Lessons from My 90 Year Old Body

How Sudden Disability Revealed the Wisdom My Younger Self Couldn’t See

Photo: Feb 8, 2020 - One year and two months before I aged overnight

It has been over four years since I suffered a severe reaction after my second COVID vaccine. I had no idea how dramatically my life would change overnight.

I worked full time as a Vice President at a Fortune 500 company. I was married to the love of my life with two kind teenagers still at home.

I loved participating in physically challenging events yearly including the:

• Fight for Air climb for the American Lung Association up 31 flights of stairs

• MS 150 bike ride 150 miles over two days for Multiple Sclerosis

• YWCA triathlon with a 500 yard swim, 15.5 mile bike followed by a 3.1 mile run

Needless to say, I was in the best shape of my life.

All of that changed overnight.

I was 49 when I enthusiastically went to the same pop up clinic to get my second Pfizer COVID vaccine. Forty hours later I woke up feeling like an unhealthy 90 year old.

I had a large swollen lump on my neck, a rash on my forehead, and my whole body ached as if I’d been hit by a Mack truck. It was as though I’d completed the Fight for Air climb, the MS 150 bike ride, and the YWCA triathlon—each three times in one day.

I had aching and pain so deep in my body and spine that I felt like I was dying. I would never wish this kind of intense pain on any other living thing. It was unbearable.

I understood why too many of the new friends I met, who experienced similar reactions to their COVID vaccines, chose to take their own lives. The pain is intense and doctors haven’t yet found many treatments that can relieve this type of pain.

With this overnight change in my physical well-being and abilities came a wealth of hard earned wisdom. My body aged overnight, but it took many months before the nuggets of wisdom came to me. They eventually came and for that I am grateful.

Before I could learn those lessons from my now 90 year old body, I had to learn to crawl again. I would crawl from the kitchen floor back to the sofa because my legs felt like lead and my heart would pound with intense tachycardia upon standing up. I had to crawl up the stairs to get to my bed.

Photo Credit: Anna Botz Photography

I was in survival mode. My spine and tailbone felt so swollen that I couldn’t sit up. When I did sit up my heart rate skyrocketed. Unfortunately my progression from crawling to walking wasn’t as linear as it is for a toddler. Flare ups (see Flare ups…the other F Word for more details) knocked me back down from standing to crawling.

I kept getting back up, but with the mindset of a 49 year old athletic, energetic person. I got back up with the “push through” and “try harder” attitude that I thought had served me well for 49 years.

But, I was wrong. That mindset kept me stuck. My 90 year old body and frayed nerves were not having it. Each time I focused on trying to go just a little bit farther by pushing through the exhaustion and pain I ended up in a horrible flare up that lasted for days.

I came across the work of Dr. Kim D’Eramo on a Facebook ad one day. She said I could get rid of my Chronic Fatigue in five days if I focused on noticing where my energy was going and made some shifts.

It sounded pretty out there to me, but it was something free I could try after spending thousands of dollars and hours trying everything else. What could it hurt? My ego maybe, but nothing else. It didn’t come with a list of terrible potential side effects like all the pharma treatments that had been prescribed.

That very day, I tried out her techniques when trying to go for a longer than one block walk without a wheelchair. I waited the next day for the flare up to kick in and it didn’t. I waited one more day and still, no flare up. Maybe this approach was the way to healing.

The shift was simply away from pushing through and trying hard to be more mindful of nature and beauty around me. My body needed to feel safe and not pushed. I didn’t realize that I was trying to bully my body back to health instead of self compassionately supporting it.

This was the first lesson my 90 year old body was longing for. I literally needed to stop and smell the roses. To stop and notice the beautiful blooms on the hibiscus tree and the hummingbird at the feeder. I needed to send a message from my mind and soul that my body was safe and things were good.

The second lesson was to trust my intuition. My yoga therapist friend Mandy (homeandyoga.com) had shared these words of wisdom with me within the first weeks of my reaction, but I had no idea what she meant when she said “go inward” until after I had learned the first lesson and allowed myself to slow down.

Going inward and trusting my intuition I realized that I did need the invasive surgery on my neck to resolve the compression of my internal jugular vein. I had that surgery in November 2024 and it has helped with dizziness, head pressure and blurry vision that I couldn’t resolve on my own.

The third lesson was that I can trust with certainty that everything will change. In the worst of the worst moments when chronic fatigue kicks in and the scary, deep nerve pain creeps back, I remind myself to be curious rather than panicky because I am certain it won’t stay that way forever. I look at the pain or fatigue and wonder what my body is telling me it needs. Should I take a break and lie down, should I go for a walk, should I ask for help?

The fourth lesson I learned from my 90 year old self was that it is ok and good to ask for help. I have always been so independent and I get joy from helping others. It is part of my identity to be giving. (Identity can be one of the ways you give your energy away per Dr. Kim D’Eramo).

Asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign of being human and our need for connected oneness. Why wouldn’t I offer the same kindness to myself that I want others to accept from me when I help them?

I know it feels good to help others. I need to let others experience that same good feeling by letting them help me. I need to let go of my ego and need for independence and allow their loving kindness in.

I wish I could have gotten there in a less painful, scary and difficult way. And, I am thankful to have learned the lessons of my 90 year old self long before reaching that biological age.

I can spend the rest of my days reaping the benefits of these four lessons:

1. Slow down, be mindful, and stop to smell the roses

2. Trust my intuition about what I need for me

3. Everything eventually changes, even intense physical and emotional pain

4. Ask for help by allowing others to do for me what I would readily do for them

I hope you can examine your own life and apply these lessons without having to go through a health crisis that accelerates your aging overnight. You can reverse time backwards when you begin supporting yourself by slowing down, trusting yourself, knowing that “this too shall pass” and allowing help in.

I wouldn’t wish my journey on anyone—but I know I’m not the only one who’s walked this path. If you’re here, if you’re hurting, if your life changed overnight and no one seems to understand—you’re not alone. There is wisdom in your body, even if it feels broken. There is healing in connection, even when you feel isolated.

These lessons from my 90-year-old self were hard-earned, but they’ve made me softer, more open, more human. And that’s what we need more of: not perfection, but compassion. Not pushing through, but reaching out. We heal faster—and more deeply—when we do it together. That’s the heart of Team Humanity. Let’s keep choosing each other.