Hi there! Welcome to our farm and our blog. We have lots of exciting things happening here at Elizabeth Acres, but first I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. I was born, of course, in the month of July and my mom and dad decided that would be a fitting name for the baby of the family. I have one older brother and sister. I was born on a Tuesday and my dad wanted to name me Tuesday July, but my mother vetoed that and carried on the family name of Elizabeth July. My mother was named Elizabeth after her grandmother, my great grandmother and I have a niece and great nieces who have also carried on this family name. I was born in Austell, Georgia and when I was nine years old my family and I moved to the country. Boy, were we in for an adventure! Being from a suburb of Atlanta, I didn’t know anything about being a country girl, but you sure do learn quickly when you are there. My parents built a house on a few acres of land and the journey began. I was in fourth grade when I started at a new school. I had never ridden a school bus up until that point. My mother typically made a lot of our clothes, as she was an amazing seamstress. But the kids at my new school laughed and made fun of me. I was embarrassed and sad. I had no idea that I would grow up to be thankful for the love my mother had sewn into each stitch and wished that I could see some of those clothes again. I developed my love for crafts and sewing by spending so much time as a child with my mother. Fast forward to my early adulthood. I was a real estate paralegal in the 1990’s and about to set out living on my own when the hardest day of my early life was upon me. Like I had said my mother was very talented with sewing and crafts as well as cooking. She would host dinners for church groups in our home during the Christmas holidays. She would cook the food that she and my dad grew in the garden every summer and I would waitress the events. My dad would sing Christmas songs after everyone ate. But not long after the guests arrived on December 6, 1994, my dad and I knew something was terribly wrong. My mother had an aneurysm to rupture. Right there. Right there in front of us. I will share more about that tragic night later in my blogs, but thankfully, my mother lived. She lived through brain surgery and was able to come home. Thank you God! But she was different. She was my mom, but then she was a new person that I had to get to know. I say all of this because in learning to be one of her caretakers, I discovered I had a passion for helping others. I was already a certified fitness instructor, but decided to go back to college to pursue a degree in Therapeutic Recreation to work inside a hospital or rehab facility which I did for almost three years. That job led me to want to pursue my teaching degree and work with children with physical disabilities. As you will soon find out, I love being a very active and physical person! I began teaching yoga in 1998 and it was like my life had opened up. I finally got the connection between exercise and your body and mind. It was my “thing”. I was good at it. I enjoyed sharing it with others.
I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis when I was 19. Through diet and exercise and an occasional medication or two, I maintained to keep this debilitating disease at bay. But as I got older, my symptoms got worse. I was losing strength in my hands and was hurting quite a bit. My dad talked me into going and seeing a Rheumatologist, something I had not done in years. I thought to myself, “What’s the point? I don’t want to take any medicine.” But I went anyway. He was a very quiet doctor and really observed the way I moved and performed the tasks I he asked of me. He scheduled bloodwork, x-rays and some other tests. After the x-rays, the nurse called and told me I needed an MRI. I had never had an MRI before, so that was a little concerning. Once I finished with the MRI, I stopped back by the doctor’s office to see when the results would be back. She told me in a week or so and that they would call me. Fair enough. I left to drive back home which as about an hour away. I had not made it home before the nurse was calling me telling me that the MRI was concerning and that I needed to see a neurosurgeon the next day. The next day? Well, he must not be a very busy neurosurgeon if I could get in to see him the next day, is what I was thinking. So, I go to work and plan on leaving at lunch for my appointment. Since it was so last minute and I thought what could possibly be wrong, my husband didn’t take off to go with me. But my dad being a dad, said he thought he should go with me. I’m so glad he did. I quite possibly received the most terrifying news anyone can hear. “Mrs. Nicholas. You have an extremely rare congenital abnormality called Basilar Invagination. Your second vertebrae is compressing your brainstem 65% and you are about to sever your spinal cord. You need a very serious surgery and you need it as soon as you can. “ The doctor went on to explain that they would be basically operating at my brainstem and replacing my C1-C4 vertebrae with titanium rods and placing a plate in the back of my head. “Well all of that was fine and good I said (I was in total shock and denial as you can imagine) but I have a yoga class that I am teaching tonight at 5:30. How long is all of this going to take to get set up?” The doctor looked at me and said “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. You don’t have yoga today. You cannot teach yoga today. You may never practice yoga again.” Now that got my attention. It took a few days to process just the fact that I needed immediate surgery. I’m still processing what happened almost 9 years later. It was a very life altering event. But I am so thankful that God wasn’t finished with me yet. The next couple of weeks after the diagnosis were a blur. I ended up getting a second opinion, because let’s face it, when a doctor says he’s going to be operating on your brainstem, you kind of want to make sure that’s exactly what you need. And it was exactly what I needed. After the surgery, the doctor told my family that I was one lucky girl. I only had a few tendons holding my head on and that I had been living on borrowed time. Wow. Since I was born with RA and the disease has gotten worse over the course of my life, I am now in the process of getting evaluations because more cervical fusions are in my future unfortunately. I will share more about living and coping with a chronic illness in later blogs as well as some of my other health issues.
I am an educator of many things, health, wellness, yoga and academics. That’s why I also chose to become a Holistic Health Coach. I want to provide people with the tools achieve their optimum health and having these health issues has made me very passionate about helping others.
I am married to Blake and we have two daughters, Macie and Kaylee as well as two dogs, Izzy and Jax, both rescue dogs, who really rescued me. I enjoy making crafts and bringing our old farmhouse and land to life again! I have lots of plans for our future and the future of our farm. I can’t wait to share them with you.
