Hi, my name is Leigh.

I am the mother of three incredible boys. I share my life with my husband Neil who brings laughter, love, and purpose to each day.

At 56 years old I never expected to be living my healthiest, happiest life.

I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at the age of 22. Multiple sclerosis is a chronic auto-immune disease of the central nervous system. As the disease progresses communication between the brain and the rest of the body is diminished. Over four decades of illness I have experienced times without sight, without full use of my limbs, and without any color in my visual field. I’ve also struggled with double vision, slurred speech and long periods of diminished cognitive thought due to inflammation and central nervous system scarring.

During this past decade my disease became something even my doctor’s didn’t recognize. I lost the ability to eat food. As my body reacted to foods I battled insomnia, prescription drug side effects, surgeries, pelvic reconstruction and rehabilitation. Eventually all food became toxic and I survived on IV lines. My weight dropped from 117 pounds to 87 pounds as I struggled to find a foothold.

After three years of searching for help from medical professionals I was told, “There is nothing more we can do for you.” I vividly remember the morning I sat on my husband’s lap terrified there would be no tomorrow. The newest blood work showed my cells were replicating with amoeba like walls. My inflammatory markers of disease had climbed so far off the scale of measurement they no longer held any meaning.

The fight back was the longest, loneliest battle I’ve ever faced. My severe reaction to foods brought long periods of isolation, fear and depression. All of my other symptoms of disease paled in comparison to this challenge. I lived behind a mask in my own home. I was unable to join family meals, go into other people’s homes, or restaurants.  I wore a mask in the grocery store and wherever small particles from building materials and food were in the air.

When the inflammation peaked from single bites of food my world became void of color. My vision was reduced to shapes without definition. The digestive challenges were so humiliating I rarely left my home. Swelling affected my brain and choked off nerve function to my extremities making each step a challenge.

So what changed?

Change began in the office of Dr. Ryan Seay when he asked me the simple question “Leigh, who do you see when you look in the mirror?” Much to my surprise I answered, “A person I hate.”

His question brought into focus an awareness I had never faced. I hated myself for person I’d become. I blamed myself for choosing a physician who butchered my pelvic organs, I blamed myself for being so malnourished that I lost my thick dark hair — something I loved about my reflection. I blamed myself for my limited relationship with my husband because my body was ravaged with pain and surgical complications. Most of all I blamed myself for losing years of my children’s lives because of social limitations created by digestive horrors.

Dr. Seay gave me the first of many practices that changed the course of my life. And thus began a daily quest to build a friendship with the person I saw in my mirror.

My practices grew to include a series of lifestyle and nutritional habits that nourish emotional and physical change.

I discovered the power of healing grew from my daily choices. But recovery wasn’t simple. For years moments of better were followed by months of starting over. However, those glimpses of good allowed me to believe better was worth fighting for.

You can choose to feel sad or you can choose to feel happy. They are both hard work.

If I can give you just one gift from the lessons I’ve learned it would be to restore your awareness that wellness needs to be nourished every day. It is nourished through choices you make. You knew this instinctively when you were young. You need to know it again by renewing wellness.

In this past year I built long lasting wellness into my life. I play competitive golf, take vertical climbs through foothills, lift weights, and practice yoga. I recently completed a year-long coaching certification program from the Integrative Institute of Nutrition. My cognitive health is restored.  I am able to eat in restaurants and travel with my husband.

Most recently I learned, my left eye weakened by years of steroid injections, a retina tear, cataract surgery, and optic neuritis can read a 4 font without reading glasses. This is unusual because I have an artificial intra ocular lens set to 30 feet and should not be able adjust to short distances. My doctor took pictures of my eye to try to understand why I can see with such precision. The picture reveals that new tissue has grown over part of the lens. As he shook his head in disbelief he repeated over and over, “This finding is hard to understand and is completely unexpected. Somehow your eye uses the new tissue to adjust its focal distance.”

I laughed watching his reaction because it isn’t the first time I’ve heard that remark about the changes I’m generating.

Healing — it is the gift of single choices. It isn’t an easy road … but it is a road that gets easier. And it is a choice that becomes intoxicating.

All of us face challenges. It is the choices we make when faced with challenges that remove or renew wellness in our lives. If you don’t have people stopping to ask you why you radiate, you deserve better.

I welcome you to join me and practice choices of wellness one step, one choice at a time.

August 2015 marks the first full year of recovery for me in a decade… imagine what you can do!