Mbali [my neighbor] would call herself a “medicine woman.” She is South African, but her family moved to England when she was 3 because of apartheid. She has a “wise woman” way about her: quiet, peaceful, insightful. She chooses her words carefully.

… My husband Mark and I met Mbali in 2005. A couple of times a week she and I would carpool for the 20-minute trip to work. I had a high-stress job with an ad agency, and she worked at The Institute for Health and Healing at California Pacific Hospital. … We were friendly, but not really friends.

About six months after we met, she made plans to go to South Africa for a couple of weeks to visit some relatives. She … asked whether Mark and I would feed her cats while she was away. We were glad to help.

A few months later, Mbali returned the favor and fed our cats when Mark and I went to Mexico for our wedding and honeymoon.

I had been working like a fiend. … In the month before the wedding … I kept noticing that my mind didn't seem to be working right. The words were in my head, but sometimes I couldn't get them out.

My hands hurt and were very stiff. I would will my fingers to move over the keyboard, but they wouldn't hit the right keys. Chalking it up to stress, I managed to wind up the intense work weeks and get on the plane to Mexico. Mark and I enjoyed three amazing, relaxing weeks in Playa del Carmen, celebrating with 40 of our family members and friends.

Then we flew home and our life disintegrated in a matter of weeks.

… It's now obvious to me that I had been having flare-ups of multiple sclerosis symptoms over the previous 15 years. Sometimes my toes or fingers would go numb. Or my whole body would feel the way your foot does when it falls asleep. I'd have vomiting spells that were so bad I'd lose 20 pounds in a week. I'd be so tired that I'd need to stop three times to rest during the two-block walk to the bus stop. The doctors always told me there was nothing physiologically wrong, that it was just stress. The main prescription they gave me was to relax.

… During the decade … before my diagnosis, I regularly saw an acupuncturist, several different massage therapists, a chiropractor, a hypnotherapist, a meditation teacher, and a nutrition counselor, plus I practiced yoga at least five days a week, all of which had tremendous therapeutic benefit. I firmly believe that if it weren't for this team of holistic practitioners, I would be much worse off today. I think their help kept the MS at bay, but only for so long. It was no match for the overdriven lifestyle I lived.

… [Days after the honeymoon] I woke up and my hands simply didn't work. I couldn't bend them; they were stuck like claws. Over the next couple of days I felt tremendous fatigue. I could hardly get anything done at work. By the time I lost the vision in my right eye, I found myself back in the hands of mainstream doctors.

My diagnosis of MS came just one month after my wedding day. Three neurologists in white coats took turns looking into my right eye and commenting on the degradation they could see on my optic nerve. “Judging from your history of symptoms, I'd estimate you've had MS for more than a decade,” [said one of the neurologists].

“A decade!” exclaimed Mark, stunned. “Shouldn't someone have caught this sooner?”

“I don't think she's ever had enough symptoms present at one time to lead to an accurate diagnosis,” replied the doctor. So there really wasn't anyone to blame, but that didn't stop me from being angry at all the doctors I saw over the years who told me I was suffering from nothing more than stress.

Now here I sit on the phone with Mbali. She listens intently and lets me cry for a while. Then, in her British lilt, she attempts to pull me out of my self-pity.

“Cami, I think you need to stop thinking about yourself.”

For a few seconds, I'm shocked silent. I imagine Mbali on the other end of the phone. … She's probably wearing one of the beautiful, colorful necklaces she makes and smiling at my stunned reaction.

“Thinking about myself?” I howl. I start in on her about what a wreck I am, what a wreck my body is, telling her I don't have room to think about anything except myself right now.

“I know, that's the problem,” she says. “If you spend all of your time and energy focusing on your pain, you're feeding the disease. You're making it worse by putting all of your attention there.” I absorb this information quietly.

“Cami,” she says, her voice soft and soothing but her words hitting me hard, “you are falling deeper and deeper into a black hole. I'm going to give you a tool to help you dig yourself out.”

“What should I do?” I ask.
 
“I have a prescription for you. I want you to give away 29 gifts in 29 days.”

 

The Giving Challenge
Walker accepted Mbali's challenge and on day 29, she created the 29-Day Giving Challenge, an online global giving movement designed to help create a giving spirit in the world.

Listen to Walker on Unity.FM's Unity Family Matters on Thursday, September 30.

Learn more about Walker's book.