Chicken Soup – Amanda’s Recovery

Wham! It hit her like lightening. The car lurched forward with a sickening thud. When it was done, four cars were stacked into each other at unnatural angles. Once the world came back into focus, Amanda Devine knew something was wrong. She sat in her car, stunned by the accident and unable to move. Her neck was in terrible pain and then her vision faded out again.

A month after the fallout settled from the shocking car accident Amanda still experienced constant, excruciating pain all over her body. She had a disk in her neck and in her back that had been damaged in the impact, but her pain was all over her body.

Amanda, I believe you are suffering from Fibromyalgia. I can offer you a course of pain medications that may help you get through your day and get some sleep at night. I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you.

She sat in the doctor’s office, hearing this strange news and trying to understand what she could do about it. Fibromyalgia?she thought to herself, What is that?

After spending years in studying to earn a Masters Degree in Psychology, Amanda turned to what she knew she could do; more research. She learned that Fibromyalgia is a disorder of the nervous system along the lines of Parkinson’s Disease. The injury she received to her neck in the accident is what actually triggered the onset of the disorder. She also learned that there was no cure modern medicine had to offer, there were only ways to dull the pain.

Time passed and she found herself dependent on the cocktail of pain medications her doctor had prescribed. She went in to the hospital for quarterly morphine shots, the effects from which took her over a week to recover. She was tired all the time because she could not sleep comfortably through the night. The circles under her eyes were so dark that she looked like someone had punched her!

Her legs began to weaken after three years of intensifying pain and suffering. She was collapsing unexpectedly and eventually was forced to start walking with a cane at the age of 47. Her doctor told her that she had a wheelchair to look forward to. Amanda started to sink into a cloudy depression as her condition worsened.

I have to find a way out of this. I only exist, I don’t enjoy life.Amanda knew that she must do something, and do it quickly if she was to pull herself out of this despair.

What could possibly cure an incurable nervous disorder? It was back to the books to find a way out. Self-help books, books on psychology, medical books all lead her to the same conclusion: she had the power in her own mind to heal her body. Scientists claim that humans only use up to 10% of their brain and have no idea what may be accomplished with the other 90%. It was time to start tapping into that potential.

Amanda threw herself whole-heartedly into her studies. She found piece after piece on positive thinking and goal setting. She embraced the technique but still came up feeling that the jigsaw puzzle was not yet complete.
Then she saw a video that triggered an epiphany. Five years after the life-changing car accident, she watched The Secret, which explained the Law of Attraction and how our thoughts and emotions can manifest whatever we really want in our lives. This was the final piece! The way the information was presented just hit her like a ton of bricks. She finally understood how all these other pieces fit together.

She started to apply the knowledge she had gathered. She immediately started seeing record sales at her insurance brokerage job. She was still struggling with her health, but in only fifteen hours a week she was out-selling all the other agents. Her manager asked her to start coaching the other agents on her techniques and they too had awesome results. Amanda found that the more she shared this information with others, the stronger she became. She also realized that this personal coaching was her passion. It was the reason she had originally studied psychology, she wanted to help people make a difference in their lives.

She stepped out of her comfort zone, still in pain but growing stronger, and started her own Life Coaching practice. Her clients experienced great successes in their personal and professional lives. As they reported these successes to her, she gained confidence and joy. She had created a wonderful positive ripple and it was starting to come back to her with healing love.

In January of 2008, nearly six years after her Fibromyalgia diagnosis, she started to cut back on her prescribed pain medications. She was delighted to find that she could handle that so she kept pushing the envelope. Finally in May 2008, after three years of dependency on her cane, Amanda made her first journey into the public world without a cane and without any pain medications. She was thrilled! She visited her doctor on June 2nd and surprised him with her incredible results. He has no medical explanation for it. He called it a phenomenon. Only one year prior Amanda had collapsed, unconscious, in his arms during an office visit. Two weeks later she danced with her husband for the first time in six years. A month later she took her three little poodles running, which shocked the dogs nearly as much as it did Amanda! She is grateful that everyday now she can look up into the eyes of her husband, Joe, without fear of the migraine headache that always came with that craning of her neck in the past.

She is passing the wonderful knowledge she has gained and used successfully in her own life to her clients and loved ones so that they can share in the joy of a new life. For almost two years now she has helped clients reach for their passions and joys in their own lives. Today Amanda Devine has a thriving Life Coaching practice and she continues to strengthen her legs and her heart. She glows with joy and purpose. What a beautiful miracle.

Learn more about Amanda Devine by reading her blog… or on her website at totallyuniqueideas.com