Truth and Consequences

I'm back! And I have to tell you, I've learned a lot these past six weeks. I've learned a lot about me and I've learned a lot about how I was making the mistake that I often tell all of you not to make.

How many years have I sat here and said, you have to trust your gut more than you trust others? That you must always stand in your truth?

Today I want to talk about when you do not stand in your truth, you can bet you will face the consequences big time.

I knew about a year ago something was going wrong, but I didn't want it to be true. I just wanted to think it was not a big deal, and that what was happening to me was normal.

It started to collapse as I would walk and when I would go upstairs. After this was going on for quite a while, I went to the doctor and got an X-Ray. He told me I just have a weak quad and to do some quad exercises.

After some heavy-duty quad exercises, it just wasn’t getting stronger, so I called another doctor. He said it sounded like I simply overextended my knee and I should get a knee brace.

Then I noticed my thumb and index finger in my right hand started to get those pins and needles in it, and they were going numb. So, I go to another doctor and they tell me I probably have carpal tunnel syndrome and to wear a wrist brace.

Now, I have a brace on my knee, I have a brace on my wrist, and still, things just don't seem right. I wanted to believe these doctors so much over what I knew in my gut, that I stood in their truth and not my own.

As time went on, all the symptoms started to get worse. One day, KT looked at me and said that it looked like all the muscles in the back of my leg were gone, completely atrophied.

We call up my general practitioner and we tell him everything that now is going on and he says, Suze, listen to me, this is not your leg, this is not carpal tunnel syndrome. I need you to come back to Florida and I need you to get three MRIs.

I didn't want to go and get the MRIs though because I didn't want there to be a possibility that he was going to find something. But in my gut, I knew that something wasn't right, and that's what I needed to do.

You know when you don't want to believe certain things so you just keep avoiding it, when you don't stand in the truth of what you know - that's what I was doing. Yes, Suze Orman was doing that with her own health.

Well, we go to Florida and they tell me I can’t do the requested MRIs all in one day because each one takes about an hour, and that's too long for me to lie there. So they asked which MRI I wanted to do and, of course, I say the leg MRI.

I do the MRI on my leg and nothing is wrong. Then what do KT and I do? Oh, we go back to our home on the island because I don't want to face doing the other MRIs. We go back to the island, and in those next two weeks, things started to go south very quickly. I couldn't hold a pen, I couldn't hold a fork, I couldn't write, I couldn't do a lot of things.

So, KT and I turned around again and we go back to Florida and I finally get the MRIs that my general practitioner originally ordered and that I had been avoiding for fear of the truth.

A few hours later, I get a call from my doctor and he delivers the news that I have a tumor on my thoracic between C-3 and C-6 and it's cutting off about 80% of my spinal cord. I have to schedule surgery to remove it right away.

Within a couple days I was headed in for surgery. After 10-12 hours, they were able to remove the entire tumor, which they did not originally think they were going to be able to do. It had been growing for 15 years and they had to take out two of my discs, grind them down and put in a titanium shaft.

And today I am writing to you almost fully recovered, and expecting a 100% recovery within the next couple of months!

The reason that this is so important is because if I had let this go just a little longer, I would likely be paralyzed today. All because I didn't want to listen to my gut. All because I didn't want to face my truth, and I chose to believe other people's truth instead. And my consequence could have easily been ending up paralyzed.

I will now and always be standing in my truth in every possible area of my life, including my health. And that is my wish for all of you – that you can learn from my story and remember to always stand in your truth and trust yourself above others.