My New Normal: Learning to Thrive with Chronic Illness

By Alison Carter

Living a life with chronic illness can be like navigating a difficult, winding road on a journey filled with choices and questions, hopes and tears. We may see the signs along the way leading us in the right direction, yet we can be distracted by doubts or by the promise of a shortcut. So how do we find the way to healing and peace, avoiding the obstacles and distractions along the road?

My New Normal is an inspiring memoir of one womans experience confrontingand managingchronic illness. Through introspective moments of pain and doubt, author Alison Carter reveals how she was able to renew her faith and find peace, and she invites you on her search for answers as she navigates opinions and beliefs about illness, reflects on why we suffer, and discovers how to find purpose when normal no longer exists.

From the moment she admitted that something was wrong, and even up to her arrival at acceptance, Alisons faith faced moments of both heartbreaking hesitation and uplifting renewal. Join Alison on her journey as she learns to define and redefine what it means to thrive while living with chronic illness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973624783

Alison Carter

In 1976, a medically documented instantaneous healing of a torn cartilage in her knee, rocked Alison’s realities and planted her feet in two very different worlds. In her workaday world, she had successful careers as a corporate consultant and vocation evaluator. Then for 20 years, as a government grant writer and administrator, she helped to develop community mental health support services and advocated for patient rights. For three years, she was the top scoring grant writer in her category in the United States. After her miracle healing, Alison’s other world was Energy Healing and Transformation. She channeled and taught energy healing in many places around the country and helped bring what was then considered “woo woo” into our mainstream. She offered free weekly healing circles for 18 years. The WHAMMY started in 1988. Alison got new Lyme infections every year for seven years. It physically debilitated her, destroyed life as she knew it, and forced the move to West Virginia to save her life. When some doors close, others open. Alison’s new spiritual journey began in 1995 when Archangel Raphael made a stunning introductory appearance on Cacapon Mountain. In continuing communications, Raphael helped validate her multidimensional mystical experiences as he consistently made specific predictions that always came true in this physical reality. In 1997, Raphael announced Rainbow Stargate 33, an ascension project to raise vibration within Earth and within our human bodies. He designated Alison as the Gatekeeper. Rainbow Stargate 33 is an amazing spiritual journey involving multidimensional mysteries, but it is also balanced, grounded, and practical for use in everyday life. For 20 years, hundreds of folks participated quietly behind the scenes, but now it is time to reveal the Stargate story, and share the loving energies and powerful ascension tools to benefit anyone who chooses to use them. Linda Alison D. Carter is a distinguished Marquis Who’s Who listee. She is featured in Who’s Who of Professional Women and the organization’s flagship registry, Who’s Who of America (2021-2022), inclusion in which is based on professional integrity, outstanding professional achievement, and innumerable contributions to society.” Stargate Email: [e-mail] Press Release https://www.24-7pressrelease.com/press-release/486216/linda-alison-d-carter-distinguished-for-her-work-in-government-wellness-and-art

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Copyright © 2018 Alison Carter.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2477-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2476-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2478-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018904045

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/17/2018

To Mike;

My proofreader and real life hero.

I am honored to be your wife, and I thank God each, and every, day for you.

This book would still be hidden away in my heart had it not

been for your encouragement and support.

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1   When We Ignore the Signs

Admitting That You’re Really Not Fine

Chapter 2   Is God Punishing Me?

I’m Too Broken to Be Healed

Chapter 3   A Magic Bullet

Searching for a Cure

Chapter 4   You Look Good! You Can’t Be that Sick

Getting Good at Faking Well

Chapter 5   Friendships

Honesty, Love, and Boundaries

Chapter 6   Thriving in Marriage

Teammates Not Enemies

Chapter 7   God Doesn’t Give Us More Than We Can Handle?

Making Sense of Suffering

Chapter 8   My New Normal

What Does It Mean to Thrive?

Chapter 9   God is Not Done with Me Yet

Purpose, No Matter How Inadequate You Think You Are

Chapter 10 Thoughts from My Family

Another Perspective

Personal Reflection

Foreword

We live in an incredible age of blessings from God. Whether or not you believe in Him, we exist in an age of unbelievable knowledge that has led to lives of much comfort and many cures.

So, when you meet someone who has a chronic illness with no answers or solutions, you begin to look at her as though she just hasn’t done enough.

Alison Carter’s book A New Normal: Learning to Thrive with Chronic Illness shows us that sometimes the answer to the unanswerable is an incredibly deep faith in Jesus Christ.

Chronic illness is one of many signs that we live in a broken, fallen world plagued with the nature of sin. Sin is not just bad things people do or the failure to do the right thing. It’s not just in our thoughts, words and deeds. It is the condition of the world in which we live. And that condition is often reflected in the pain we experience in our bodies through no fault of our own.

I have known Alison Carter for about 10 years. She is the beloved spouse of one my childhood friends. I find Alison to be a very positive person and most sincere. She doesn’t have to tell me she’s a believer in Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. I can see it in how she speaks and acts.

You will experience that as you read her true stories of struggles, disappointments, failures, and successes when it comes to her health. Her true life story reflects the Word of God in passages like Romans 5:3b-5 ESV. We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Here the Apostle Paul was addressing the Church at Rome under the oppression of the Roman Empire. He wasn’t expecting them to be giddy about their suffering. Rather he was giving purpose to their pain.

With faith in Christ, pain will lead to a more patient life knowing that long-suffering is not forever suffering. This endurance produces a more mature faith in God. And that more mature faith opens the door to better understanding and appreciating true hope. And true hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness (as many have sung in church over the years).

Paul ties our pain back to the ultimate suffering Jesus Christ did for us on the Cross to, once and for all, destroy all pain and death caused by the nature of our sin.

The undeserved grace we receive comes through no effort on our part (Ephesians 2:8-9). God the Father’s forgiveness through His Son is completed when faith is created in the heart through the Word of God (Romans 10:17). This gift of faith in the Lord that Alison has gives her power over pain. And you, too, can have this same power. Jesus Christ won this victory through His death on the Cross and His physical resurrection from the dead. With this grace we have the promise of forever healing by living eternally with Him in Heaven. This is the perfect expression of God’s love for us (John 3:16).

This is the foundation of the trust Alison has in God.

So, in her book you will see that her faith is not wishful thinking, is not filled with platitudes, nor does it lack wisdom or reasoning. Her testimony of grace and mercy from Jesus is very humbling, and it affirms that it’s okay if you don’t have all the answers for the pain you are facing today. You can be content even if you haven’t arrived at a cure.

Over the past decade, I have often offered pastoral care to parishioners like Alison. They will frequently equate their chronic illness with their sinful deeds. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As you read about Alison’s journey, you will learn about the depth of her pain, all the solutions she has sought, and how well-meaning people have offered her bad advice. You will see that the medical and scientific communities do NOT have all the answers and alternative approaches fall short of their promises. You will see examples of how well-meaning statements can be downright false and can add a depth of emotional and spiritual pain on top of the physical. You will read about how Alison uses God’s wisdom in His Word to discern which friends and relationships are most helpful. And you will see the joys and frustrations her ongoing medical challenges have on her family. You will experience how Alison has studied and meditated on the Word of God to find meaning in her pain and how to have power over it.

Some of what Alison presents will affirm what you know, and other insights will help you better cope with any pain you’re experiencing in life.

I will recommend her book to parishioners facing similar struggles so they, too, can find joy in their salvation and contentment as they struggle.

God’s blessings of rejoicing, endurance, character, and hope as you read A New Normal: Learning to Thrive with Chronic Illness.

In the Joy of Jesus,

The Reverend Daniel C. Eddy

Pastor at Messiah Evangelical Lutheran Church

Beloit, WI

"But those who hope in the Lord

will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not be faint,"

- ISAIAH 40:31 NIV

Chapter One

When We Ignore the Signs

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Admitting That You’re Really Not Fine

"I have refined you, though not as silver;

I have tested you in the furnace of affliction."

- ISAIAH 48:10 NIV

The sun was insistent about pressing its golden light through the curtains to cheerily brighten my bedroom. The scents of cinnamon and brewing coffee flowed to me from down the hall. I should have been enjoying this beautiful morning, sipping on a steamy cup of coffee and offering my help with breakfast. Rather, I found myself huddled under the covers and curled into a ball while attempting to will away a headache that had been lingering with me since the early predawn hours.

Through the closed bedroom door, I could hear my husband’s voice occasionally mingle with my mother-in-law’s light and constant chatter. Soon she would be placing breakfast on the table, and our children would be settling themselves onto kitchen chairs to tuck into the warm bread that they were sure to be treated with.

I knew that I could not lie in that bed all morning, and I vividly recall sitting up and placing my feet onto the carpeted floor. I inhaled sharply, and my vision blurred as I blinked uselessly at the tears pooling in my eyes. I had been completely unprepared for the stabbing in the back of my head and the sharp pain in my neck that struck me when I moved to leave that bed.

A bit afraid to move, I timidly took a slow, deep breath while the pain lessened slightly. Please, please, please. I repeated the word to myself, not sure who I was talking to or what I was pleading for.

I do know that I did not want this pain to steal away the enjoyment of the weekend we were spending with my husband’s family. Shaking, I gingerly pressed my palms into the mattress beneath me and carefully pushed myself up as I prepared to stand from the bed. I tentatively placed my full weight on my legs, unsure if they would offer me the support I needed; I began feeling more than slightly concerned that I would pass out.

To my grateful relief, I found myself standing next to the bed, straight and strong, while the throbbing in my head slowed.

I put a smile on my face and stepped out of the guest room to join my family in the kitchen, and daily life simply went on.

Somehow, despite the headache remaining with me day and night, I was able to ignore the fact that I was not feeling well. Perhaps it was denial, but I believe it was survival. I was a wife with responsibilities to my husband, Mike, and to the four children we had between the two of us. I had a business partner, clients, and employees counting on me to be present and to complete my work competently.

I didn’t have time to be sick.

I didn’t have time to worry about what might be wrong with me.

Before all of the yuckiness of chronic illness, I would confidently announce that I was a healthy woman. I rarely had a need to visit a doctor’s office, and I never got headaches. This is why I should have allowed that morning in my in-laws’ guest room to be my wake-up call. Instead, I chose to ignore this warning sign until my body would no longer accept being ignored. I did not know at the time, but that early morning occurrence was my first step on a tremendously difficult and emotional journey — a journey I still find myself stumbling along today.

I can see the doubt and confusion in their eyes when I tell people that I suffer from a headache every day. I know what they’re thinking. They wonder how this can be possible. How can someone have a headache every single day? Surely it goes away for periods of time? It’s there in their eyes; they assume that I am being overly dramatic. No one has a headache every single day for years, right?

No matter how much I wish this were true, the reality is that the headache I woke with in the spring of 2011 has remained with me as my constant reminder that I am sick. On two separate blessed occasions, I did have a handful of hours where the headache subsided for a while—although it took sitting down, closing my eyes, and concentrating to see if the pain was really gone. It is odd, and somewhat amazing to me still, to think about those two times and how I struggled to grasp the understanding that the headache was no longer fully with me. When you live with chronic pain, you adjust to it and learn to tune out its noise in order to continue to function. This doesn’t mean that you do not feel the pain or that you forget that it is still there. It just means that you learn to place less focus on it so the pain doesn’t overwhelm you and so you’re better able to concentrate your attention on the responsibilities of life. Unfortunately, on both of these occasions my relief was short-lived, and when the headache returned after those few hours of freedom, I was struck with an intense sadness as the hope of healing would once again slip away from me.

As the weeks went by and the headache persisted, I became aware of additional issues with my body and found myself struggling to get through normal activities. Living life had become terribly hard.

I found that I had very little energy. I was more than just tired; I was completely and utterly exhausted. All of the time. Where I once enjoyed taking three mile walks with our family dog, I now found myself putting in intense effort to manage a short three blocks with her. Standing in line at the grocery store now caused my leg muscles to burn, and I would find myself grateful for the moment that I could finally leave the store with my bags of groceries just so that I could climb into my car and sit down. Even that act of getting in and