Wow, I’ve been slacking when it comes to posting all of the beautiful hearts that are streaming in! They are piling up so I plan to post some every day this week…
Today’s heart is an amazing way to start the week. It is so powerful and FUN. It put a big smile on my face.
Thank you to Nadia who sent this in from Singapore… much love.
Here are some hearts from the kids that sent them into me a couple weeks ago.
I took all of them and just sat in the middle of the colorful hearts on Saturday. I could feel the love, I could see all of these sweet little 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders coloring away just to make me and my heart smile. It’s amazing how much I am lifted just by looking at these. I spend time with my hearts every day. Morning and night, they help me picture a perfect healthy heart inside of me.
Even more amazing? Some of the messages they wrote to me… Enjoy.
“…are you a christian?”
don’t be sick ever again!
so precious
i hope the sickness goes away soon
don’t be worried
be brave
there is always hope
don’t be scared
so sweet
don’t be scared
well wishes and a sad face
“get healthy. or make a 1,000 paper cranes and you get one wish from the gods”
sparkling heart!
“we could keep your heart healthy by eating vegetables and fruits”
“drink a lot of water and eat fruits”
“…if you have no heart you cannot breathe”
“you have to eat fish and crab”
keep your heart healthy by eating fruit
vegetables milk and exercise
a beautiful freehand drawing
Pump it Up!
thump thump thump
i love his illustration
rainbow bright heart
dude!
stay healthy be safe
a heart that shines
admiring all of my hearts
feeling loved
I finally have an address as to where you can send your completed hearts.
Of course, you can email the finished products to me at savelaurensheart [at] gmail [dot] com, but you can also send them to me the old fashioned way:
Lauren Del Vecchio
166 Allen Street PM BOX #23
New York, NY 10002-2110
I can’t wait to get more Healthy Hearts. I am going to make a collage project out of them.
Here are some from this week… I love them all so much.
A big part of healing my heart involves a bunch of different exercises that I do on the regular. I’ve found the latest one to be a lot of fun and I can actually witness it helping me out, training my thoughts to focus on only one thing: my heart is healthy! My “assignment” was to find an image of a healthy heart, make a bunch of copies, and color the heart every night before bed. This way, when I picture my ticker I picture a healthy beautiful heart with perfect valves. The idea is for my mind to take this image and send the message to my body, which will then follow along and create this healthy heart inside me. It’s all about believing to the core that my heart is perfect (or will be soon).
I took it one step further and started to ask my friends to color along with me when they come to hang at my place. Most of them get really into it (I think coloring reminds us all of being a child), and this way I have others picturing my heart as a healthy perfect ticker (also, turns out coloring is very calming).
Then, I had another idea! I figured I could post them up here and give all of you the image to color as well! This way, every one of you can help heal my heart along with me. You can color the hearts and think healthy thoughts as you do so. Your collective thoughts will be absorbed into all of these wonderful images and sent my way and I’ll get better and better! It would mean so much to me. If we all concentrate on this healthy image we can truly create a shift, a difference in my body.
Then, you can send your finished products to me!
I’m going to turn this into a project and may even make a collage of all the healthy Lauren hearts I receive so I can stare at them every day –and I will definitely post them up here for everyone to see. I will be posting a P.O. Box address as to where you can send the colored hearts here on my site later today. I hope I get some!
For now, here is the link to where you can find a black and white image of a healthy heart with perfect valves. It is ready for your imagination and colors and good intentions. Underneath the link are some images my friends and I have colored so far. I think they are all amazing and gorgeous.
For heart image click HERE!!!
Today, another step in a positive direction; I’ve officially turned off my Google Alerts for the following keywords:
Sure, it’s great to know what’s happening and at times I even find articles within these alerts that I write about here, YET they do more harm than help on my mental state most of the time. Every single Scleroderma alert typically opens up with an announcement of someone’s death that is covered in a small town newspaper. It talks about their fight with this incurable disease, and how this good person didn’t stand a chance against it… and while I purposely don’t let it affect me, it must do damage and terrify me on some level because I think of them from time to time. Really though, who needs to read about death every day?
The thing is, I’ve gotta keep my head in the “game”, and my healing and positivity game when it comes to my condition is pretty on point right now. I’m happy to let these obsessions go. Once upon a time I felt like if I read every single piece of information regarding my condition(s) available out there on the web I would miraculously cure myself. Like, if I could just wrap my head around these illnesses, or narrow it down to the very second I got ill, or my heart started failing, and somehow make myself understand, I would make it all disappear…
Happy to be at this point. Baby steps, but progress nonetheless! The only Google Alert that I kept? My fave, Stevie Nicks.
I’m at my best when I stay far away from the doctor’s offices. Unfortunately, I cannot stay far away for very long considering that I have a standing appointment with my heart failure specialist at Columbia every three months. They like to keep a close watch on my ticker since it is quite the mystery…
In between appointments I keep my mind in a great place. I truly believe with every cell in my body that I will heal myself, that my heart will improve –if not heal completely. I work really hard with different healers and holistic doctors, I do my own work, I read and research. But most of all, I believe and I stay positive.
There’s nothing like a trip to the hospital to drain that from you. It’s like going into battle for me. Simply walking into the hospital is enough to give me an anxiety attack. I prepare mentally for the worst and I put up a shield so no words can hurt me. Not that my doctor wants to hurt me but their “frankness” can be a lot for anyone to handle. For instance, this time around a single sentence is what stung the most; when I asked my doc what she would do if she were me in this situation she began looking through my files and started her answer by saying “well, eventually we are going to have a problem…” meaning, according to her medical training my heart is bound to only go in one direction. She’s the expert, that’s why I go to her, but I just can’t think like that. No way.
So, here I am in the aftermath of a trip to Columbia at the end of last week. Part of me has to be sensible and prepared so I do my research and consider what we’d have to do in the event that I do need open heart surgery to repair my valve. I hate even thinking about it, but it would be stupid of me not to.
My current problem is how do I do both? How do I believe and stay my own course of healing while making preparations for the sensible world of western medicine?
I’m very cranky today. Sometimes I get incredibly fed up with having to make decisions about my health/my life constantly.
If you can detach this idea from organized religion in your mind for a moment, a miracle is actually a shift in forces of energy.
I believe they do not happen overnight, rather it’s something that is built up, constantly worked at. I am working toward a miracle for my heart. Working really hard. Reading, learning, meditating, changing my body through energy work, help from healers. Eventually I know I will reach total recovery.
I have a renewed faith in my body to take care of my heart, to create a miracle.
I think about this phenomenon a lot.
Isn’t it a beautiful thought?
It’s amazing what a few weeks absent of doctors does for me.
It’s obvious from this journal that I have become somewhat obsessed with healing myself which includes attending many standing appointments each week –most of which I have come to convince myself that I now wouldn’t be able to live without.
It takes a lot for me to leave this “routine”. I feel like a missed acupuncture session (I go once every two weeks), or osteopathic visit (once every three weeks), or pain management therapy (once a week) could be the difference between a happy, able-bodied Lauren and complete illness or disability. It’s very black and white in my mind, and I am always striving for that illusive balance.
Being away from my every day life for a short time helped of course. I decidedly push myself into certain circumstances where I may not feel 100 percent safe (within reason of course). I mean traveling, or being away from my resources: my “team” of healers and doctors and an arsenal of herbal remedies, healing teas, and supplements (I have an entire cupboard dedicated to this). I feel compelled to force myself outside of my comfort zone often otherwise it’s just too easy to stay confined to a bed, a couch, my apartment, and a small circle of life which makes my world smaller and smaller by the day. You start to believe you cannot do things. In my opinion, that is not living.
So the past three weeks has been about pushing. Again, within reason (I’ve learned that pushing too far in either direction is no good). But, I write today very happy and feeling healthy. I am always a little bit closer to accepting that my health condition will never be perfect, and I must do things that many people my age won’t have to worry about for another fifty years. But, I’ve come to enjoy being conscious of my heart, listening to my body, respecting when it shows me signs of distress, which in turn keeps me incredibly grateful for every new day. I’ve never felt so proud walking up subway stairs (with mini breaks of course)!
Now the test will be to keep in this head space. I have an illness within an illness to control here: it’s the phone calls, insurance companies, doctors offices, and general healthcare insanity that I find infects me. Trying to keep up is ultimately oppressive and heavy –and often times even on a good day a bad phone call could crumble it all.
It takes a lot of strength not to feed into the cycle. I’m ready for the challenge. All I keep repeating to myself is: I am healthy, my heart is healthy in its own way, and everything is gonna be alright.
Today I am off to the Osteopath. I credit him for a lot of my progress this year.
When I first started seeing the Osteopath I had never heard of this type of doctor before. I started seeing him one year ago this month and it was right after one of my many awful ischemic colitis episodes. I suspect these attacks happen from all the medication I was taking and it is basically the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. I was hospitalized 13 times in 2008 alone mostly from these awful episodes. The blood vessels in my stomach contract and prevent any blood to reach the intestines causing lack of oxygen and mind bending agony as well as some other gross stuff which I won’t get into here. So basically, when I saw Dr. V for the first time my stomach was in shambles and I was incredibly underweight and weak after yet another hospitalization.
Over the past year I have seen him at least once a month (in the beginning it was once a week). I noticed how great I felt after each adjustment and since I saw him two weeks ago I’ve felt more and more amazing with each day. I really trust my Osteopath because not only does he know what he is doing (super smart dude) but he also really cares about his patients, and he knows the human body well. He is also a true natural healer, a believer that in most cases the body can and will heal itself if given the right conditions. I was immediately drawn into Osteopathy because of the holistic approach it takes to the human body. The belief that every organ must work harmoniously to create an optimal environment for health and healing makes perfect sense to me.
A treatment at the Osteopath is as simple as lying on your back for thirty to forty five minutes. There is no cracking or pulling as in Chiropractic medicine. This is completely gentle, and the doctor usually places his hands on your lower back (sacrum), back of my neck and head, face, and over my stomach. You can feel him manipulating the muscles and bones very soft and easy. There is no discomfort or pain involved. It’s basically nap time.
I am so grateful to have found a doc like Dr. V. From my experiences I know doctors like him are very hard to find in a city filled with cold ego maniac physicians. I know that with his help I will be healed and brand new. He says my disease is regressing. He says he believes I can be one hundred percent healed of my condition. And I believe him.
l] 
