From Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing, Hope and Possibility:
Out of our deepest wounds we find our greatest strength, our most beautiful treasures and the knowledge that love is far greater and more powerful than any experience we endure. ~Mary McManus
The buzzing hum from the fluorescent lights echoed the buzzing in my nervous system. I sat waiting for my first appointment at the post polio clinic at the IRCP. My complexion was as white as the paper that covered the exam table. I felt as fragile and vulnerable as that piece of paper that gets ripped off and tossed away after the exam. Every inch of my body hurt. I was exhausted. I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I hadn’t really cared whether or not I woke up in the morning but I had a husband and twins that needed me. Ironically enough I was at the peak of my career as a VA social worker. I couldn’t sleep. I felt depressed. My award-winning career as a social worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs no longer fueled my soul. Somewhere deep inside of me there was a feeling that there had to be a way out of the hell I was living in.
The symptoms began in 1996. I had episodes of feeling fatigue and muscle burning. I was anxious. At times, I noticed that the limp from paralytic polio returned. In 1992, I had reconstructive leg surgery to correct the deformity of my left leg and to avoid a total knee replacement at the young age of 39 years old. Here I was 7 years later feeling as though my body was beginning to deteriorate and my life falling apart.
In 2004, I told my primary care provider that I was afraid there was something wrong with me – really wrong with me. When I described my symptoms to him and suggested I had post polio syndrome, he told me that post polio syndrome didn’t exist. He suggested I was experiencing empty nest syndrome even though my twins hadn’t left the nest yet. He gave me a sample of Paxil and told me I needed to see a psychiatrist. He told me I was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. I had been in and out of therapy for years. I knew as a clinical social worker that I probably did suffer from post traumatic stress disorder but this felt different. There was something profound happening in my body that needed medical treatment. I went home and flushed the Paxil down the toilet.
As I sat in my office in between clients experiencing difficulty swallowing, my heart racing, pain and tingling down my right arm, pain in my neck, extreme fatigue and exhaustion and dragging my body around with me, I wondered whether or not I needed to go to an emergency room. Was I having a stroke or maybe a heart attack … but the symptoms would pass and I knew there was nothing acute happening with me. I would meet with my patients focusing on their needs. I allowed the members of my team to ventilate and provided them with emotional support. On one level I was functioning as a clinical social worker, an exemplary team member and being the most productive social worker in my department.
On the inside, I was withering away dying a slow physical, emotional and spiritual death. I would pray to God that She take me home. I couldn’t bear the pain of this existence any longer. Guilt set in. How could I leave my family, my patients? But I was suffering and wanted a way out. I never thought about suicide. I knew all too well the pain that suicide leaves. My father had killed himself when I was 17 years old.
I finally decided I needed to pray and ask for help. The answer came to me. “Google post polio syndrome.”
Spaulding Rehab Hospital’s Outpatient Clinic in Framingham, just 30 minutes from my house came up in my search. Trembling I picked up the phone in late September of 2006 to take the first step on my journey back into life.
On 5/25/2007, I took a leap of faith leaving my 20 year award winning career as a VA social worker to heal my life without any idea of what that meant. I discovered the power of my pen, my divining rod for healing and as I created a future self without any limitations from the past through writing poetry, I began to heal mind, body and soul.
I'd get stuck at times in my journey, and in December of 2014, suffered a very serious injury in my left knee. I went back to Western Medicine to explore what happened and what I needed to do to heal. The MRI offered a grim picture of a knee with shredded cartilage, bone spurs, degenerative osteoarthritis, degenerative changes from previous surgeries and a most remarkable finding an atrophied gastroc muscle. I briefly returned to the Post Polio Clinic for guidance and found myself drawn into the vortex of limitations. "Well we knew your gastroc muscle had atrophied ever since you had polio," the doctor said to me. "There's nothing you can do about it." He went on to prognosticate that I'd need a total knee replacement in a few years and should not plan to run a distance greater than 5 miles. "And why don't you return to the Post Polio Clinic?" he asked with well meaning intentions. He referred me to a physical therapist who, as it turned out, was the physical therapist from hell. The Universe led me to a chiropractor healer, Dr. Ryan J. Means who introduced me to the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza.
My passion and purpose to heal my life was reignited by Dr. Ryan's heart and hands and the work of Dr. Joe.
I went on to run Bermuda Half Marathons I and II.
My plan was to take a hiatus after this year's Half Marathon but one cannot refuse an invitational entry from the Race Director nor an incredible rate at the Race Weekend's host hotel.
This race is reminiscent of when I ran the Bill Rodgers 5K Run/Walk for Prostate Cancer in August of 2014. I got quiet and still before gun time feeling there was something intensely personal about going for a PR that day.
There is something intensely personal for Team McManus and me as we prepare for the Bermuda Half Marathon 2018.
My two goals for Bermuda are to finish and have fun, and as we joke on our training runs to end up vertical this year.
My additional goal is to celebrate my miracle of healing and the miracle of healing of our daughter who suffered and struggled with severe depression and PTSD during these past 3 years.
Here I am:
Ten plus years after taking a leap of faith and leaving my award winning career as a VA social worker 3 years before I was "eligible" to retire to heal my life from the effects of paralytic polio and trauma.
3 years after a serious knee injury wrapping up training for my 3rd Bermuda Half Marathon in as many years. Here I am having grown a new gastroc muscle and healing my left knee and healing whatever may show up in my body always creating my future self free from any residuals of paralytic polio and trauma.
Here I am - healthy, whole, healed and deeply grateful for this opportunity to run my 3rd Bermuda Half Marathon celebrating life, healing, and possibility.
Here I am. Three more training runs to go before taper time.
Here we are - Team McManus - after 3 years of being on separate paths seeking healing, healing found us. We are reunited having found our way home to be together on the road to Bermuda Marathon Weekend.
To going the distance with strength and courage
From my heart to yours,
Mary
Be sure to visit my website by following this link.
My books are available on Amazon.
Feel the Heal: An Anthology of Poems to Heal Your Life
Coming Home: A Memoir of Healing Hope and Possibility that chronicles the first 7 years of my healing journey:
And my latest and greatest book - Going the Distance: The Power of Endurance (With a Foreword by Jacqueline Hansen):
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