A journey starting in western medicine and pharmacy through the Colombian mountains and leading to my own body and mind. A serenade for my own land, my own body.

 

2009 I was studying in Bogotá, Colombia at the Universidad Nacional, when I began to feel the symptoms. My eyes were moving slow, weird, they felt swollen, they felt changed. The doctors didn’t find anything for one whole year, allopathy said it could be myasthenia gravis, homeopathy said it could be liver intoxication. In 2010 they found it -- MS, white matter lesions on my brain, fortunately none on my spine. 

 

A journey began, listening to every single comment, searching for doctors, healers, nutritionists, plant-knowers, MS specialists in neurology in different countries, Buddhist monks. I have been on that journey for over ten years, I have tried every single thing western medicine has proposed for this disease, yet I have decided to divorce neurology. 

 

I spent days in the Colombian mountains talking to indigenous healers, I took part in different rituals, I have tried healing plants, peyote, ayahuasca, yagé, yopo. I have listened to female friends who have deep botanical knowledge and hear the voices of the trees and of the woods. I have spent years researching the science, from biology, chemistry, physics. I have developed my own theory about matter together with physicists from CERN, on how molecules can decide to form a body or a white lesion on my brain. I have felt my body change, my legs numb, my spine swollen, my hands vibrate. 

 

And finally I have tried, during the last four years, to listen to my body. Only in this way have I been able to control the MS. It is now almost impossible to see it on an MRI scan. I have been symptom-free for over 4 years and am finding my own way on how to heal my autoimmune disease completely.