Just Breathe: My Intuitive Healing Journey
Letters from The Intuition Empire
Letter 1 From The Intuitive Queen (aka Jennifer R. Young)
Dear Intuitive Readers –
For the first half of my life, I’ve been a bit of a warrior when it comes to fighting for my kids, my friends, families, and even for strangers. I haven’t always been good at fighting for me. This year, I decided what I wanted was to become a compassionate warrior—one who fights hard for others and for me.
So, in January, I asked God to help me stand up for myself in every area of my life. Well, my intuitive friends, be careful what you ask God to give you, because he just might give it to you!
Ironically, his biggest test of my faith this year would be: how far would I go to save my voice? My breath? My life? Like all great journeys, my intuitive health journey started out with some steps.
The Decline: Take My Breath Away…
In January, I faced my new foe: the staircase at the Amtrak train platform in Wilmington, Delaware. I'd never struggled to climb steps before.
However, that day, as I helped my son, Colin, 27, carry his luggage to top of the stairs and onto the platform—I was breathless.
Panic welled up inside me; a trickle of sweat came down my forehead. I smiled and waved goodbye to Colin. I descended the staircase, slowly, gasping for air.
No one asked if I needed help. Did they even wonder why this beautiful 51-year-old woman in reasonable shape, donning a festive dress, boasting her signature sparkling eyeshadow, clutching her pink purse with one hand and the railing with the other…was struggling for air over some stairs?
What in the world wrong with me? Asthma? COVID? Allergies? After all, according to the allergy test I was literally allergic to every tree, ragweed, and blade of grass in Delaware. But this was January, why would the pollen be out? Plus, I had an inhaler my allergist gave me, but I’d left it home, more than an hour away. I struggled to make it across the street to the parking garage.
For those of you who don’t’ know me, this was not like the Jenn of previous years. In 2022, I often hiked 4-6 miles, walked my neighborhood daily, and hula hooped an hour a day. And yet here I sat in my car struggling to breathe. I knew in my heart of hearts something was very wrong.
By March, my breathing problems escalated. Instead of just stairs and hills triggering me, it was sometimes just long walks. On St. Patricks’ Day, I did not have the luck of the Irish. I parked my car at the Dog Fish Head Brewery in Milton. My plan was to walk 3 blocks downtown so I could watch my two teenage sons march in the St. Patrick Day Parade. I’d attended all their marching band events in the previous 2 years, including a Christmas parade in December at the very same location.
Only that day, I couldn’t make it out of the parking lot. I stopped at the edge of the lot, gasping for air. I used my inhaler; it didn’t help. I stood there, tears in my eyes, as jovial parade goers decked out in green—all ages, from toddlers to retirees—passed me by.
Dejected, I inched my way back to the car and texted my sons, both drummers for Cape Henlopen High School. I told them I was too breathless to make it to the parade.
Then I paused to talk to God.
“God, what’s wrong with me? Is this as good as it gets?” I asked him. “I can’t even walk out of this parking lot! I used go hiking for miles at a time without a problem. Help me, God. Please!”
Despite my prayers, my world continued to spiral downwards. During my decline, I took a frustrating ride on the medical merry-go-round. I'd visit walk-ins, the ER, and my general practitioner. I’d get confused looks, inhalers, a nebulizer, and an occasional round of steroids but no answers. When my GP sent me to a pulmonary doctor, it took me 4 months to get in to see him.
On July 2, I had been struggling for 6 months and boy did I want answers. The pulmonologist spent 15 minutes, didn’t touch me, and wrote me a prescription for albuterol. He wouldn’t diagnose me until I did breathing tests at the local hospital.
He said, “I’ll see you in September!”
My heart sank. “September!” I cried. “I’ve struggled all year, and you want me to wait until then to get answers?”
He said they were backed up at the hospital and it wouldn’t be until August for me to get a breathing test appointment. He was right; August 25th!
The Perfect Storm
In August, I planned two weekends in Chincoteague, Virginia. One with my soon-to-be ex-boyfriend before Labor Day and one with my two sons Labor Day weekend.
When I got home from Chincoteague that Monday before Labor Day, I was faced with a perfect storm of events: I ate Thai food with coconut in it (I’m allergic), the ragweed was high (also allergic), and my son had mistakenly tripped over the plug for the cat litter box before he went to his dad’s house. No one had changed it for days; it was a holy mess (I’m allergic to cats).
By the time I reached my recovery meeting on Monday, I could barely breathe after walking from my car to the building. One friend heard me talk and whispered, “What’s wrong? You sound horrible.”
The next morning was the breathing tests that I'd been waiting 6 weeks to take. Despite my condition, I went anyway. The pulmonary guy listened to my lungs before the test, and said he couldn’t hear air moving in my lungs.
“Is your breathing always this bad?” he asked.
I still took the tests and failed. They gave me a nebulizer treatment, had me repeat the tests, and I still failed.
The pulmonary tech told me, “Go home and do your nebulizer 3 more times today. If you are not better, call your pulmonary doctor or come back to the hospital.”
By 5 p.m., after my 4th nebulizer treatment of the day, I was still struggling. I asked my then boyfriend to drive me to the walk-in. By the time I got to the walk-in my pulse oxygen was a 90! They called an ambulance and whisked me away to the local hospital. There, they checked me for: infections, pulmonary viruses, you name it. They couldn’t find a reason why my breathing was so bad, why I gasped for air, or why they could “barely hear any air in my lungs.”
After 9 total nebulizer treatments for the day (none helped) and lots of IV steroids, they admitted me to the hospital.
The Fight
During my 4-day stay at the hospital, I had a disturbing incident with my assigned “pulmonary doctor.”
Okay, let's call a spade a spade: we had an argument. There were raised voices, and tears, and my poor 80+ year old roommate was my witness (from behind the curtain).
My nemesis, Dr. “B,” said I’d failed my breathing tests. He said that I probably “woken up in stage 3 COPD” and that, along with “allergy-induced asthma,” was probably the root of my breathing issues.
He suggested that I give away my beloved cats (Shadow and Ghost, both age 3) because I was allergic to them. Also, the doctor said since I was allergic to all the trees and ragweed in Delaware, I should pull my sons out of school and “move out of state.”
“I can’t do that. It’s not that easy,” I said. “I’m a single parent. And my kids would never forgive me if I gave away our cats. Plus, they are thriving at their school, they are on honor roll and they are in multiple bands and doing great! I can’t just pull them out of high school.”
He dismissed my emotional arguments and said, “You have an acceptance problem.”
His words were like matches that lit the flame of fire inside my heart; look out world—warrior Jenn was activated.
I said, “No, I think you have a compassion problem!”
I continued, “You’re wrong. COPD doesn't just come and go. Listen, this is my life and health we are talking about. I’m not going to do all of this based on some breathing tests I shouldn’t have even taken when I’m obviously struggling. I feel like I have something stuck in my throat. I want to reach down and pull it out!”
He told me that only an ENT could look down my throat with a scope and they didn’t have one on staff or on call. Hold the phone. Did he offer to right me a referral or to call one? No. I’d had just about enough of this man.
You know what? First, I’d been working on acceptance for 20 years in my recovery program. This was not the time for acceptance, but for listening to my own intuition. Second, did he realize who he was talking to?
In my 51 short years on earth, I’d taken down the top pediatric neurologist in Georgetown, DC, and the top pediatric GI doctor there too, back in 2000—even before I’d gotten sober. In fact, the neurologist once said to me, that my oldest son Colin’s regressive Autism would cause him to never speak again. He offered to medicate him, or me so I could forget my pain, or both of us. I told him he was wrong, I’d prove it and then I walked out.
How did that fight turn out? I’ll give you Colin’s phone number and he can tell you how right his mom was.
I vowed that Dr. B of Lewes would regret talking to me that way, and I’d find a way to stand up to him—when I could breathe better.
Darth Vader Mom Emerges
On Labor Day Weekend, we had a Star Wars moment: my sons said every time I got up to walk to the bathroom or to the kitchen, I sounded like Darth Vader Mom!
I laid on the couch, struggling to breathe and had to go online to cancel the second Chincoteague visit. However, I forgot to cancel Captain Barry’s ecological boat tour.
Monday, when his booking secretary called and said, “Jennifer, where are you and the boys? Captain Barry is waiting for you at the dock.”
I felt guilty for not cancelling, so I over-explained. I said I was a 51-year-old that was struggling to breathe for 8 months and how no doctor would help me. And I said all this while gasping.
“Oh my," she said, "You sound like me. Just like I did.”
My intuitive Spidey senses perked up; I was covered with chills. I knew somehow this woman was about to change my life.
She went on to tell me that in her 60s she wheezed and gasped and went from doctor to doctor trying to get answers. Finally, after 2 years, she went to an ENT and they found her problem was not in her lungs—but in her airways, near her vocal cords!
“You need to get to an ENT right away,” Captain Barry's said. “Tell them to scope you. They will send a camera up your nose and down your throat. That’s how they discovered what was wrong with me.”
Her words stuck in my brain. After Labor Day, I called my allergist doctor’s office asked if my allergist, who is also an ENT, could see me after my allergy shot Wednesday. She agreed but only if they had a cancellation—and even if I saw the doctor, I'd have to have to have the scope scheduled for the following week.
My intuition screamed, “NO. I need that scope NOW!"
The Breaking Point
The first day of school was Sept 4, a Wednesday. It is usually a day of pictures, new outfits, school supplies, and afterschool recaps.
For me, it was a day of taking their pictures, and then the breaking point—where my breathing was the worst it had been all year. I hit bottom; and my bottom involved facing more steps!
That morning, I walked down my front steps to take pictures of sons in front of our house. I was breathless after. Later, I walked from the parking lot to inside the allergist’s office made me more breathless; I was gasping in full Darth Vader Mom mode.
The doctor agreed to see me. My intuition was screaming now: Get. That. Scope. Now!
Then I told a small type of lie. In my defense, I knew if I said, “Hey doc, Captain Barry’s secretary said I sound like her and I need a scope right away,” my doctor would give me the side eye and call me crazy.
So, I said, “Look I was in the hospital all last week and they discharged me Friday. They don’t have an ENT and said they really want you to scope me!”
She scoped me right away! The camera went up my nose and down my throat.
My doctor gasped and said, “Jennifer, I am calling an ambulance. They’ll take you to hospital. The opening to your lower trachea is almost completely swollen shut. You either have a massive infection or a growth that is inflamed and blocking your airway!”
My intuition was on point! I silently blessed Captain Barry’s secretary!
My ENT said this time she’d have the hospital give me IV steroids to reduce the inflammation and give me more air. Then, she’d order a CT scan, not of my lungs, but of my throat.
After my ambulance ride, steroids, and CT scan, the hospital doctor informed me a shocking fact. I had a massive growth in my airways in lower trachea and probably needed a biopsy of it tonight. He said he found an ENT surgeon who would take me—in Philadelphia!
Yes. I was going by an ambulance to Philadelphia.
Mind you it was the first day of school. My 10th and 11th grade sons had a drum sectional practice after school (my son Christian’s first year as drum captain) and then a 3-hour marching band practice. You can imagine how that call went.
He was like, "Mom I can’t talk—I’m the captain and I’m about to run this sectional."
I calmly told him I was at the local hospital and had a massive growth blocking my airway and was about to leave for Philadelphia and would not be home that night.
He got quiet and said, “I love you mom. We’ll be ok. I will tell Ben. Call me as soon as you know what it is. I’m praying for you.”
Proud. Mom. Moment.
The Diagnosis
As I arrived at the Thomas Jefferson Hospital ER in Philly, I was like a gasping doe in the headlights. The busy city ER was jam packed with a cacophony of sight and sound: people on stretchers against walls; doctors and nurses in desks on computers; an open waiting room overflowing with people; and cops sprinkled throughout.
With my breathing issues, I was whisked away to a coveted room with a door. I got to meet an ENT who did my second scope up my nose and down my throat. She said after she reviewed my CT scan and they did an exam, she'd tell me the diagnosis and the plan.
And then came, the long wait. So, even though I felt afraid, I decided to trust God. Afraid, but my faith was stronger. I intuitively knew things were going to go up from here. So, I pivoted and found someone to help.
A young nurse looked sad, so I asked her about living in Philadelphia. She said she was a single mom and had never lived anywhere else. She wanted to escape the city but has an 8-year-old and doesn’t know If she can pull her out of her school and leave her extended family. I counseled her and told her to never give up on having a fresh start somewhere else; I’d done it many times as a single mom.
My son Christian texted at this point; I told him I was waiting for answers and counseling a single mom nurse.
He texted to me and said, “Mom, you are the light that shines in the darkness. You are struggling to breathe but using your breath to help others.”
There is nothing sweeter than bright moments like that, sprinkled amidst my medical mystery madness of a day.
After the waiting came the news. The doctor said I had a rare disease called Subglottal Stenosis. Scar tissue had been building up in my airway right next to my vocal cords over a long period of time until the mass was so big–it was covering 80 percent of my airway. She said it was probably autoimmune and I could have had it for years, decades even. The doctor said one day, if undiagnosed, it would have continued to grow and I could have collapsed and died from it because if it so large they can’t even intubate you.
I tried to wrap my head around this news. So, it was not the cats! Not the allergens! It was a mass of scar tissue growing inside of me that was trying to kill me!
My airway was 80 percent blocked. Anything that caused an inflammatory response (stress, allergies, etc.) pushed me over the edge. I cried when I Googled my condition: triggers were stairs, hills, any cardio beyond walking. And at the end, even walking!
The next morning my head surgeon, Dr. Spiegel said that if I had been more blocked (85 percent or more) or if I had a lower pulse oxygen level even while on the steroids, they could justify emergency surgery. Instead, he sent me home on bed rest to wait a week so he could gather his whole team to perform the surgery.
Apparently, the average time to get a diagnosis like mine is 2 years. He said it's often mistaken for asthma or COPD. The doctor asked how I got answers after only 8 months, and which doctor figured out that the problem was in my trachea not my lungs.
I smiled.
“It wasn’t a doctor," I explained. "I insisted on my ENT doing a scope because I listened to my intuition, God, and Captain Berry’s secretary—because she said I sounded like her!”
He smiled. I am sure not many people ever gave him such an answer. One by one his team members came in to hear my story.
While the idea of waiting for a week with an 80- percent blocked airway filled me with fear—I immediately turned that fear into gratitude. I was grateful that I was listening to my intuition and doing a great job standing up for myself.
Next week, find out how the cocoon went (the period between the diagnosis and my surgery) and how the butterfly (me) emerged after surgery.
Until next week my intuitive peeps.
Love,
The Intuitive Queen (AKA Jenn Young)
Songs I listened to while writing this blog
“Til’ I Collapse”
By Eminem
“Because I will always fight for myself
and others until I collapse;
“And get that motivation to not give up;
And not be a quitter.
No matter how bad you wanna
just fall flat on your face and collapse.”
And
"All I know so far"
By Pink
“…… Haven't always been this way
I wasn't born a renegade
I felt alone, still feel afraid
I stumble through it anyway.”