S2E10 Coffee Break with community member Sarah T

Geoff Allix  00:02 

Welcome to Living Well with MS Coffee Break. I’m your host, Geoff Allix. We decided to do something a little different in expanding the range of content we produce here at Living Well with MS. Since our community forms the beating heart of Overcoming MS, we are commencing this special series called Coffee Break, which features short interviews with members of the OMS community, talking about their personal journeys, adopting and staying on the OMS seven step recovery program, the challenges they encountered, and how they overcame them, and their tips and tricks for sticking to the path that leads to better health. We hope you enjoy and learn from these brief chats between our regular episodes and as always, your comments and suggestions are welcome by emailing [email protected]. That’s [email protected] and don’t forget, if you enjoy these and other Living Well with MS podcast episodes, please leave a review on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast listening platform. So welcome to the OMS Coffee Break, Sarah T, and to start off could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your family, your life, where you live, and anything about yourself that you’d like to share with us? 

Sarah T  01:17 

Yes, thanks so much for having me, Geoff, I really appreciate this, this is very kind of you. I live in the Bay Area, the San Francisco Bay Area of California. I am married with two children, I have fairly young children ages seven and nine and right now we are probably like a whole bunch of people, we are at home together, so we have a lot of together time right now. And we are also homeschooling our children at home, so that is a new and always interesting experience. 

Geoff Allix  01:54 

And when you were diagnosed with MS, when was that? And how long have you been following the Overcoming MS seven step program. 

Sarah T  02:04 

You know, I was actually trying to figure this out the other day, when I was first introduced to OMS. I was diagnosed about 14 years ago. And it was it was quite devastating actually, because I was in the middle of writing my dissertation to finish up my PhD, I was also starting a new job at the same time. I was fairly newly married, it was a whole bunch of things at once and, you know, I thought I sort of knew what my life was going to be and what it would look like. So to get that diagnosis, you know, at first I was just completely devastated and I immediately, because of my background, I was trained as a researcher, and actually, I’m in medical research and so I immediately dove into the research and I found all of the research that Swank had done right away and so within a year of my diagnosis, I was following the Swank diet. In addition to that, you know, I was also looking elsewhere outside of just Western medicine for alternative and complementary therapies, I immediately, I’m very fortunate to be in the Bay Area where there are so many different modalities of care available, and I immediately found a fantastic acupuncturist and I’ve actually been going to that acupuncturist for over a decade now. And I was also looking at other alternative therapies, I immediately found a wonderful naturopathic doctor, and, you know, did a whole bunch of blood tests, I figured out that I didn’t do so well, with things like dairy and some night shades and gluten and I immediately took those out of my diet within a year of being diagnosed. So even though at that point, I hadn’t found OMS, I was following so many things on which OMS is based. It really especially because of my training, I think I was really looking for evidence based therapies and I was I was trying to follow those as best I could. So I went through my my Amazon account the other day to see when I first ordered the OMS book, and it was the end of 2012. So that I think must have been when I found it and for the most part, I’ve been following it ever since. Like I said, you know, even prior to that, after being diagnosed, I was largely following many of the things but what was so nice about OMS is that it just it first of all, George Jelinek I had so much, you know, faith in him and I think high regard for him because of his scientific and medical background, and I loved the book because it was fully rooted in, you know, the scientific evidence, but it packaged everything together and I really loved that because I felt like it covered all aspects of every part of my life and introduced me to, you know, a couple of things that I hadn’t yet been doing and I felt like it was just sort of this nice, easy way to be able to control what it could control in another wise, uncertain disease. 

Geoff Allix  05:40 

Okay, so and what do you find is your favorite part of the program? 

Sarah T  05:45 

Well, I think because of the work that I had, you know, and the research I had done even prior to finding OMS, and was already following the diet part, I was actually the easiest and we’re so fortunate to live here in California, where I’m able to have, you know, a vegetable garden outside my door and we have these wonderful farmers markets with beautiful produce all year round. And one of my favorite things to do is to cook for my family and for myself, you know, the foods that are okay on the OMS protocol and I love to do that. So that for me, it was easy, and it’s actually really joyful. I really love to see what beautiful, flavorful meals l can put together that both myself and my family can eat. 

Geoff Allix  06:35 

And what about the most challenging aspects? What have you found hardest to implement? 

Sarah T  06:40 

I think probably the, the meditation, it’s always it’s a challenge for me, you know I try to set my day up in a way where I can have early in the morning, I can have a quiet time to meditate. But to be perfectly honest with you, you know, it’s it is a challenge. And there are some days where I just sit there quietly and I’m quite simply, you know, not successful in my meditative practice. 

Geoff Allix  07:16 

It is the most popular answer to that question. I think the mindfulness part of it is, it’s quite I think, personally, it’s quite easy to say, well, this is my diet and then I know whenever I eat something, what I should eat and what I shouldn’t eat. I know if I’ve done exercise, but sort of mindfulness is very easy to let it slip tend to not do it. Some people know much better than others. But I’d say it’s most common answer to say, mindfulness is the hardest one. 

Sarah T  07:46 

Oh, well, it’s nice to hear I’m not alone. Yeah, it for me It’s definitely it’s a challenge. But when I was first diagnosed, I actually did a mindfulness based stress reduction eight week course and that was so helpful, because, you know, I felt like I really did learn how to meditate and then I knew every week, at least once a week, I would be in a group in one location, and we would be meditating together with a teacher and that even if, throughout the week, I wasn’t doing so well on my own, I would have that next week to help me get back into it. So that was really helpful, but of course, you know, when you’re doing it on your own, I think it’s it’s a little bit more challenging. 

Geoff Allix  08:44 

Okay, this is being recorded in the middle of the Coronavirus or COVID 19 pandemic. So, with regard to that, how have you had to adapt your daily healthy habits to those to the new realities with COVID-19 ongoing? 

Sarah T  09:06 

Yes, it’s been really interesting. Well, our two children are at home full time right now and you know, both my husband and I are at home too. So you have parents working, children learning and there’s a lot of togetherness. So I don’t have that sort of time on my own at all during the day really to make sure I’m practicing some of those self care things. Like I said, I tried to do meditation early in the morning before everybody’s awake, but some of those scheduling practices have slipped a little bit during this time, so I think that that’s a little bit of a challenge. I think what I was worried about at first actually was you know, our grocery stores or foods stores, were just wiped out of certain things and so I was a little bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to, you know, find my flax seed oil and things like that I think stabilised so that is fine and fortunately, you know, many of the things that we do eat regularly, lots and lots of fruits and vegetables, our our food supply seems to be doing quite well there. So some of my early fears, I think were unfounded and that that’s been good. I think that MS has been, I would never call it this, I think in other situations, but it’s been a blessing during this time and the reason for that is, it’s such an uncertain disease and you realise early on that so much is out of, or at least I thought early on, so much was out of my control. That, you know, over the last 14 years, I had to do a lot of work to accept the fact that things are going to be uncertain in my future but there’s still a lot that I can control and OMS has certainly helped that. And so I think at this time, when the whole world sort of feels uncertain, and out of our control, I have a lot of the tools through, you know, just learning to live with this disease and manage this disease, to help me deal with that uncertainty and I’m not saying it’s easy, but I actually think that looking around me, I think that it’s been easier for me to handle some of the things than some of my friends who have never had health challenges in their lives. And that’s, for me been really interesting to realise, but also to just observe. 

Geoff Allix  11:51 

Okay, and finally, do you have any tips or tricks for people who are on their OMS journeys? 

Sarah T  12:01 

Well, I think for me, like I said, I really one of the things I find really joyful with OMS is to find beautiful foods and cook beautiful foods for my family that that both myself and my family can eat. And one of the things that has helped me with that is, you know, for the last 10 years, I have a regular schedule for our meals that I put together usually on Sundays, and I just go through and I do the meal planning to make sure that we have, you know, foods that I know my children will like and foods that I know my husband will like and that I will like and I plan it out for the week. And I find that having that plan makes the daily meal prep so much easier and it’s also for me at least, it’s it’s also something that’s really fun, It’s sort of like a challenge to put together you know, a meal plan, especially a dinner plan for the week, that I know that there will be a favorite food for everybody in there and then it’s everything that we can all eat together. I really enjoy that. 

Geoff Allix  13:18 

Thank you very much and thank you for joining us on the OMS Coffee Break. 

Sarah T  13:22 

Thank you so much for having me.