“Fuck trying to be perfect all the time and always doing the right thing at all costs,” I say. I have a major realization: if I die tomorrow, I’m not going to get a gold medal because I’ve only had a handful of boyfriends or hosted the perfect dinner party. I’m not going to get a gold medal for being the perfect wife. There’s no award for being a good girl at the end of this journey. I need to start living my truth! I think about my life in Hollywood and realize that I hate it. My disdain for superficial Beverly Hills is the reason I packed up and moved to Santa Barbara when Mohamed and I separated. Now, twelve years later, I’m back? Why? How? I feel so trapped by the big life we have at home: all the social obligations, charities, my job, and my house. None of it matters to me anymore. What used to bring me joy and make me happy has vanished, and all that is really important is my health and my children’s health, and a way out of the hell that I’ve lived since I got sick.
All of a sudden it starts pouring rain, bringing our six-hour laughing marathon to an end. I walk over to the outdoor shower, which is built in a beautiful pond filled with water lilies. They seem like the most gorgeous things that I’ve ever seen, so I sit on the shower floor with the hot water pouring over my head and I am mesmerized by the very clear view of a white water lily that seems magically lit by a spotlight. Water drips slowly from its leaves and everything is clear and colorful in a way that I’ve never seen before.
I only sleep for a couple of hours that night, and when the sunrise wakes me around five o’clock, I feel strangely positive—or maybe just spiritually awakened. I also have a great sense of gratitude for all that I’ve experienced in my three short days here. I want to feel the dirt beneath my soles so I go for a barefoot walk through the rice fields, where I see women in their seventies or eighties bending over and doing hard physical labor. It inspires me and reminds me how strong we really are. It gives me hope that one day I will be gardening, growing, and eating my own organic vegetables again. There’s something so grounding about strolling slowly in the heat, sweating, and just taking in life after feeling as if I’ve gotten so disconnected from the earth and life itself. I feel great clarity about what is real and important in the world. I still have the same joint pain, exhaustion, and all my other ailments, but I finally start to feel and understand that my emotional well-being is a very important part of this puzzle in uncovering the mystery of my chronic disease. Far away from my life, I finally tap into my higher consciousness.
Riding on an elephant has always been a dream of mine, so Paige and I go to an elephant sanctuary, not a tourist place, but one where they rescue elephants from all over Asia. They are so big and breathtaking and I never understood how anyone could harm these beautiful creatures just for their tusks. Sitting on top of the elephant, I’m in awe of the sturdy strength of his body beneath me. Aren’t elephants supposed to be lucky? Maybe some of his strength will rub off on me.
The whole time I’ve been in Bali, David hasn’t called me or responded to any of my texts. Still, when I get home, I feel excited and invigorated, and I want to share the twenty-three pages I wrote. I’m hoping this will help David understand who I am deep inside and my vulnerabilities. Maybe sharing it will bring us closer.
“I would like you to read this; it’s raw and unedited,” I say, proudly holding the thick stack of handwritten pages out to him. “It’s my truth without worrying about hurting anyone’s feelings or offending anyone.” I assume he will be excited that I’ve had such an enormous breakthrough in my writing, but he’s not responsive or engaging in my joy.
“It will tell you all you need to know about how I’ve felt these past couple of years,” I say.
“I can’t right now,” he replies, shaking his head. I’m disappointed because David knows that I haven’t been able to write like this these past three years and how painful that has been for me. Maybe he’s scared to read the truth because he doesn’t want to deal with the consequences of what I have to say or even open that box. The lid is on. It’s safe where it is. This shouldn’t surprise me because that’s how he deals. Yet I’m handing him this long piece of writing, one filled with my deepest emotions and thoughts, and he won’t look at it? If you truly love someone, don’t you want to know what’s inside the other person? The light AND the darkness? The good AND the bad? I don’t know if he ever read it.
Chapter Nine
YOU CAN BREAK DOWN A WOMAN TEMPORARILY, BUT A REAL WOMAN WILL ALWAYS PICK UP THE PIECES, REBUILD HERSELF, AND COME BACK EVEN STRONGER THAN EVER.
People, both friends and strangers, often tell me about Lyme-related treatments and cures, and I’m grateful for all the suggestions as I navigate the dark maze of the unknown. Most of the time, my intuition says, no, no, no. Occasionally, however, one of these suggestions feels right in my gut and I want to know more. This happens one night when David comes home from a charity event where he saw the TV producer and director George Schlatter.
“George has been struggling with his health for a long time, but now he looks fantastic,” David says. “He wants to talk to you about this doctor in Tijuana.”
The next day, I call George, and he tells me about Dr. William Rader, whose focus is on an embryonic stem cell treatment that he practices in Tijuana because it’s not legal in the U.S. George sends me Dr. Rader’s book and a video, where Nancy Reagan praises this treatment, which is being used for various things like Alzheimer’s, brain damage, and autism. I do my best to read the book, which means going over the same page multiple times and highlighting what makes sense to me. I’ve always been fascinated by stem cell therapy, so I’m intrigued. I research Dr. Rader, and although I read some negative things, I see that many celebrities have gone to see him and benefited. These people have access to the best. There must be something to his treatments.
Even though I’ve had so many disappointments, I still get excited every time I hear about something that sounds promising. Somewhere deep inside it feels as if I am going to crack this code before my time on Planet Earth is up. I am going to figure this out and find an affordable cure for all. I’m determined not to leave any stone unturned. My next step is a trip to Tijuana. And I’m hopeful.
May 23, 2014
On my way to Napa with my
six hundred pages on stem cell research.
#MedicineOfTheFuture #Cure4LymeDisease
Once again, Paige is the Thelma to my Louise, and she joins me on this new adventure. Following the instructions we get from Dr. Rader’s clinic, Paige drives us to a hotel in San Diego near the Mexican border. Here, we park the car and wait for a van to pick us up. We’re with a whole group of people, a mix of every age, race, class, shape, and size. The sense of desperation and hopelessness is thick in the air, and it’s clear that many of these people are here as a last chance to stay alive. Some are first-timers like me; others are returning patients who had positive results from previous treatments. When we board the van, I sit down next to a woman who looks as if she’s around my age.
“My daughter was her high school’s star basketball player with several offers from colleges when she got so sick that she couldn’t get out of bed,” she tells me. “But after her treatment with Dr. Rader, she was up in two days and on the hotel treadmill. Now I’m here for myself.” This calms my nerves about the total madness of going with a bunch of strangers in a crowded van to cross over the border into Tijuana! It’s a mind-blowing experience, and for what we paid, I should be flying in and out of Mexico by private helicopter. After driving for about an hour, we pull up to what looks more like a hotel than any of the clinics that I’ve been to. Then I realize that it is a hotel and that Dr. Rader’s office is hidden in its basement down a long hallway with old, peeling paint on the walls. How did I get here? Have I lost my mind? I doubt my decision for a split second, but when there are no answers to your chronic illness, you become relentless and desperate. When you’re desperate, you do crazy shit that, in another frame of mind, you might even call irresponsible. I’ve become part of this
down-low community of people who practice underground medicine that is not approved by the FDA. I’m in do-or-die mode.
After thirty long minutes with too much time to debate my decision to come here, I’m brought in to meet Dr. Rader, a mysterious but very kind man with pasty white skin. He asks if I have any questions and, after a brief exchange of words, he orders his nurse to give me an IV. After a lot of poking and prodding, she can’t find a vein that works in either of my arms. My veins are tired and overused. Is my body telling me not to do this? Is this a sign? The nurse covers my arms in heating pads, which is a trick used to dilate the veins. I’m also dehydrated, so after I drink a couple of bottles of water, the nurse finally finds a vein and runs some IV fluids. The actual treatment is a simple intramuscular injection of stem cells in my butt. Then, along with other patients, I’m placed in a hyperbaric chamber that almost looks like a sauna. I gaze around the room, stunned and overwhelmed at the number of sick people here. Why is everybody sick these days? And why so many sick children and babies when they’re supposed to be healthy and living life? Is it our water? Our food? Our toxins? Our air?
The whole experience feels very secretive and strange especially as we’re led back to the van and dropped off close to the Mexican border. One of the patients asks the driver why he’s leaving us here.
“This is as far as I can go,” he tells us. “From here, you have to walk back into the United States.” Walk across the border? I didn’t even know that you could do that from one country to another.
“But here are some passes for the VIP line so you can cross it more quickly.” The driver hands us the passes and we go on our way. I thought that was nice until I learn that this doesn’t exist. There is one line and one line only. All we can do is wait like everyone else in the longest line I’ve seen in my life, one so endless that vendors have set up stands where you can actually buy things like shoes, hats, and toys, and you pass all these pharmacies while you move along the line. This is probably the ultimate low of my journey. I’ve really fucking lost my mind! But there are people in wheelchairs, so who am I to complain?
It feels like a scene straight out of the Dallas Buyers Club, a movie that actually inspired me and got me thinking that a cure could be in Mexico, a place where doctors can practice freely without being limited by the FDA. The rare times that I’ve been out and about in the last year or so, people have recognized me from the Housewives. That’s fine at Starbucks or the mall, but not when I’m crossing the Mexican border on foot after doing a treatment that’s not legal in the United States. Imagine the TMZ headlines! All I can think of is Blanca telling me how much her friends in Mexico love the show. To go incognito, I wear a baseball cap and sunglasses and immediately pull the hood of my sweatshirt tightly over my head, even though it’s a blazing-hot day. Sweat runs down my face to my neck and all the way to my waist. I feel exhausted and faint. I am miserable and Paige is annoyed, but we have to make our way back to the car so she can drive us home.
June 28, 2014
Crossing all borders as the quest for a cure continues.
#LymeDisease #TijuanaMexico #DallasBuyersClub
A couple of hours later, we finally step foot on American soil, and a different van picks us up and takes us back to the hotel parking lot in San Diego. We’re all pissed off, irritated, tired, and hot, so the rest of the ride is pretty silent. Once we arrive and get off that bus, we walk through the parking lot. I’ve never been so happy to see Paige’s car in my life! The second we get in, she blasts the air-conditioning and I lie in the backseat with my familiar blanket and pillow and fall asleep for a couple of hours. When I wake up, I’m feeling hopeful. Maybe THIS will be the treatment that works.
“The Coffee Bean?” Paige asks, referring to our ritual of stopping there for our guilty pleasure: a vanilla-ice blended drink.
“Of course,” I say. Yes, these drinks are full of sugar and not beneficial for my health, but once in a while we just have to let it fly!
Initially, the stem cells give me a definite lift and I feel stronger. My inflammation goes down noticeably, my brain feels a tiny bit more open, and the unexplainable chronic cough that has plagued me for years goes away. Unfortunately, these results last only a few weeks, and my blood tests, which I always do to see how a treatment is working, don’t show much improvement. For example, my white blood cell counts are still really low. Any benefit is anti-inflammatory but not permanent, so I wouldn’t recommend this stem cell treatment for any other Lyme patients. Maybe it’s good once you are in remission but for me, right now it’s yet another expensive disappointment. I know the treatment is beneficial for many other conditions, but I file it under “waste of money” and “not a cure for Lyme” and trudge on. I continue to research with the help of Tom and listen to word-of-mouth suggestions and leads on different doctors and treatments.
At a Bravo photoshoot, Marcello La Ferla, Bravo’s creative director, tells me about his close friend Mario who has been chronically ill for eight years. Mario went to see Dr. Jose Antonio Calzada, also in Tijuana, and is making a lot of improvement at the clinic there. I’m intrigued, because not only am I struggling right now, but so is Bella. I am treating her holistically with vitamin drips twice a week, herbal Lyme medications, and a miniprogram from Richard Helfrich, but she isn’t feeling better and it’s heartbreaking. I research Dr. Calzada, who practices both holistic and Western medicine, and learn that he also uses darkfield microscopy. During your visit to his clinic, they detox your body and prepare it for his recommended protocol, which includes vitamins, supplements, and stem cells. I decide to take Bella to see him because something has to shift. I have to find relief for my baby girl.
A car service from L.A. to Tijuana is really expensive, so I decide we’ll drive there ourselves. I haven’t been behind the wheel of a car for a very long time, so Bella drives. I’m the co-pilot and try to guide her with Google Maps, but it’s my first time using it, and, according to her, I’m not a very good navigator. Finally, Bella stops the car and has me drive so she can guide us instead. We’re fine for about half an hour, but the minute we cross the border into Mexico, Google Maps shuts down. I try to stay calm, but it’s not easy. Here we are, two girls with Lyme brain driving a Land Rover in Tijuana. The blind leading the blind. I have no business being behind the wheel of a car at all, much less at ten at night in a totally unfamiliar place. I’m determined to help my baby girl no matter what it takes, but this was obviously not a smart move. The streets are pitch-black and we seem to be in an unsafe part of the city with no clue how to get out of it. I call David.
“We’re lost,” I say.
“I know,” he says with panic in his voice. “I’ve been following you on Find Friends, and all of a sudden it disconnected.” Luckily, Alberto is home and, using Google Maps on his phone, gives us directions. I drive with a knot in my throat and sweat dripping down my neck from nerves. Finally, we reach our hotel. I’m trying not to show Bella but I am so relieved that I feel like crying and I’m about to have a meltdown. What was I thinking? I feel so alone in this journey. My decision-making is obviously not on point anymore. I’m led by a heart of desperation and nobody seems to understand how sick my baby girl really is and clearly they are not supportive in my quest to cure her.
The next morning, we wake up early and walk across the street to Dr. Calzada’s clinic. When we meet with him, he explains the information that he’s gathered from our blood smears. Interestingly, he tells us that Bella’s and my blood smears look very similar.
“Bella’s red blood cells are clumped together, something called the rouleau effect. Her blood cell activity is compromised because of bacterial and viral infections, and some red blood cells are misshapen because of parasites,” he says. I’m overwhelmed for her but I give her a big hug and promise we are going to fix this problem.
It’s Bella’s first experience at a clinic, and, being the warm old soul that she is, instead of worrying about her own diagnosis, she shifts the
focus and makes friends with the suffering patients in the treatment rooms. She starts asking questions and seeing other people’s struggles puts things in perspective for her. I also think it’s the first time she understands the harsh reality that there is no magic pill that will restore her health and that this is going to be a journey. Nothing is instant in the world of the chronically ill, a lesson that took me a long time to learn. At the end of the week, we go home with a three-month protocol of herbs and European injectable peptides. They have some benefits for Bella, but again this isn’t a cure.
In the midst of all this, I start filming my third season on the Housewives, something that some people question. “If she were really sick, why would she do a TV show?” they say. But my decision to stay on the Housewives is pretty straightforward. First of all, I’m not a quitter or someone who goes back on my word. I signed a binding contract for four seasons, and, as a responsible human being, I take my commitment to Bravo and Evolution, the production company that shoots the Housewives, very seriously. Second, I have bills to pay and people to support, so in terms of a job this is the best-case scenario, with four months of filming and eight months off. I couldn’t find a better one if I tried! The perception of my life from the outside looking in probably leaves room for speculation from people—including members of my big, unconventional family—about why or if I need to work. But my life isn’t what it appears to be. Maybe if I had a husband who said, “It’s okay, baby. You rest and get better and I’ll take care of your bills,” I wouldn’t feel as much pressure to make money while I’m struggling with my health. But that’s not the case. Although David is generous in so many ways, I don’t have the financial luxury to retire and just be sick.
I’m also a very positive person by nature and believe that as long as I keep searching, a cure is right around the corner. I don’t feel well now, but I’ll be better in the next day/week/month, so I can get through. I simply force myself to pull it together the best that I can, I carefully count my spoons, try to put a smile on my face, and go to work with gratitude for all the great things in my life. Of course, that doesn’t quiet the negative noise around us from people who judge my journey, and by now support from a lot of people who I thought were my friends has died down. People were very empathetic and rallied around me during the first few weeks, even months and first years that I was sick, but the truth is that most people got on with their lives—and seemed to think that I should, too. They just stop checking in. This is hurtful and really hard to wrap my head around because I come from such a different culture. Maybe my expectations of friends and family members are too high because I’m willing to do so much for them.
Believe Me Page 15