Who is Dannie Cade?

Over the years I’ve had several people tell me I should write a book and at one point I did sit down and write out a chapter, the book has a name but it still sits buried in files in my office, I just didn’t know where to go with it as there’s so many things to share but I just couldn’t figure out how to tie it all together into something that made sense.  I’ve written out a few short stories about parts of my life, some of it’s been published in at least two books that I’m aware of and of course little “about me” articles for my websites and such, but nothing “book worthy” as of yet. 

Seeing as a book isn’t in my immediate future, the next best thing would be writing a blog, in fact it’s perfect as I can share many short unrelated experiences that have all tied together to lead to what I can best describe as “my here and now”.    

At this point you might be asking yourself “Why do I want to read this blog? Who exactly is this Dannie Cade anyways? What’s her qualifications?”  My first answer is Dannie, I, am someone who has been through the wringer yet not only did I survive, I thrive, and my qualifications are the best teachers I ever knew: experience.   

Let’s face it, life isn’t fair.  Some get it easy, others not so much and it’s not what we’re dished that matters so much as what we do with it.  We are all given situations, options on how to deal with those situations, and then we have choices to make.  Hopefully we’ve thought it through like a grand master chess player because for every action there is a reaction and if we messed up in our choice it can be a very painful lesson, that’s if you even understand the lesson. 

Like many of us, I wasn’t one of those that got it easy either.  Being an unwanted accident, right from the get go, I had a very stressful childhood.  I don’t think my parents knew how to deal with me so I spent almost all of my time alone in my room right up until school and wow, what a shocker experience that first while was. I remember feeling very lost when the other kids could tell the teacher shapes, colors, letters, numbers, etc. while I sat with that dear-in-the-headlight look. Throughout elementary school years I caught every cold and flu, had stomach and headaches often and when the doctor couldn’t find anything wrong that just made matters worse … now I’m a faking liar.  Time wasted for my mother was money lost and that would set her off right royally as she was our sole provider, a piano teacher who worked from our tiny one-bedroom basement suite.  For me that meant life was school, back home to my room until dinner, back in my room after dinner, bedtime.  I don’t think either of us were happy really. In grade 4 my mother and I moved from Kitimat to Kelowna, into my grandparents’ house with them.  Now I had my own room again and a basement to play in, but still I needed to stay out of Mom’s way so not much changed and it was lonely. 

Grade eight I moved to Ocean Falls, now a ghost town on the coast of B.C., with my long-lost father, his very young wife who is only 8 years older than me, their toddler and baby. I had hoped to get out of my room in this move, maybe do what other kids do but instead I found myself slammed into Cinderella’s role. School, home to babysit till my bedtime after the toddlers were fed, bathed, tucked in, dishes done and whatever else besides my homework.  Yup, got me out of my room more…lol!  

It wasn’t all bad though, I was born into a musical family and that was passed onto me as well.  I enjoyed performing on stage be it trumpet, singing or acting and eventually I did that professionally off and on throughout my life, I think it’s always been my escape.  In the meantime, I found that going to high school while trying to catch up in all ways with my peers, playing nanny to my half siblings as a full-time job under the typical hormonal rages a teenager goes through was just too much.  There’s far more to this story but that’s another day.  After 3 years of that I move out on my own at the age of 15, back to Kelowna where I enrolled in night college to finish my grade 12 while working a day job as a waitress, and we made really good money in tips back then so supporting myself wasn’t a problem, but I was always missing that connected feeling that one should have with family, a feeling I never felt and so wanted, being young and dumb I decided I’d make my own family. 

At 19 I was married to a really kind soul and we had two beautiful daughters, but our marriage didn’t last long as we quickly realized far too late that we wanted different things in life, ours may yet have been one the most peaceful divorces, we were friends right up until his passing decades later, may he RIP always. We shared the responsibilities of our daughters and while I had them most of the time, I also found ways to work to support us. I did many things like Mary Kay, waitressed, was a purchasing agent, mechanic, musician, even a vacuum salesperson.  I’m sure I’m missing some here but the last “job” I had was as a heavy-duty mechanic’s swamper, having done the pre-app automotive in our now university, it was a jump but the principles are the same and even better was that I was working with/for my now husband.  We had it made, until I suddenly crashed hard. 

The doctors called it stress and yes, after being in survival mode all the way through life I could understand that…but I’m not one to succumb to stress like this where I’m so tired, everything aches, sweat breakouts like crazy, nauseous…it was like the flu from hell that wouldn’t go away, even my hair hurt. It took 4.5 years of suffering like this, this never-ending back labor that won’t let me sleep with the flu from hell, after having been demoralized and all but abused by 15 specialists, disregarded as a hypochondriac, triggered into a constant state of PTSD, to get an official diagnosis of Lyme disease.  This was the beginning of my fight to reclaim what all I’d lost through this ordeal. It meant learning what I can do to help myself because Lyme is not something any doctor wants to treat beyond protocol, otherwise the College of Physicians and Surgeons or worse will revoke their license. 

I was very lucky where I did have a Lyme Literate Medical Doctor until he was bullied into retiring, I underwent 2 years of oral antibiotic combinations in double dosages at times and yes it knocked back the Lyme immensely but I also had to learn how to keep it in remission, how not to feed or encourage it. Eat this food, take that supplement, add this, subtract that, on and on and before long I had a countertop packed full of all kinds of vitamins and supplements that began to expire while I tried to figure out what worked and what didn’t. 

About that time I found a newspaper ad offering to teach me how to turn a few hours a week into extra cash using my computer and phone. I wanted to work from home, was already doing that by running the office for my husband as I was no longer in the field, why not?  It was really cool going through these online classrooms but what made it a no brainer for me was that I could see how to get paid to get, be and stay healthy and if I tried really hard maybe I could develop a career income and my husband could retire.   

So began BossFree123.com in 2008 and yes, I climbed up the ladder fast using the very same duplicatable system that was shown me, until my heart started to go out of control in late 2009.  It’d get all arrhythmic while speeding up like an engine without a governor, scared the crap out of me as I’d all but pass out, feeling like this was it, game over.  I was clocked at over 240 beats per minute, all the tests came up perfect, nobody could figure out why this would happen without apparent cause even though I suggested it could be connected to my Lyme challenge.  Eventually after trying a couple of prescriptions that did nothing but annoy me, they suggested open heart surgery and class three drugs.  No thanks.  

Fast forward several months, I had done a pile of lab work through a man by the name of Dr. Richard Brouse and the roughly $2000.00 bill for everything was worth it.  I was grossly deficient in vitamin D3 and a few important B’s, other things needed cleaning up but those two were my culprits.  In increasing those two supplements my cardiac issues disappeared and I was back on track…until the cancer hit in 2012. I found a lump in my breast that began a whole new nightmare. 

In saying what I am about to, please understand this is only my opinion and not medical advice, I chose my path carefully with the understanding that worst case scenario I’d go home early. Having gotten my head around that, without going into my “why’s” I decided to go an all-natural approach in treating this condition and although I did well there were two things not going in my favor.  First, over the next three years my tumor kept returning and then finally attacked my nipple and that’s when I started to slowly lose weight but was attributing it to being super busy in my business, hyped up!  

Jan 2015 my body could take no more of fighting this off, it was worn out and done, it all but shut down starting with the digestive system. I was so nauseous I wanted to rip my stomach out and toss it, eating was not happening and beverages were difficult as nothing appealed to me.  I was losing a good pound and a half a day, weak as death and I was scared because once again nobody had any answers until finally my favorite surgeon biopsied my nipple.  Tada, not just breast cancer but a rare form called Paget Disease of the Nipple, a mastectomy was now happening. 

From January of 2015 to mid-March I’d lost a good 80 pounds, was struggling to put down two protein meal smoothies a day to get stronger for surgery where the mastectomy happened and while I was out a tissue expander would be inserted under the pectorals for reconstruction.  Part one went well, not part two.  Apparently they somehow anchor it to the rib cage and in doing so rather overzealously, chunks of my rib cage were splintered and an infection began where once again, nobody would listen when I said I was in excruciating pain and that something was wrong.  Three weeks later I landed in the hospital with a fever of 41 degrees Celsius, chest all red, yup…I was written off as dead by several but they removed that contraption, IV antibiotics were started and in week two I started to come back to reality.  I have no idea what week one was like but I was told by my room mates I’m hilarious on drugs so at least that was off to a good start as I wasn’t leaving soon. 

Secondly, in reflection I had not been as dedicated to my health as I should have been.  I thought I was good at reducing sugar but I didn’t understand carbs, how to read a label nor did I imagine vodka could be a culprit either, and really, if you take all the right supplements you can get away with not exercising and diet is covered, RIGHT?!? Yeah, I made many mistakes but now there was no wiggle room.  Time for me to do as I say, walk the talk and so I started to understand why I had been through each and every awful experience, how it had all led up to this moment of putting it all together.  I had a new rule.  If it’s good for me, do it.  If it’s not, don’t.  Sounds simple right?  It is, but it’s not easy. More about that later. 

For the next nine months I had strangers shoving their hands into a hole in my chest that used to be a personal part of my body, and it was ridiculously painful not just emotionally but physically.  I’d have to be wired up on some kickass pain killers to endure it and when one of them stabbed herself with a bone shard they understood why I wasn’t healing.  In no time short a pic line was inserted for 6 weeks of antibiotics for my bone infection followed by 6 weeks of orals, and so ended 2015.  I had finally healed up physically and was beginning to eat more foods.  

By now I’d all but gone into a state of muscle atrophy, was spent, broken, wiped out yet ever so amazed and grateful that I was still here.  I could finally walk the floor without stabbing pains in my chest, slowly but surely, I paced more and more until I could take it to the treadmill. From there I got brave and hit the great outdoors, first to the corner and back, then the next street and back, always increasing the distance in little bits over time.  The hardest part was people.  I had spent so much time living alone on the end of the couch, so to suddenly be out in public unrelated to anything medical was weird and scary!  I was jumpy, paranoid, everything scared and overwhelmed me.  I had compounded trauma related PTSD from a lifetime of struggles.  That’s another challenge I keep under control through a regiment I have that works for me. 

So why am I telling you all of this?  Over the years I had to learn things that medical doctors don’t tell you for whatever reasons that may be.  I have many symptoms that I don’t want to be on a pile of drugs for so I sought out other options.  They like to treat each symptom as one separate thing where in my case there are several monsters that I prefer to control naturally instead of them controlling me. I’ve already mentioned lyme, cancer, PTSD but there’s also EBV, FM, CFS, and 4 other things I can’t even pronounce going on and I don’t really care anymore because it’s not what’s wrong with me that matters, it’s what I can do about it that matters.   

I remember what it’s like to wake up drenched, cold and shivery, achy, tired, confused, not being able to do simple things like sweep a floor or hold a book because that was too painful.  The fear of waiting for a diagnosis, or the frustration of not getting answers. How frustrating it was to get lost while driving, never mind shoulder checking because you can’t move your neck. Simple things that I could go on and on about not being able to do, how that feels, what we lose of ourselves, friends and family. I’ve been through so many nightmares but they all gave me an education that no book or video could ever provide, and those are the things I want to share with you.   

I might not rock your world, but I would like to make your life a little nicer somehow, some way, so stick around, I’d love to be of help.