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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