ve learned to listen to my body, to feel when pain might present and listen to what it’s telling me. Pain is our body communicating with us, telling us we aren’t in alignment

Never give hope is the conclusion of this healing testimonial given by Tracy. hitting rock bottom was also the turning point that instilled a warrior spirit in her which led her to be pain-free and symptoms-free of autoimmune diseases such as lupus and injuries. see how she bravely carved her way to become a runner again and live fully. she demonstrates so vividly how nothing can crush the human spirit.

It all started at :

I was first diagnosed with lupus after having feet surgery (bilateral bunionectomies) and I wasn’t healing well or quickly, I was fatigued, becoming obese and I had general body pain and no doctors knew what to do with me except give me pills and told me to wear good flat shoes. I decided to change to a podiatrist (foot specialist) who focused on whole body healing, without surgery, she ran the test and gave me the news. I finally had an answer, after almost a year of chronic foot pain, my answer was lupus.

Main symptoms were:

It was the beginning of my journey with autoimmune diseases, that was 1995… I think the first thing I did, after having a good cry, is join a support group to understand how other people were dealing with their symptoms and autoimmune diseases and learn as much as I could because I knew I had had symptoms for at least 9 years which is apparently normal until diagnosis. I’m one to delve straight in to finding the core issue of problems and this was no different. You see, I didn’t just have lupus, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, Graves (thyroid disease), I had had IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) for decades, CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome), Connective Tissue Disorder, Soma-Sensory Neuropathy, general pain, and again, no doctors knew what really to do to cure these

I tried these modalities but they did not cure me:

I was handed pills like Plaquenil, Prednisone, Synthroid and many pain pills to mask the symptoms, not get to the causes.

Dark night of the soul:

I would say the day my doctor discussed putting me on chemotherapy, I’ll never forget it. I couldn’t believe they wanted to pour literal poison in to my very sick body, when they had no idea what lupus even was or why it affects everyone differently! I was so ill I didn’t think I was going to live much longer.

this news definitely helped push me in to warrior mode. It was an easy answer for me, hell no! It scared me that the doctors wanted to resort to this, their ignorance of my diseases shockingly obvious, my intuition immediately popped up with the red flags and I declined and said “I’ll find my own way through this and I hope you’ll support me in the process.” This was incredibly scary considering no one had answers for me, it was time to begin researching what was going on in my body, and hopefully find out why.

Change in the plot:

my rock bottom was also my turning point to changing my life for the better and learning how much strength and gumption I really was going to need for this journey called my life.

I was presented with an artist at one of my lupus support groups who also was on her journey but she was healing by making art and showing in art galleries around the U.S. and bringing attention to this disease, she wasn’t sick and in the emergency rooms once a month with bad symptoms like everyone else I was meeting, she glowed. They didn’t give me hope, but she did.

More importantly, she was getting better and she shared her information with us which I immediately grabbed on to and started following her protocol unlike others, it didn’t even matter what it was I was going to be doing because I only had two choices and dying wasn’t an option when I had this choice to get better in front of me, it was my “hope,” my path I was to take, I was so unhealthy and sick but still willing to fight.

I stopped eating red meat immediately, then I stopped dairy, I went to a nutritionist, the same one the artist was seeing. I was told to take baths and soak in unusual concoctions to detox my body, eat different foods than I had heard of and stick to organic foods, do meditation practices and focus on body, mind and spirit. She was a big influence on me learning the effects of chemicals on my body and how they directly make me feel, I started to become in-tuned to this new way of thinking, not to put poisons on or in my body.

This was a huge aha moment while I was working on myself, the chemicals and the poisons I was exposing myself to, even eating them, so much made sense as to why my poor immune system was completely unhappy with me and was screaming for me to help it. I had done this to myself, self reflection is a b*tch sometimes. But then again, this is about unlearning everything I was taught.

At the same time I was seeing a nutritionist I also was going to her acupuncturist sometimes 3x/week who worked very closely with me and prescribed tinctures of expensive herbs which he adjusted every time. I also boiled my own herbs that I got from another herbalist and I was going to a chiropractor too. I had stopped seeing my other specialists doctors and turned slowly towards eastern medicine instead, and I was feeling better. For years I worked on myself, going vegan, staying hydrated, constantly researching until I felt I knew more than my General Practitioner. I will say that I’ve always gone in for my bloodwork to stay on top of anything that might present itself, it seems like common sense.

years (& 2 children) later I slipped and fell in a restaurant on a rainy day, it was to add to my journey, teach me even more, especially about pain and patience because the pain from my autoimmune diseases didn’t even compare to the next 7 years of torturous pain I was going to experience 24 hours a day. I had injured my spine, upper, middle and eventually lower back. I was still working with my autoimmune issues and now I had to deal with this pain, I was given 30 pills a day for everything. And the pain from my multiple herniations set off my fibromyalgia cycle too. Yes, depression set in deep. About 6 ½ years later of taking meds and tests and giving in to doctor’s requests to take my pills, I found raw food.

I was already plantbased but living enzymes peaked my curiosity, and so did the people who were curing themselves of chronic illnesses and pain, it was worth a try. I started adding in more salads and other raw foods that weren’t cooked and their enzymes not killed off. It made so much sense as far as an anti-inflammatory lifestyle, I knew inflammation was always a culprit to watch out for. I want to say that within 3 months of going raw I finally was able to walk without horrendous pain and I had come off all my meds for everything, it was like the sky had opened and the answers were right there in front of me, the answer is plants, living phytonutrient-rich plants to fill my cells and detox my cells and help my lymphs and adrenals do their jobs. I jumped in deep and stuffed my body with living enzymes, all the while I kept researching what our bodies need for complete health, my focus was 100% on health and not focusing on symptoms, whole body healing only.

The doom of the past versus the glory of my present life:

I’m now running mountains for Cal Parks, teach ethnobotany at the San Francisco Botanical Garden, teach people to food forage, run school garden clubs, teach organic cooking from scratch to children (mainly), have my own private gardening business and am still a high-raw foodist, with an occasional cooked meal. I’m so grateful for my autoimmune diseases, I learned to embrace them right away and see what they were trying to tell me, they have made me in to a strong and happy person, I wouldn’t have this amazing life if it wasn’t for my diseases and me proactively finding my way through them, to find myself which I feel very humbled. I wouldn’t change a thing.

My relationship to pain:

I’ve learned to listen to my body, to feel when pain might present and listen to what it’s telling me. Pain is our body communicating with us, telling us we aren’t in alignment, we are dis-eased, not balanced in some way. To have complete health you have to be balanced, this all made sense to me and it means I am in charge of my choices. I take full responsibility to what is happening to me now that I know my answers and have gotten better. As you start to see improvements you start to trust your inner voice, you start to feel safe in your own skin and in your choices, you connect with yourself on a much deeper level and your life changes for the better.

My best advice to fellow sufferers of chronic conditions:

my advice is to start cleaning up your lifestyle as hard as that sounds when you don’t have energy and are sick and just want to take the easy way. I tell people to look at labels, look at the chemicals that their immune systems have to try to deal with. I say you’ll need to fill your cells with glorious colorful raw foods that your body can use to heal itself, give it something to work with. And it’s important for people to understand that their family members and friends might have a hard time with your choices, they may not agree and not trust that you know yourself best, I say continue on, it’s your life not theirs. It takes some experimenting to find your footing to health, but it’s a very empowering feeling knowing you can do this.

I’ve learned to listen to my body, to feel when pain might present and listen to what it’s telling me. Pain is our body communicating with us, telling us we aren’t in alignment

Tracy Tatcher

Healed with whole food plant based diet