I've just recently had the profoundly inspiring experience of a long visit with Judi, a dear and long-time friend (who, because I've lived out of the country and now in California, I've seen only occasionally in the past dozen years). What a miraculous shift and transformation, at every level of her being.
Not only is Judi no longer bed-ridden. She is the picture of vitality--her gray-ish skin and dull hair morphed into vibrant aliveness; her body moving gracefully and energetically through her lovely home; her conversation quick and funny and deep in all the ways I once knew it to be, but now even more so, vs. the slow flatness of the years in-between; and a grand zest for life and vision for the future that had seemed to wither through the times when the future looked so grim.
There is also a deeper, richer quality/perception/sense of reality that has emerged with her recovery. I think the years of stillness and aloneness, painful as they may have been, gave birth to a remarkable deepening of wisdom and compassion. While Judi from a young age has always been one of the "wise ones", there's now a presence of luminosity that goes far beyond her recovered health and well-being.
What a marvelous model of persistence, discipline, hope, and practices of all sorts Judi has been for so many of us. And what a blessing that she is now offering her skills, insights and experience through the journey with MS to that community so in need of hope and useful guidance.
I should add that, following our visit and inspired by her recovery, I decided to try the diet myself. I've had 25 years of being in and out of the medical loop with a variety of diagnoses attempting to explain symptoms of severe fatigue, pain, mind fog and other dysfunctional patterns that sometimes were severe for years at a time. For most of that time the label of Chronic Fatigue Immune Dysfunction Syndrome prevailed. More recently my health team settled on naming "it" variously as Lyme and its co-infections (Babesia et al), and Mold (with up to 42 varieties showing up in electro-dermal testing). Through a variety of treatments I finally began feeling well about a year ago. But there remained unexplained intense energy swings. After hanging out with Judi for a few days and getting that inflammation was undoubtedly at least a piece of what was happening in my body, I went on the diet. Four months later not only have I effortlessly (truly) dropped a needed dozen pounds, but I 'm also astonished at how well and "even" I feel almost all the time. This, after a long lifetime of great devotion to bread, cheese and sugar. And what else might this highly satisfying way of eating cure??? I've definitely become a devotee!
--Marjorie