2 years 17 weeks

The title of this editorial is how long www.cpnhelp.org [1] has been in existence. I had planned on writing something intelligent and reflective, summing up what we’ve learned in this time, and offering an over-achiever’s commentary for the holiday. Blah, blah, blah.

Instead, as I’ve sat here at the keyboard, what has come to my mind and heart is not a commentary but rather, a great feeling of gratitude for everyone here and for the community of support we have formed. We, a bunch of sick people (and I mean that in the nicest way), have managed to create a rather remarkable community of support. A community where people from all over the world, all facing for themselves or loved ones a wide array of health problems due to Cpn, can draw from a huge reservoir of experience and concern and help each other through a challenging and puzzling treatment process.

Help and support comes, here, in a wide variety of forms, and we each have something different to contribute to the whole. Some contribute technical advice, some contribute heart felt concern and empathy. Others coach and cheerlead, while still others argue and challenge. Still others bring humor, for good or ill. Or should that read, “for the good and for the ill?” It is the very variety of contributions that makes this a true community, where no single person has to provide all things.

By the time a blogger or question-poster gets a full array of responses to their question, their cry for help, or their rant, they are likely to get at least one response from across the full range of possibilities. Something that is needed. While this may, at times, give us more than we may have wished to sort through, we are none-the-less free to pick and choose the ones we really need to hear. The wonders of the Internet. Somehow, it all seems to work.

That’s an amazing thing. I am very, very grateful for all of us here. Your willingness to help each other out so regularly, so continuously, so generously is quite remarkable.

Dr. Stratton said it to me in the very first conversation I had with him, and it’s been proven again and again here in the last 2 years and 17 weeks, that Chlamydia pneumoniae can be treated and cured, but that to do so requires a significant framework of support. It’s not easy to stick it out through the long and sometimes challenging process it involves. He has noted more recently that, when they formulated the treatment process, they never could have imagined that the Internet could provide exactly the kind of support community needed for this treatment.

There are some particular people my heart holds dear as keys to what has been created here, and I would like to take the space and time to thank them personally.

Foremost are Sarah Longlands-Wheldon and David Wheldoni [2]. It was Sarah’s warm welcome at ThisIsMS.com that opened the door to my discovering David’s treatment regimen. Sarah also, despite having completed her own CAPi [3] treatment for quite some time now and focused rightfully on her artistic work, continues to watch over posts here and at ThisIsMS.com and give her guiding voice to so many people seeking help.

David continues, both personally to all who correspond with him, and on his website, to be a cogent, clear and articulate source of treatment information and compassionate care. The clarity of the treatment regimen he formulated and presents is the best argument a physician could have for this treatment. David has contributed to more people getting treatment for Cpn, especially in MS, than any single person. I don’t know if people coming to Cpnhelp currently can appreciate what a voice in the wilderness he was, long before Cpnhelp existed. Without his guidance, I could not have convinced my original physician to prescribe the CAP treatment for me. My debt to him for this is beyond measure, and my thanks inadequate.

Of course, David, who I’m sure will be properly horrified at my public paean to him, will insist that he did little other than put into practical form the real genius of the work of Dr. Stratton and his colleagues at Vanderbilt. This is true only in detail, but it misses the significance of his contribution in putting the Vanderbilt work out to the world. It must be noted that David took significant professional risks in putting this information out in such a publicly accessible form. It is one thing for lay people to rally behind an unconventional treatment, but quite another thing for a physician to take such a stand, and put their professional reputation behind it. His courage in this, even if it seemed to him to have been motivated as much by desperation about his wife’s condition and umbrage that his profession could not grasp the compelling logic of it, is something I continue to admire and take fortification from.

Of course my continual gratitude remains for Dr. Charles Strattoni [4], whose work with his colleagues Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Sriram and others, exposed the complexities of Chlamydia pneumoniae and it’s treatment. His work is impeccable and brilliant, and I know enough of what he has had to face professionally in order to keep this important work alive and available to the public. It is obvious to me that the patents obtained were essentially ways to freely and generously offer the results of their research to the public domain. Like David Wheldon, Dr. Stratton has both brilliance and the courage to take a stand against ignorant conventionality, so that people in desperate need of the knowledge he has helped to generate can find it.

Of course I need to thank my friend and physician, Mike Powell, D.O., who continues to brilliantly search out new ways to give his patients an edge on this challenging bug, and brings his real, caring, human self to the care he gives his patients. He has encouraged and supported me in my management of this sometimes ungainly and sprawling endeavor of Cpnhelp, as well as to guide my own treatment. I’d be… well I don’t even like to think about where I’d be without him!

There are others too who have contributed mightily to the formation of the Cpnhelp community, and continue to do so. Rica (Katman), Macintosh (Patricia), Marie Rhodes, Ron (Paron), Raven, Eric Johnson are some of the “early adopters,” and all of them remain active to this day. Michele (Findlay), though she came along a bit later, has taken on a highly active role here, making sure everyone gets a greeting and a starting point as they become site members. I would be lost without her. All of you have contributed so much to the formation of the culture of support and informed help here. From my heart, thank you, thank you.

As the head honcho, I am able to choose to not have comments added by others to this editorial. And so, I will do so. A note of gratitude should stand by itself so those thanked can take it in and not feel any obligation to offer in kind, nor protest their worthiness. I'm reminded how one of my spiritual teachers, when a student said that they felt too unworthy of God's love, noted, "We are all unworthy. Fortunately, it's not a requirement!"

If you are reading this, know that I am grateful for your presence here as a reader. Even if you’ve come upon Cpnhelp for the first time you are a part in some way of the community of support. Even those who read but never post are part of this community here. And for those who post their struggles, their questions, their ideas and their own researches, please take a moment to appreciate what you have contributed to thousands who have come to this site over time. Whether they stay and join in, or simply glean information, you have helped them in some way. If they even carry with them but the idea that help for something they thought was impossible to help is possible, then they carry this community into the larger world with them in that way. Quite something, don’t you think?