First off, I AM going to be okay! But we unfortunately do have some lame, sad news to share about my health. Now that we finally have real answers and action plans, I’m ready to open up about it.
I have a serious post-viral complication from covid called Cervical Spinal Instability -feel free to Google it, but in a VERY simplified explanation, my brain stem is getting squished, and many of my major nerves like the vagus nerve etc are being compressed. It causes all kinds of problems, as you can imagine. And it’s progressive as the tendons and ligaments continue to damage and weaken.
The fix is to have a spinal fusion, to fuse my skull to my top two neck vertebrae. There is an experimental stem cell procedure that we are looking into trying first.
I’m very sad and frustrated about it but after getting the diagnosis, I’ve been able to start managing symptoms with chiropractic care and PT and I’m already feeling immensely improved. I’m hopeful that this means my body is responding well and that the alternative therapies will work to heal my body so that I won’t need the surgery.
We started sailing a couple of weeks ago with the help of David and Holly, who are patrons of ours. They’re heaven sent no doubt and getting moving again has really lifted our spirits.
Not included in the video is the news that Brett’s dad has recently been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of leukemia.
Things have been hard here in the Evans’ household!
We don’t know what comes next for us but we are happy to be on the water and FILMING again. Filming is genuinely such a great thing for us, it keeps us in the moment and really encourages us to focus on the good and after such a long period of self isolation we are definitely aching to connect again. Thank you for being our reason to get up and get going again.
With love,
Jade
@ExpeditionEvans
@ExpeditionEngineering
My symptoms for the curious:
All these symptoms began appearing over the last year with the first showing up just after having a bad case of Covid that caused my eardrum to rupture. The symptoms progressed exponentially
Shivers up the spine (very frequently) sometimes feels like electric shock
Electrical or ozone-like taste when neck, back, or shoulder pops
Metallic Taste in the back of my throat
-Peripheral vision loss
-Darkness and blurring
-Ink drops appeared later
-occasionally things appear distorted or curved
Complete Vision loss for a few seconds upon standing – dizziness / falling
Numbness of right eye and right side of face
Hearing is muted in right ear + popping and crackling
Car sickness!? (I’ve never had motion sickness before!!)
Intense facial pain + tension on the right side. Tension pain
Jaw clicks when opened
Sensitivity to light
Restless leg or random leg kicks
Itching + Histamine Sensitivity
Muscle knot at the base of the skull on the right side
Unilateral Symptoms (right side)
Intense nerve pain on right side of body
Pain and inflammation on right side
Joints feel “out of place”
Time dilation / disassociation
Intense pain at base of neck
Migraines everywhere in head
Symptoms improve when horizontal
Stuck in “fight or flight” but in my body rather than emotions. My body feels stressed
Clumsy fine motor skills
That’s all I can think of right now but that’s a pretty good list of my main symptoms. All were very light and minor and got worse with time
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