I've been battling illness consistently for ten years.
And my idea of wellness is
different than an able-bodied person
that hasn't been sick
the way I have.
What does health mean to you?
Health is being well enough so that you can do stuff
and not think about it too much.
It's to be free of the pain.
And... free of the fatigue.
Preserve the health that I've regained.
To be recovered,
and to be, like, back in society.
I can be around people.
Be able to tolerate being around family members or friends.
You can be with people.
You can have, uh, maybe in the future, a job.
Doing the things I didn't realize I was missing before.
That's what wellness would mean to me, to be cured.
Are you going to get better?
Good morning.
So, we can do your heart-rate variability now.
She's gonna put a band around you.
I can't really lean forward.
And we also need to do this one.
- I know. - Hooked maybe?
- It doesn't hook or unhook. - Okay.
Here. I'm handing this to you.
- Got it? - Yes.
What you're supposed to do to get the mycotoxins out
is you're gonna drink charcoal, clay, and cholestyramine.
So...
Cholestyramine, it's not tolerated well sometimes
by chemically-sensitive patients.
- I'll have to put up with it. - The compound runs $280 a bucket.
- Wow! - You can pay for a bucket.
- Can I have a quick chat with her? - Oh, sure.
- Can we just step in here? - Sure.
- I'll meet you back in a second. - Okay.
You can head to the bathroom. I'll put a big towel for you there.
You can change your clothes.
So, she spat out a lot of numbers.
- What? - Like, big numbers.
- For tests. - I know.
It's $700, $300.
- Yeah. - This is that, that is this.
Yeah.
- I just worry about... - I don't...
...how we're going to manage...
But my thought is, like, let me just really get on it,
like, do everything she said,
and then see how I feel.
I feel like the point is to get relief,
and, like, get on my medications right.
There's a lot of things going on in my head, all panicky.
She's saying, "Quit your job and move to the Vineyard."
You know, she's talking about not being in a place
that's going to increase my toxicity.
I already know I have to make a big change.
I'm starting to be ready to leave New York.
It's dirty.
I am living proof that environmental illness can totally be resolved.
A big reason is because I had to make a decision that I don't want to die,
and I'm gonna stay in a clean environment.
I'm a New Yorker, and I'm living on the Vineyard.
It's called survival.
I think that I will get better and stay better
if I don't live in New York.
Obviously I don't care about...
the house more than I do your health.
- Right. - That's a given.
But if it's something that we can...
- Put off doing. - ...put off or should put off.
Point is is that the sooner we get the house in order,
the sooner we can start to get into a position to...
- sell it and move on. - Get the fuck out of here?
I don't think that necessarily us staying in the New York Metropolitan area...
- for long is a good idea. - No...
Obviously, your health is more important,
which is why I'm like, "We'll leave New York."
All right. Well, let's go get some priority from her.
The only way she could really get better
is by leaving the New York City area.
Well, thank you for that.
People ask me often.
Okay.
You know, "Why did you stay with her?"
If you found the love of your life
and they got cancer three months later, would you have left?
The answer is no, unless you're, you know, a total jerk.
I am in this with this person for the long haul.
A day with a sick Jill
is better than a day with no Jill.
Do you think you'll ever be fully recovered?
Based on my prior experiences with other patients,
I expect to see just as many improvements over the next four months,
probably more, as what we've seen in the last two.
As long as we keep nourishing your body at this point,
all we really can expect is you to recover.
Let's see about getting you into the real world.
- Hi, Drew. - Drew.
- Nice meeting you. - Awesome. Nice to meet you, too.
I've really gotten stronger.
I can tolerate more places, and you know what else?
I can be around people that have perfumes and fragrances.
And I've got a copy of our script here for you.
Everything I've done so far, it's really working.
Everything has made a difference.
And here you go. We're rolling.
Actualmente, no existe cura para la enfermedad de Alzheimer.
- It sounds really cute, actually. - Yeah.
No, yeah, it does. It sounds really cute.
Asegúrese de hablar con el médico del studio
sobre las preguntas que tenga.
How does it feel to be able to act again?
Oh, my gosh. I mean, how does it feel?
Okay. Here you go.
Faith is a big part of healing because the mind is where it starts.
It just goes to show you how powerful the brain is.
There is a clear linkage or integration of the mind and the body
in every human.
Gracias por participar.
Beautiful.
- All right. Got it. - Yay!
- Good. - I can sing to you, too.
Okay.
It just feels great to be able to be yourself again.
It feels great to be able to do some of this stuff that I once lost.
But I'm gaining back.
Can you tell me what the current state
of your relationship with Pilar is right now?
Pilar is...
Well, we had a lot of... A lot of things have happened, but...
There's no relationship at all.
She asked me not to communicate with her.
This mess is kind of...
Is kind of like our... the way things are right now.
Do you think that you guys are going to get a divorce?
I know that she wants one.
To use her words, she said that her love died.
- So what's next for you? - I don't know.
One thing for sure though,
I know in my heart that I gave everything that I possibly could.
Wherever she's at now is a result of all of my efforts.
I don't have any regrets.
I still care for her and I want her to be well.
Do you have any thoughts about your wellness journey,
about this process?
This process?
Well, okay, so...
People are gonna have their opinions regarding my story,
and I'm okay with that, you know?
Maybe it will plant seeds in positive ways for the right people.
So, you have some signs that I recognize very clearly.
You may very well have Lyme disease.
You doing all right? One minute down, one to go.
Five, six, seven, eight, nine.
Seven, eight, nine...
Yeah.
- I don't know why this makes me giggle. - Five.
Six.
Up!
Boom!
- All right! - Nice work!
- I don't know. I feel strong today. - Good!
When I went to the Sophia Health Institute,
the plan was to go for a one- to two-to three-week intensive.
I did two, then followed the instructions to continue the work here from home.
I'm supposed to get infrared sauna twice a week,
colonic one to two times per week,
and then liver support will be coffee enemas and castor oil packs.
That helps flush the liver.
What I'm doing right now is a lot,
but I'm doing it because I'm dedicated to my health.
Do you feel half as good as you look?
I'm feeling pretty good for me.
- Yeah. - I'm waking up with energy and...
Unreal.
You know, like, my brain even is more balanced.
Like, I feel organized.
It's the European style of medicine that detoxes,
eliminates, and remediates, like, every day.
It's giving you what you're...
you're receiving, that your body is enjoying.
Oftentimes, I'd be taking so many supplements,
and I didn't really feel much of a difference.
What I'm doing now is just a different program.
I'm treating myself in a different way and boosting my immune system.
And I'm finding I'm getting results,
and that's all that matters to me is the results.
I feel really good about the path that we're on,
and if we did not have kind of a natural approach to everything
ever since we met until this very moment, who knows where we would be, you know?
To watch her come through is like a miracle,
because there's been tremendous breakthroughs
where now her healing crises is a healing journey.
I'm feeling like we're getting ready to break through to a new level
with the vibrancy that she's starting to gain.
I'm on a journey
to heal my body.
My symptoms...
headaches, nausea, pain, fatigue...
went way down.
I've had more energy and more stability.
I feel a calming to my dystonia symptoms.
Continuing to build up my immune system,
I think that can lead to a full healing.
That's my goal.
Detoxification has to be a lifelong strategy.
This is not that you go for two years
and then you're done.
This has to be a daily practice.
For the first time in a long, long time,
I feel hope.
And I'm more grounded, and more energized,
and more excited about life in general.
And I'm truly, like... I'm so blessed.
Okay. This arm.
We're gonna do this arm.
Do you have decent veins?
No.
All that weightlifting...
We'll get some blood.
I was definitely surprised about Gordon's opinion.
The truth is it's extremely difficult to diagnose ME.
It's much easier to dismiss the disease like so many doctors
and people in general frequently do.
135, 87, 85.
I still believe that I have ME and for good reason.
I have been diagnosed with ME by other doctors.
It's important to know that while I greatly respect Dr. Gordon,
his is merely one opinion.
Happy birthday to you
- Happy birthday to you - No.
Happy birthday dear Jamison
Uncle Jamison
Happy birthday to you
Light show. These look pretty.
Look at those.
- Look at that. - Oh, cool.
- You could throw that against the wall. - And it wouldn't break. Nice.
Sesson. Nice.
I want to see the stars.
I wanna see the stars.
You want to see the stars? Yeah.
Can we come down now?
Here we come.
Being better would mean being able to rely on my body
to take care of itself again.
Ideally, I hope I'll be 100% healthy again someday.
Stars.
Honestly, I don't care about how I got sick.
As long as people recognize and legitimize what I have,
then it doesn't really matter what my illness is called.
All I really care about is feeling better and getting my life back.
Have you reconciled yourself
to the fact you might not be able to be back in New York?
I don't know.
I mean, in my darkest moments,
I think, like, "Oh, maybe I would just, like, go there to die."
The data shows that using ozone under pressure
really clears the disease almost totally.
So what we're essentially trying to do
is to activate your own stem cells.
We have seen with our treatment is that patients are not as sensitive
to the mold as they were.
Right.
Instinctively I thought, "This is dangerous for me."
Then I thought, "Let me fact-check this with the smartest patients that I know,"
and I asked them, "What's the deal?
I'm being offered this incredibly expensive treatment
that I wouldn't be able to afford on my own.
Should I do this?"
And they were all like,
"Sorry, kid.
Not for you,
not in your moldy situation."
I really wanted it to be
this answer that's gonna heal you.
Like, of course I want that.
But it's not a thing that I should be...
fucking with at this point.
I'm gonna go talk to him about which way to come in.
You to watch that side and I'll watch this side.
Isn't it majestic?
- Yeah, so big. - I don't mean to be dramatic,
but it's majestic.
We met this guy out in Tucson
who is building me a safe trailer.
Now we have...
the option of, you know, putting it here,
which is a little tricky.
Living in the van is becoming dangerous.
It's like hundreds and hundreds of degrees,
and then at night temperature drops.
I don't have the immune system to handle that.
I mean, obviously, this is good because it's further away from the house.
You smell.
What, bad?
- It's okay. - All right.
They called it MECU,
Mobile Environmental
Containment Unit.
It's basically just a safe space
for people that can't tolerate
living in, you know, even minimal levels of mold.
Oh, it's beautiful.
And then there'd be a shower in there. The shower is in there.
It's a vent, so when you're showering, moisture will go up.
So you just lift it. See?
The cactuses have never looked so nice.
What do you think?
It's beautiful.
This bicoastal situation with the desert and Harvard makes sense.
I will go on a leave of absence for the next semester.
Nick and I will be changing places each semester.
You know, obviously, we want to have a home,
but home is where Rebekah can breathe.
And there's a TV. So, here's the keys to your trailer.
My ideal situation would have been able to find, like, safe housing.
I wasn't able to do that.
I needed a safe indoor space,
and the trailer is, like, a...
No, the trailer is that.
Sickness isolation is a sickness in and of itself. It becomes an illness.
Most people do not get locked in
to either an emotional problem or a physical problem.
And when they do, that's a huge problem.
I don't want to be known for being sick and being fucking homeless
in my pajamas in the desert in the worst state that I could imagine.
That's not my personal American dream.
I haven't made peace with it because it's just too heartbreaking.
Okay, Carmen.
- So... - Do you hope for a cure or a treatment?
There is not going to be a pill that makes me
able to go to...
to use a cellphone or fluorescent lights or all these things.
I...
There is not going to be.
The pill is non-exposure.
At home,
I'm not healthy,
and I want more.
The leaves are changing. It's so pretty.
There's breathtaking views every time you turn around.
Green Bank is so unique.
You're so much at home here. I'm so glad you're here.
Over here, I get a relief
of not feeling
all my symptoms all the time.
I am healthy here.
I need carrots, bananas, and pick up the cheddar cheese.
I could be a little longer in the grocery store,
even though they have fluorescent lights.
Oh, good. The paper's here.
Oh, is that the new one? Okay, I'll get that. Yeah.
That is wonderful.
It's a rest.
I need the bananas.
That's probably good.
I feel so good today. I feel so good.
It's even more refreshing, more...
It's like I'm young again.
I can put my sign back,
and sometimes, I wear it inside.
We don't need it right now. Okay.
I can have a life here one day,
but I cannot come here right now.
I have family ties at home,
and I don't want to be the absent mother.
I have that feeling little bit of abandoning them.
And I need to be with my husband.
He's my soulmate.
I couldn't do...
many things I do now without him.
He's helped me a lot through this.
So I'm sad to leave,
but I'm happy to see my family, so...
I guess I'm lucky.
So, my plan is to move here gradually.
Thank you, Diane.
No, don't get up. Thank you.
I have to wait
until my kids leave the nest.
I have to wait until my husband retires
to make a permanent, permanent move.
Now I'm positive because I see new possibilities.
I could be here,
detoxifying for a while,
and then I could go back home and not be in pain all the time.
And in a few years, our children have their own lives,
and me and my husband, we can have our own little life here.
That is hope.
What do you wish that everyone could understand about you?
I wish everyone
could understand that I don't want platitudes about my illness,
that I don't want people to tell me that everything's gonna be okay.
I don't want them to tell me that, you know, it's just time and,
you know, all these platitudes that don't mean anything.
About a month after I left the Hansa Center,
my symptoms were still progressing pretty dramatically.
I was practically comatose.
I started to feel maybe...
maybe I'm not gonna get better.
Maybe something else is going on, you know?
So, I finally got the blood test from the Hansa Center.
You know, I had certain heavy-metal toxicities.
Detoxifying those is extremely difficult.
It's really hard to get those out, so we have been heavily focusing on that,
on top of killing the bacteria which release these toxins when they die.
I just think it was too much for my body to take on right now.
So we're taking it a lot slower,
which has made me functional.
That's been the main difference.
Good girl!
Hansa Center definitely is treating the Lyme and coinfections.
I mean, I'm taking things called Lymogen,
you know, which is for Lyme.
Paragen, which is for parasites.
Borrelogen,
which is for Borrelia.
They are treating the Lyme disease, and they are treating the coinfections,
but that isn't the only focus
Like, everything else that I'm taking is helping strengthen my immune system.
Sticking with my protocol and continuing to treat,
even when I was feeling the way that I was feeling...
I am so glad that I decided to do that,
to continue treating
and to trust my doctor.
Had I quit,
I don't even know where I'd be right now.
Better doesn't mean well.
Better doesn't mean really good...
but better means where he can at least get out of bed,
he can speak, he can prepare his own meal,
and on really good days, he can even do his own shopping.
Little glimpses of wellness are like the Fourth of July.
We're gonna sing "Happy Birthday" to Grumpy. He forbade me to do 60 candles.
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear Dad Happy birthday...
Jake is actually beginning to have
longer periods of actually being more of himself.
- Happy birthday. - Thank you, son.
You made my day.
I'm having conversations with him,
and it's happening more frequently.
I'm so glad.
- I love you. - I love you, too.
Yeah!
My depersonalization, you know, I still have some pretty dramatic days...
Yes!
...but I think I'm coping with it better now.
Brayden has helped me figure out the patterns,
and she's been completely understanding about everything,
because this illness, you know,
she already told me it's not something that comes between us.
I wanted to show Brayden that no matter what's going on in our life,
no matter how horrible I'm feeling
that, to me, she still comes first.
I'm not gonna let this illness take that from me.
And so, you know, I got dressed up in a suit,
and I made her a fancy dinner and dessert,
and I proposed to her.
She cried and said, "Yes."
I love the idea that they are engaged.
And for Jake to propose to her while he's this sick,
that's so encouraging for all of us, I think.
We've already got a date set,
so I just feel hopeful about the future now,
about spending my life with the woman I love,
you know, and with this new appreciation I have of family.
And so I've actually been able to start hoping to feel better,
because I've started to feel better.
How's it going?
Good.
You wanted to talk title?
A few months ago, I wasn't even sure if I'd be able to score "Final Space,"
but now I've reached a point where it's stable enough
that I can prepare for it and prepare my co-composer, Shelby.
The trailer idea, and then the MH3 song on that
that I might need your help with.
I wasn't feeling super well for the last couple of trailers,
but, God, do I want to make a trailer song,
- like, really badly. - Yeah.
Knowing that he's creating music again is...
It does this mother's heart good.
Making sure that this is the right key.
It's just so awesome to see him being himself again.
I really do feel like I have hope for the first time in a long time.
This was the first song that I worked on
when I started feeling well enough to work on music again.
I was feeling better. It's called "Spark."
I was just feeling...
sparky, I guess.
Yeah.
I learned a lot about myself through my illness.
I was living as a narcissist.
That is not okay.
And this illness reminded me that my family,
they've always been there for me.
They've always loved me,
and I needed to show them that I loved them, too.
My life is just different.
It's just different, and it's better,
and that happened because I got really, really, really sick.
And as weird as it sounds, I'm just really thankful for that.
Nobody really wants to be sick.
The role of being a sick person
is undesirable for most people.
Patients are not trying to come in and waste your time
and tell you that they feel horrible just to tell you that.
Whether it's from bacteria or parasites or viruses or fungus
or if it's in your head...
It's just as real.
There are plenty of people who have physical symptoms
that are being generated by their brain.
It's not in their head. Literally, it's originating in their head,
but there are messages being sent between your brain and your gut.
If you perceive pain,
but you have no obvious physical source for pain,
you still experience pain.
When people are suffering, they're suffering.
Being validated as a human being is critical.
We have to really open up the world of possibility
and evaluate these people as individuals
and be willing to open our minds to saying,
"We don't know what's going on, but these people need help."
What they want is they want to get better.