This article is taken from the newly released Issue 5 of our magazine. Issues 1 to 4 are also available through the App store and Google Play store. Please subscribe to the Great Health Guide magazine – (subscription FREE for limited time only)
or 
Ignite Yourself! Turning Fear into Action written by Deirdre Waterson
Late in 2010, I opened my personal training studio. I managed a gym for six years and personally trained from another gym for ten years. So you can understand I was so excited to now have my own studio. I loved my job and my clients. Keeping fit was a huge part of my everyday life. My studio was a great success and I was starting to look at the next phase of my career; to train the trainer. That was until the results of an MRI showed I had a massive tumour on nerve C6 of my cervical spine (my neck). My world crumbled around me as doctors told me I had to have the vertebrae removed as soon as possible. I remember being told that my chances of survival were minimal. They needed to search for the cancer and on Monday would begin a series of tests. To say I was shocked would not even begin to explain what I felt.
I told the doctors that before I would consider the operation they would have to prove to me that they were right. I took control of my destiny right there and then. I did not feel they were right. I wanted to fight whatever it was that I needed to fight; I wanted to grow old with my husband and see my girls married. They were doing all they could to keep me alive. The MRI showed a white mass that four neurosurgeons agreed was a tumour. I was in survival mode. My husband and I decided not to accept the advice and sought advice from another neurosurgeon who agreed to wait and watch the mass. For six months I was told by my GP that I would die as I had CUP cancer, i.e. cancer of unknown primary origin. This was a really challenging time in my life.
What a relief when after six months, the mass disappeared and I was then told to get on with my life. Before this I practiced believing that I would be fine and read all the books I could on success stories of cancer patients; I had a husband and two children to fight to stay alive for.
You would think that was the end of it, but no, my body would swell every time I exercised. The doctors told me I had rheumatoid arthritis, a disease which is disfiguring and disabling as well as being extremely painful. This was not what I had planned. I enrolled in a diploma of life coaching and set about finding a way to cure this disease. I refused to accept that my life would end in a wheel chair and that I would spend my life exposed to drugs that were potentially lethal. I have had a four year journey of nonsense, I have been to many dark places, but I knew that it would not get me where I wanted to go. I had to fight and search for a better way. There were months that I struggled just to walk to the toilet and I wanted a way out. I discovered ways to appreciate and be grateful. My mantra was that ‘what you resist, will persist’.
So I refused to accept that there was not a better way. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with my husband and children with joy and happiness. So I changed my diet and everything I drank. I cleansed my gut and now I work again as a Life Coach healing others, I exercise albeit differently than before and I laugh and love the time with my family. I see my journey as a gift for all the people whom I touch as a coach. My family has an incredibly committed mother and wife. I appreciate every minute of every day.
I called my business Ignite Yourself because I had to do just that and I know you too can ignite yourself.
Author of this article:
Deirdre Waterson has over 30 years working as a personal trainer, a life coach and a master Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioner. She works with people where ever they are – online, face-to-face and one-on-one. With a mission to improve the life of over 1,500 people every year, Dee is a life coach of extraordinary strength, compassion and flexibility. Deirdre’s blogs enlighten and educate, helping people, even from a distance and can be found on her website.
