Episode 22: Healing from Lupus
Andrea Lende
About Andrea:
Most doctors will tell you that healing from Lupus is impossible. That wasn't Andrea's experience. Andrea Lende was a flight instructor headed to the major airlines when she was grounded with Lupus. She had to reinvent my life. First, she created health. Second, she created a family. Third, she is now an author/speaker. She has an online ministry and writes daily devotions and prayers and provide weekly messages of hope and healing.
Facebook and IG: Life After Lupus
Facebook and IG: Believing Him
https://www.lifeafterlupus.com
https://www.amazon.com/Andrea-Lende/e/B08MB5XCSC
https://anchor.fm/andrea-lende
Podcast transcript below:
Damaged Parents: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents were confused, breathless, crushed people come to learn maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way.
I would venture to say it's closer to 100%. Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about.
In my ongoing investigation of the damage self. I want to better understand how others view their own challenges. Maybe it's not so much about the damage, maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with it. There's a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?
My hero is the damaged person. The one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side hole. Those who stared directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover their purpose. These are the people who inspire me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials. But because of them. Let's hear from another hero.
Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them today. We're going to talk with Andrea Lende. She has many roles in her life, wife, mother, sister, daughter, author, and more. We'll talk about how one moment she was fine and the next moment she couldn't breathe. How she persisted to figure out the problem and healed. Let's talk.
Welcome Andrea to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. How are you today?
Andrea Lende: [00:02:06] I am well, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Damaged Parents: [00:02:09] No problem. As you know, this is the show where we talk about struggle and how you found hope and my understanding is you have a pretty interesting struggle to talk about today.
Andrea Lende: [00:02:21] Yeah, yes. It's been one that, I'm thankful to have overcome in the end. So that's the really good news, but I long ago in my, in my twenties, I used to be a pilot. I was a flight instructor and I was headed to the major airlines. And on that kind of fast, fast track, if you will, when I was grounded, because I was diagnosed with lupus. So I spent quite a, about three years getting well, and that was my journey with lupus in terms of healing. I know that a lot of people don't think about getting a chronic illness and then healing from that. But yeah. At a young age, I was 30 years old when my body just broke. It just wasn't going to do for me anymore that I wanted it to do.
It said no. And so that was my first sort of redirection in life, if you will. And, gave me a lot of time to reflect because I couldn't do a lot of anything else. And I had been on this really fast paced life. I mean, I worked full time. I was. Going through all of my ratings and doing ground school at night and flying on the weekends.
And so it was just a really busy time and it was and taking care of, any piece of me, whether it was my spirit, my mind, my body, and I often be found. Sitting in bed at eight or nine o'clock at night eating a bowl of fruit loops or lucky charms. And my body just was not going to say yes anymore to that kind of a life.
So , I spent three years really, really doing a lot of, healing, both spiritually mind and or all of it. Spiritually mind and body.
Damaged Parents: [00:03:58] So what did it feel like? I mean, take us back to when you found out what happened and what that felt like.
Andrea Lende: [00:04:08] Yeah. First, I was quite surprised usually with auto-immune you don't get a conclusive diagnosis, it could be anything it could lead to Ms. Or. Oh, all kinds of different auto-immune disorders. But the way that mine presented itself was I was having so much trouble breathing. My husband and I were in Hawaii on a trip and on our way back, I was, it was the short flight.
Before we would take a longer flight to Los Angeles. And so on that short flight, we took off, which I was a pilot. I'm not afraid to fly or anything like that, but all of a sudden I found myself gasping for air. I just couldn't get a breath. And I didn't say anything to my husband cause I didn't want to alarm him.
But when we landed in Honolulu, I said, You know, before I get on another flight, we've got to see if there's, uh, an, airport doctors, some kind of medical facility. And that's really the way it started. I struggled for every breath I could get, and it was a miserable flight home. It sort of went away when I was, when I slept a lot and then recurred one other afternoon, I was at work and I had just eaten.
And again, I couldn't breathe. And so I immediately went to the doctor and she had an opening just like, literally from the time I could leave my office to get to hers and she didn't know what was going on. And by that time I was so afraid. I mean, it was just fear. I couldn't get that breath. That I said, I just can't go home.
Damaged Parents: [00:05:35] so were you panicking on top of this fear? I mean, what did it feel like you were drowning? And so you're panicking and on top of it, I mean, was it all happening?
Andrea Lende: [00:05:44] Yeah. Yeah, it really was because I had never had that sensation before ever. Like, you know, we just expect our brain is going to have our, our lungs expand and we're going to get air. And those are things we don't have to think about doing like our heart beating and breathing that those are just. So when it becomes a struggle, it was extremely scary.
Yeah, I was, I was afraid and I don't know if I would call it a full on panic attack, but because I know people are, I mean, have those and it's really devastating, but I just, it was, it was extremely, extremely fearful. The first, when I went from that doctor, she immediately made an appointment for an allergy specialist.
And I said, is there any way we can do this today? And it was already afternoon, so I didn't expect it could happen at all. But he was like this little miracle in a whole line of miracles that ended up to be my road towards healing. It just happened that this next allergist was someone who had interned in a lupus clinic.
Damaged Parents: [00:06:50] Oh, wow.
Andrea Lende: [00:06:51] And yeah, I mean, it was, like I said, it was the first miracle in a whole line of miracles that happened in my life during that time. But he asked me about a hundred questions and he nailed it really the first time out, but he didn't tell me what he was looking for. He took it a whole bunch of blood. And I guess I was just reassured finally that somebody was looking into something for me.
So that kind of calmed my nerves, but yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:07:17] real quick question. If you've got this doctor asking you a hundred questions, are you thinking what is going on? And it sounds like you didn't know right away that he hit the nail on the head, but so you, when you left, you still had no clue.
Andrea Lende: [00:07:36] I still had no clue. Yeah. And the a hundred questions like that was my first experience with any type of a physician asking that many questions. It started to become the norm because every doctor I saw after that did that sort of line of questioning. But I had never really been sick, sick before, other than just going to your regular doctor, getting a strep test, those kinds of things.
So when something's really wrong, They start asking a whole bunch of questions and I didn't ask him. What he was taking all the blood for. I didn't ask him what he was going to test for and looking back on it. I, I wish I would have, because then I would have sort of known which route we were headed and I'm this kind of a.
Information gatherer. I started researching right away. What could possibly be wrong, looking at my symptoms and, and back then we didn't have Google like we have today. So it took a little bit more work in terms of trying to find what was going on. And, and again, he was just the start in a long line of doctors.
And I ended up in emergency rooms and, and neuro neurological doctors and just all kinds of doctors before and in each one wanted to give me a prescription, which I then went and got filled in which I was then allergic to.
Damaged Parents: [00:08:55] Oh, no,
Andrea Lende: [00:08:57] So none. Yeah. Yeah. So it, it got to be. I mean, my body just wasn't that's the way it responded to like any foreign type of thing at that point.
Damaged Parents: [00:09:09] So you had heard, so every time a prescription was given to you, right.
Andrea Lende: [00:09:15] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:09:16] And then, and then you were devastated when the allergic reaction happened. I'm thinking this is what's happening.
Andrea Lende: [00:09:25] This is exactly what's happening. It really. And I know I've talked to a lot of chronic illness suffers since then, you know, it's been many years and, and we all want. This diagnosis, like we all want to name to put to the thing. And so we go on this quest to figure out what is it? And then we identify with it.
And I'm, I guess I'm, I really am thankful now that I know what I know. I'm thankful that I didn't ever really get a name for a while, because once you get that name, then you identify that with yourself. And it's really hard to believe for anything else.
Damaged Parents: [00:10:07] what do you mean by that?
Andrea Lende: [00:10:09] Great. And I'm glad you asked that because our belief, what we believe is so, so important.
And back then, I didn't really understand the power of belief and I didn't understand the power of words, but what I do know is back then, I wasn't willing to stay sick for the rest of my life. So it was like, I never believed I would be sick forever. And I was always on a quest for how to get better. I read every cancer book.
I'm like, okay, if they got well from cancer, I can get well from whatever this is. I did the cleanses. I did the juicing. I did so many things that we normally wouldn't do to, but I was all in a quest of getting well, because as I went through doctor after doctor and script after script, and I couldn't take it.
That led me to my first sort of healing doctor, if you will. He was a naturopath and again, back 25 years ago, natural paths, weren't a diamond and I'd never heard of one, but my flight community kept saying, don't get this on your record, Andrea, it'll ground. You, you need to, you know, so go see a naturopath, what we do.
So I did, I. I went to see him. And that was the first step in actual true healing where my body, we shifted courses, we shifted directions. And, and I knew that I knew that I knew that that was the way that I was supposed to go and I wasn't supposed to do all the other stuff that I had been doing.
Damaged Parents: [00:11:45] So shifting when you say shift course shifting from those Western idea of what medicine is to maybe a more Eastern type style.
Andrea Lende: [00:11:57] right. And I, I'm not even sure I had that full awareness at the time. I just knew that this was a diff cause I, by then I had seen a whole bunch of doctors. I had been in a lot of different situations with doctors and none of it was going well. Like I went to CA they thought my, my breathing, we had, we had identified Well, someone had thought one, one doctor in the ER, had thought that maybe it was my.
Gallbladder. And so I saw a gallbladder doctor and you have to take a whole bunch of pills and then they take pictures of your gallbladder. Well, I told them, I said, I'm really not good with bills, you know? So he said, well, come to the ER and take them there. And if you have a reaction, we'll bring you in the back and we'll be all set up and ready for you.
And I did, and it happened and I was sitting on a table and they were injecting all kinds of things, which didn't go well for me either.
Damaged Parents: [00:12:47] no. So I'm thinking another allergy happened,
Andrea Lende: [00:12:50] Yeah, it did in a huge way. And. At one point. So there, they put an IV in and they put a shot of Benadryl in and she put it into fast. Then it was like, I was underwater. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't like I wanted to grab my husband and say, I'm suffocating you here, but within probably 30 seconds that subsided, but then new stuff started happening and the room started spinning and I asked them.
I told the nurse and she sent the doctor and then he said, well, which, which way is it spinning? And I said, whichever way I told him and he said, well, that can't be, cause that would be hard. I said, what are you having that trip? And he said, Tagament. I said, I'm allergic to tag him and take it, stop it now, like stop it now.
And he did. And then the spinning went away. But the next day I ended up. Where I couldn't feel from the waist down. And so it was just like every time I went to try and get a solution, I ended up sicker on the other end of it. So when I went into the matcher path, he, again, he asked me a hundred, 200 questions.
I was in there for a good hour, if not longer. And the protocol that he started me on actually made sense. Nothing was invasive. It was. Your stomach is in distress. And we eventually figured out that too, what will cause the breathing problems? Because I couldn't expand my diaphragm to get a breath. So I was always like little teeny, these little teeny breaths.
And so he put me on this fasting. It was just a powder it mix with water and I didn't eat any food for a week. And by the end of that week, I called him and it, as soon as I stopped eating, I just knew that that was the answer. That was what I needed to do. And peace just rushed. I just felt this tremendous amount of peace knowing that, okay, this feels right.
This is good. I didn't know that I would be on that powder for 90 days, but I called the doctor at the end of a week and I said, I'm actually afraid to start eating again. Like this is going really well. And I don't want to add food at this point. And he said, if you, if you're in that space, you're very blessed.
Continue on with what you're doing and just drink however many times a day. You know, you need this sustenance and. And then again, like that's what I knew to healing was starting to happen in my body when I was doing what it needed instead of throwing all kinds of stuff at it. And within 90 days, I also knew that I was sort of done with him.
And inside of that 90, I was buying so much of the powder or the drink mix that he, and it was a, you know, it was a pharmaceutical grade type thing was very, very good. And I was. Eventually, I just went to the warehouse and started buying it. And I met the next person who would take me to the next part of my journey, which all of it, like I said, was like a little miracle here, a little miracle here, and I could never see very far ahead of me.
Like, I didn't know what was coming next, but as soon as I needed that next thing, God provided that next step. And so it was like walking blindly down this really dark path and a little teeny light, each little piece of the way.
Damaged Parents: [00:16:01] Let's talk about that, because that I think is really hard. You've got lupus, could you explain that real quick for the listeners that don't know what lupus is?
Andrea Lende: [00:16:11] Sure. It's an autoimmune disorder where your body doesn't any longer identify that you're not the foreign object. So like if you get a bacteria in a normal person, those white blood cells go and fight off that infection. But now you're. Your immune system is turned on you and it thinks you're the foreign invader.
And so it will fight you tooth and nail and it can present itself in so many different ways. I mean, it's. It can be life-threatening if it attacks your heart, do you know your major organs or it can just be extremely painful if it attacks your joints, which it often does and causes enormous fatigue like fatigue, like you've never felt before.
The best way that I can explain the type of fatigue that goes along probably with almost any autoimmune illness is the kind of fatigue you'd feel like when you've moved the last box out of the house that you're moving from and you've cleaned the last nook and cranny of that home. And you walk out and get into your car fully exhausted.
It's like that. 24 seven, like you don't recover from that fatigue. You go to bed with that fatigue. You wake up with that fatigue. It's just always that tired. So, and lots of different, weird symptoms can happen that can really put you off balance with lupus, but that's what it is. It's just your immune system turning.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:32] okay. But now you're noticing these little blessings along the way.
Andrea Lende: [00:17:37] Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:17:38] Tell us what's going on. What's going on in your mind.
Andrea Lende: [00:17:42] well, that's it. That's it. So great question, Angela. It truly is because around me, the people like my parents, my sisters, no one could really believe, or they didn't believe a that I was either that sick or B that I should be going this natural route. Like it, it kind of is a tilt tilt thing. Nobody.
And even myself, I mean, I haven't hadn't ever explored any other methods of healing other than going to the doctor getting the med and it makes you well, so this was a whole new whole new experience. Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:18:16] Questioning E at some point, were you questioning your sanity?
Andrea Lende: [00:18:21] Yeah. If I would have, I think if it wasn't so peaceful, Like it, the, the walk that I was walking was different, but I knew it was divinely led like every step of it. And I just had to, this is important. I think for listeners is I had to tune out the noise around me. The negativity, the, no, don't do that too.
No, this, when, when a person is as sick as I was. The veil is lifted just a little bit from you to heaven and. You just experience God in such a close way. There's no mistaking that he's the one leading this thing and I didn't have a well-lighted path. It was like I said, a little light saying, do this next, do this next.
And although it could go against all of what. I had previously believed there was such peace around it. And I knew that the Lord was leading every single step that I didn't question it. I just followed it.
And I'm thankful.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:27] right. And so on.
You've got family and friends. It sounds like that are questioning your choices.
Andrea Lende: [00:19:33] For sure.
Damaged Parents: [00:19:34] And then. You had to, you had this piece inside of you and you're like, no, I know this is the way I need to go. And was that ever confusing or did you, did you question and go, well, am I really supposed to be going this way?
Kind of like, are, am I sure
Andrea Lende: [00:19:55] I think I was more experiencing disappointment, disappointment in the people around me. Who you, you know, you think the staples, I mean, my parents love, love, love them in every way. And they love me like unconditionally. There's no question. But disappointing that people wouldn't support those choices, which I know they seem like off the wall, weird choices and things like that, but, but it was what I needed to do.
And so sometimes in life we really have to follow what we know in our hearts. It there's no. External evidence of what we're doing is the right, you know, the, the right path for us. But when we know it inside, when we fully fully know it, even the noise on the outside doesn't deter us. It was disappointing.
I still have some doctors now who say, well, you don't really ever get well from lupus. It must not have been that, and yeah. And that's, you know, that's just, that's like, what do you do with that? But, but those are the feelings that, that were there. Piece was really my guide and disappointment.
Yes. And some people around me.
Damaged Parents: [00:21:03] you had tests though, right? That said you definitively had lupus, right?
Andrea Lende: [00:21:09] Right, right down the line. I remember going to a gastroenterologists and he said, well, with your blood tests, the way they are right now, we use floodings from Germany. We know something's coming. He would say, we don't know what it is, but we know something's coming well from the natural path. Then, and I, and I was buying my canisters at the wholesale or the, the manufacturing facility or whatever.
There was a woman one time that I met and I knew I needed to talk to her again. She was at the front desk. And she would never be because she was managing the facility, but this one day she happened to be there and we started a conversation and she really started and she said, well, how do you like it? I said, I like, I love this.
She said really? And she said, that's really odd because I get a lot of people who say they hate it. And I'm like, no, And, and I, I realized afterwards it was total grace. Like, God, just say, this is what you need. You are, this is going to taste good to you. You are going to love it. And so we started this, you know, this Congress, I said, it's saving my life.
And she started telling me about her son who was very sick and she nursed him back to life. So then my ear started perking up and I knew when I left, I needed to converse with her again. And I managed to get the name of my actual doctor then. A new doctor who would really be that healing caveat in my, or person in my life.
And he's a regular MD, but he also had a Papa carry in his office with like really high grade nutrition. He would have treated me with meds, had my body tolerated that, but it didn't. So he put me on this menagerie of, Those really great supplements that would rebuild my body one cell at a time. And so once I found him, which wasn't like, it was really only 90 days after I had started with the natural path.
I kept going on my drink, the canister that I had bought for food, for nutrition or whatever. And, and then just started adding in. Steamed veggies, like literally Zuki steamed zucchini. And until I could add in a little bit more, but, but every place I went was the next thing that I needed on my journey.
So that piece did proceed. Like it, it went forward ahead of me and I just continued to follow that path, even though there was, like I said, this sort of noise around me.
Damaged Parents: [00:23:33] so did you have faith before the. The journey or did it happen? So, so you're on this journey. And are you kind of looking for things around you or rec are you, is it maybe easier to recognize that, Oh, maybe God was involved.
Andrea Lende: [00:23:54] No, absolutely really hypersensitive to the Lord at that point. Cause I knew he was leading every step. Your question though, that I never fully answered was, did I get that definitive answer? So somewhere after I found that MD about a year. Yeah. Into the treatment with him. And I spent about three years with him.
I finally, I asked him, I said, so did my blood tests ever say what I actually had? And we never talked about it. Like I said, , I don't think I know that he knew. The power of words and he would never have brought that up. And which is the, this is probably the first time I've actually thought that, but I asked him I, so any, of course he answered me.
He said, yes, yourselves, they went fluorescent. And when that happens, then that is definitively lupus. But again, for a year, we never talked about that. And I, and I think now looking back that we didn't talk about it because. Having that diagnosis then, and then saying, Oh yes, I have, you know, I have this. I don't even want to say it today is powerful.
Our mind will go to work to create it, to keep it tight, you know, to keep that a living thing in our, in our bodies. And so that was the last time we ever talked about that. We never said that again. We just were talking about how I was feeling and he'd say, well, why not? Let's up your dose of vitamin C or let's, do this with this.
And we tweaked things along the way. And. And like I said, it took, those three years to get well and a lot of prayer and meditation and yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:25:32] Yeah, so, okay. I heard you say words are powerful and I heard you say. The label is powerful. Explain that. I mean, it sounds like what you're saying is that by even saying I have lupus, like you, like you did in your book is. Powerful enough that then you can identify it that then you can go and do all this research, which may be helpful, but it also might be hurtful is what I'm thinking.
You're kind of alluding to. I'm not sure. What are your thoughts on that?
Andrea Lende: [00:26:08] Yeah, I again, now I know like the power of our mind and. When we say things, we are speaking those things into existence. There's no doubt about it. Yeah. Just like God created the world with created all of it, with his word, which we read in his word and. We do the same thing in our lives. If we are constantly complaining about something, we are just calling that thing.
So then we have this constant complaint going on and we're just calling more and more of it into our lives. And so it. Now that I understand the power of the mind that them speaks the words they come out. I'm just super careful about what I say and what I think on I was constantly researching. Like I would do.
I, like I said, I would do of. A lot of juicing and I would do meditating. I found it, there were three books. There were super helpful for me on this journey. And so I'd love to share those with your audience as well, Louise. Yeah. Oh, great. Thank you. Louise Hay and. I forget that first book that I read of hers, but it was a book and it talked about, she was talking about affirmations that we can say every day that just really puts our spirit in a different place.
And all of that, I mean, when I just was writing a devotion for today and Jesus spoke be in prayer constantly. And then I used the amplified Bible and it says, and he says, and do not be coward. Like pray always and do not be cowered. And then the, the, the meaning of that in the amplified Bible was, do not faint.
Do not lose hope, do not lose heart. And I mean, Jesus said this 2000 years ago and we need to apply that. That is a spiritual principle that we can apply in today's world. Meaning let's say let's be thinking on wonderful, beautiful. Lovely things. And that's what we will create inside of our lives. So Louise hay does a lot of that and I can find a lot of her work you know, can back that up biblically then Bernie Siegel road.
Love, Medicine, and Miracles, and he's a famous cancer doctor and he may have now since passed. Cause I read him when I was 30 years old, but his book is just, it gave me hope. I mean, it really gave me hope. He was you know, he would do the surgeries and then recommend the radiation, chemo, and all these kinds of things for cancer patients.
But there were some cancer patients that wouldn't have responded well to him to that the Western medicine. Type of thing. And so he would have his patients draw what their surgery would look like, and if they use certain colors to describe what that surgery would look like, he would not do that surgery on them because it would be.
It was, it would be far more negative than it would be positive. And for them internally and their body wouldn't process it well, their mind wouldn't process it well, and it wouldn't lead to healing. Those people, he would treat in a different way. And he said there were some patients that he would send home.
They were bleeding from every orifice and he would be like, get your affairs in order. And then five years later he would run into them. And he'd be, he'd ask them what happened, like what, you weren't supposed to be here. And what they would have done is inevitably they would have thought, okay, my last month, or if I have a week left, however long I have, I'm going to spend that at a beach house, in a rocking chair, watching the waves, and that was healing to them.
And they start healing instead of going the other way.
Damaged Parents: [00:29:56] Oh, wow.
Andrea Lende: [00:29:58] Yes. And so I started that's when, and I, my eyes were really open to, okay. There's things we can bring into our life that are healing, and I'm going to follow that. And I even started listening to some of his meditations. I mean, I would just, I had plenty of bedtime, you know, I had plenty of nap time, so I would put on some of his guided meditations and just.
It just puts our spirits at rest and peace. So our bodies can do the work of healing. If we're in, if our spirit is in chaos, if our mind is in chaos, our body will also be in chaos. And this isn't like the woo woo stuff. This is just truly how it is, you know? And yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:30:39] if you had a negative thought pop up, did you get mad at yourself or did someone did, what did you do?
Andrea Lende: [00:30:47] Yeah, great question. I wouldn't, because I didn't know what I know now. Like I think, I don't even know how, How I had the ability to, do the things that I would know to do now, back then, I mean, we're talking fast forward 25, 30 years. So, and I don't know how I think back, like how did my parents raise me to have this sort of positive outlook?
Like there was nothing I couldn't do, you know, I mean, even flying it didn't occur to me that, Oh, I don't know if I can do that. Like there wasn't nothing ever occurred to me in my life. That I couldn't take on that challenge. And so wellness was just another one of those things and I wasn't worried about not getting well.
I mean, I thought I may die. I didn't, honestly, there were plenty of nights. I thought I'm not sure if I'll wake up tomorrow, but it never crossed my mind that I wouldn't get well. So one of two things would happen. I would either die or I would get well, but there was no in-between. Like, and that's not to say that I didn't have low moments, like waking up sick every day.
I know I was in a state of depression. I went through the death and dying psych, you know, cycle, like there's seven stages or whatever, maybe five stages. I can't remember. But as I read about those, yeah, I don't, as I read about them, I truly went through every single one of them. And so I was ready to go.
Matter of fact, that's a good lead into the third book that I wanted to share. And that's Betty EDS Embraced by the Light. I read this book and it was the most descriptive account of heaven I've ever read. And like, I'm one of those people I like to read the people who die here, go to heaven and come back, you know, like, I love those.
Those are so intriguing to me and yeah. I don't even know how I happened upon her book, but it was beautiful. And every page I read, I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is so amazing. God, you're so amazing. Like you would, that it could be all set up the way he set it up, but it was just so beautiful.
And at the end of the book, I remember putting it down. I was home alone. And I put, I just put the book down, out of my chest, that I was laying on a couch already. And all of a sudden, uh, the air started moving. Like there was wind and all the windows were closed and pretty, I looked up because I was laying down.
So I was looking up at the ceiling and I could see the flutter of angels swings. And I thought, this is my time I'm going. And I got super scared. Like, I really did you think, Oh, I'm going to welcome this, but my body just like tightened up and I got rigid and I was just horrified. I mean, I really was, I was trying to steer at that
Damaged Parents: [00:33:30] you broke up for two seconds. So I think you said, uh,
Andrea Lende: [00:33:33] Yes fear. It was just super, I was really afraid. I mean, it was like, Oh my gosh, they're here to come get me and my body just like I said, it just went rigid. And, and then
Damaged Parents: [00:33:47] So you, it sounded like earlier you had reconciled that you were, uh, you were like either I'm going to die or I'm going to live, and then you have this vision and in this vision, and when this vision is happening, you're scared, maybe terrified.
Andrea Lende: [00:34:02] Yeah, I know it doesn't make sense, but I think when we really are on the brink of going, it was terrifying for a minute, you know, I thought, wow, what's this gonna look like? Do I stop breathing like houses? Is it going to be painful? I mean, these things, you know, rushing in terms of they're here to get me, what's going to happen to the me, you know?
I mean, and these days I would welcome. Welcome. I like, I'm ready to go, man. But, but back then it was, yeah. Like, how is this going to happen? Am I gonna. What how's this going to feel? So, so it was a few moments of real tears
Damaged Parents: [00:34:33] I'm sorry, I'm still laughing at that. They're going to get me.
Andrea Lende: [00:34:38] Right. Yeah. And then when they, when I was left and they were gone, I thought, wow. Okay. There must be something really important that I have to do on this planet, or they would have taken me.
Damaged Parents: [00:34:51] so was it like, what did that mean? What am I supposed to do? Did you really start questioning? And what were those questions and what did you learn?
Andrea Lende: [00:34:59] Well, I think I'm finally actually coming into 25 years later, what that thing is that I'm supposed to be doing. But what, what I knew then for sure was that this veil that has been lifted for this period of time. Was showing me more of that spiritual realm. Like I had visualizations, I had encounters with God that the one and only time I've heard his audible voice was when I was that sick.
And he was telling me what to do. And I thought, I mean, it was just such, like I said, the veil was lifted for this time. And then it goes back down again when you're well, And you're able to call back on those moments and know without a shadow of a doubt that our God is there and that he is there to help us and hold us up when we can't hold ourselves out.
Damaged Parents: [00:35:54] so you didn't feel like he left you, you just felt like or thought that he, you received this vision for a reason. And it wasn't because. He was leaving you on your, on your own for this next part of the journey. It was to say, Hey, guess what? I'm still here. Is that kind of what you got out of it?
Or what
Andrea Lende: [00:36:16] I believe it definitely that he still here, but as probably 15 years later, I realized that that moment in time was the infilling of the Holy spirit. Because from then on, I could read the Bible and understand it. You know, I think before that time I would read it and I would, you know, I would get it, but it wouldn't touch my spirit the way that it did after.
That experience. So it, it really became alive in me in terms of his spirit fully at work in me and leading me and guiding me instead of me just sort of bumping into things and and changing my heart. He had a, he had a lot of work to do, you know, I was headed into a totally different industry and had a very competitive and a lot of women weren't in it at that time.
And so I was this type a get it done. I had to do, and he was softening my heart and he was showing me things, other things that were important. And, we were then subsequently able to have a family and, you know, those were just beautiful, beautiful years.
Damaged Parents: [00:37:23] So how was that reconciling with who you thought you were supposed to be and who you were destined to become? What was that like?
Andrea Lende: [00:37:32] Yeah. Great question again. It was hard. Cause I didn't know what I was walking into first. I had to get my health back before, right. Anything. So that's the first thing that I had to do was fight for my health. And thankfully within three years I really had healed. My body had healed and I had a whole new perspective on life, but I remember coming home from work or driving home from work one day and.
My eyes were still in the sky. I was always looking for air traffic probably more so than I was looking for traffic on the road. But I remember like the tears streaming down my face and I may have even had to pull over on the side of the road and looking at those jets and thinking, Oh Lord. That's really what I wanted to do.
And like that, that was the coolest thing I'd ever done. I mean, honestly, I wasn't, I didn't as a little kid, I didn't think, Oh, I think I'll be a pilot someday. It just is the way our lives started going and how things happened for me. But once I had the first experience flying the plane, With my flight instructor from that very first flight, I fell in love with it.
It was like every liftoff was every liftoff that you feel like when you have finally packed all your bags and get on a plane and you can leave everything behind. And that was like every day I get to feel those right wheels lift off and eyes in the sky and the beauty that was there and the patchwork quilt underneath, you know, when you see God's creation below you.
We learned to fly in North Dakota. So it was farm land and you see all this beautiful farm land and you just, it's just a beautiful place to be like, there's no better place to be than in the sky, especially 2000 feet above it, like 10,000 and 20,000. You don't see much, but when you're just tootling along and a couple thousand feet above the ground, If there's just nothing like it.
And that's the way I felt. And I was just really grieving that. I mean, I'm like, God, that was like the coolest thing I ever got to do. And I can't imagine anything better, but I'm going to trust in you that there is, you know, and it still makes me tear up today that like your plan is better than my plan.
So I'll follow that to wherever it leads. Yeah.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:37] that's still is. I think it's still hard
Andrea Lende: [00:39:41] Yeah,
Damaged Parents: [00:39:41] to let, to let that go and, and to still follow God's plan
Andrea Lende: [00:39:46] absolutely.
Damaged Parents: [00:39:47] It's unknown.
Andrea Lende: [00:39:49] Yeah. And I mean, not only, you know, way into the future and I can see, wow. This family, I probably, I would have probably not had kids because I wouldn't have seen. That it was even possible. I mean, I remember sitting around, uh, I had to interview four. I was interviewing for a scholarship, I think. And from a women's pilot organization and all these major airline pilots were when I went out to lunch and we had a really great conversation and one of them was pregnant, so she was on leave and another one was like, wow, I don't know.
I've been thinking about, but like these things that you think about the problem with. Having kids in aviation is that in 90 days, you're not current anymore. So you have to keep, it's just like within, it seems like you turn around and you're not current. And so you've got to go through all kinds of more testing and it's just, so I probably would've just said, you know, like not, I'm not going to do that.
And my kids have been some of the biggest blessings in my life, you know, and I would have missed that. And so that was a precious time, you know, Mike, we just became empty-nesters this year, but, but I would have missed the beauty of, you know, a love so sweet that there aren't really any words for it in terms of holding that baby for the, you know, my first baby, I had no idea even how to be a mom, but as soon as they're in your arms, you just fall in love with him.
Like no other. So I wouldn't miss that.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:11] Yeah. And it's amazing that you're bringing that you're bringing up the kids as part of that journey. And I mean, for me, I've, I have two girls and they have really just taught me who I am is probably the best way to describe it.
Andrea Lende: [00:41:27] right. Absolutely.
Damaged Parents: [00:41:29] But so you really had no desire for children. You were going to go down this other road that just didn't include them.
Andrea Lende: [00:41:37] It probably wouldn't have, I mean, when I was 25, we get my husband and I got married very young. We were 20, 21. And the, we, we always said five years, like five years we'll have a family five years and it just never was truly convenient because. We were always doing something else. So when one of us wanted to stay home for sure, but we didn't know who that was going to be.
And so we just sort of kept putting it off. Had I gone to the majors? I probably would've just given my life to flying. I don't know that I would've made time for a family. So I mean, my. My illness redirected my life in a way that I know it needed to be redirected for sure. And isn't that the way it is?
I mean, we get the obstacles in our lives to overcome them. Not just overcome them though, but to redirect us into the life that we're actually right.
Damaged Parents: [00:42:29] right now. I have to ask. I know we'll get that. We'll get as much of it out as we can, but also, you know, it's, it's COVID time. So, there's a little more forgiveness.
But no. What was it like having, so you recovered from lupus and then you find yourself pregnant. Did it trigger anything? What, I mean, what was that like?
Andrea Lende: [00:42:50] Getting pregnant actually corrected a lot of the things that were, that were wrong. I mean, I was symptom symptomatic at that point. I had no symptoms and I hadn't had any for a couple of years, but every time I got pregnant, my blood tests came back half of where they were until my third one was completely normal and I had even changed.
Obstetricians at that point for my last one, because I really wanted to deliver in a particular hospital. Of course, I came in and said, well, I have a history of lupus, but I've been fine. I've been asymptomatic. And she took my blood, you know, did a whole panel on my blood work. And the next time I saw her, she said, Andrew, you've got no scientific lupus whatsoever.
Your blood tests are normal.
So then when I got pregnant and started having kids, it was normalizing, reversing, all those things that had led me down to where I had been in very, very sick. So like I said, I was well before I started having them, but then it really, actually, everybody said, you should just stay pregnant for the rest of your life. Andrea.
Damaged Parents: [00:43:47] So you, we really haven't had to, even since that blood test with the obstetrician or the gynecologist, you've never come back to, you've never tested again or tested positive again for lupus.
Andrea Lende: [00:44:00] Another great question. So hormonal disorder that I kind of figured when my hormones shifted the other way and started into menopause that I would have some trouble. And that's exactly what happened. I started having trouble, not trouble breathing, but I was breathing super heavy. So I went to the doctor, ended up in the ER, they said it was graves' disease, came home and read that.
Your auto immune system attacking your thyroid. So there I was, again, I thought this is lupus. This probably isn't really graves' disease. And so I asked that doctor, the endocrinologist, if she'd run this panel and she did, and all my numbers were really high again. And at that point I was, uh, to do it, to go through what I had gone through before, which is quite extensive in terms of healing.
I just didn't really have it in me anymore. And it was. It's 20, 25 years later and we didn't have the income. My husband had been furloughed from the airlines and we had now three kids
my miracle was right around the corner again, once again, and that was simply getting chemicals at home, taking some great nutrition. It wasn't able to go to the doctor and get, but I found a company, a manufacturer then that has their, their store online and offers it. They're super, super frugal. And my niece had referred me to them.
She said, Andrew, just tried to see if it will make a difference. And within three weeks I was asymptomatic and within nine months, my blood tests reversed. So like that was my second miracle. I didn't have to fight for my health that time. It was just switch where I was shopping. That was it, like literally it, and I know that sounds crazy and way too simple, but that was, and I think I let that come into my life.
To inform me where if I am talking to another person who's got chronic illness, who's got some sort of an auto-immune that okay. May not just be food that we need to change. It may be some things over here that we need to do as well. That will be very, very healing to the body. And as it turns out, I talked to another couple of gals who, you know, full-blown lupus reversed just by.
Utilizing, you know, kind of like this a store that is again, just online nature-based without having all the harsh chemicals to impact our bodies, the way that they will.
Damaged Parents: [00:46:17] so it sounds like a lot of what you're saying is it is the chemicals may trigger some of these things in our bodies.
Andrea Lende: [00:46:27] Absolutely. We, our bodies can only handle so many toxins. And when it gets to so much toxicity, you, you get to a tipping point and then your body's going to react in some way, some disease, it doesn't have to be auto-immune, it could be cancer. It could be whatever our bodies are. Most, every body is different.
And so whatever our bodies are going to be prone to our faith that comes from, you know, our genes. What, what did our. Predecessors live with that. They, and in my case it was auto-immune. I go back to my, my grandmother telling me her husband's mom. She said, I just think she had something auto-immune because she would have to use a chair to get across the floor.
Like I know how to stay well, that's the key. If I did things that weren't healthy for my body, it would.
You know, it would reverse just like if someone who had cancer started doing really things that cancer patients shouldn't do, they probably end up with it again, heart, same thing. If you're have a heart issue, you know, let's put you on this kind of a diet, let's give you these kinds of meds and you do the opposite.
And you know, you probably ended up with some heart problems. So for me, I know how to stay well with auto-immune issues in the past.
Damaged Parents: [00:47:37] so I've got to ask treats, cake, ice cream. I mean, those are full of chemicals. What do you do?
Andrea Lende: [00:47:46] you just don't. You really don't and you don't partake. There are some things I can get by with. I have, Peanut butter cookie recipe that has no flour in it. And every once in a while, I can have a cheat like that, but I know how much I can have and how much. And then the rest I have to stay away from.
I don't eat flour and I stay away from dairy and there are lots of things that I don't have. Matter of fact, I have returned back to a vegetarian diet in my later years. Not, I think. Well, that was the one audible thing I heard from God when I was really sick when I was 30 and it took me so long to get, well, I had gotten down to about 105 pounds and I had added back in, I was eating vegetables and I added in some salmon.
And then I added in some chicken and one night I heard him say, everything you need to eat is grown out of the ground. And I was like exacerbated. I'm like, you've got to be kidding. I mean, I just I'm, so there's nothing left of me. Like I look like a 13 year old and so I made a deal with him and I said, okay, I'll do this for a week.
But if I lose any more weight in this week, I'm going to go back to eating salmon and chicken. And I actually gained two pounds that week. So I was a vegetarian for about 10 years. And then as the kids came and, my first one, we were still vegetarians, but then you start eating off of their plates. You start feeding them different things.
And so your diet kind of got crummy again, as they grew up. You know, I, I did experience one more bout with lupus, but I healed very quickly. I mean, within three weeks, like I said, I was asymptomatic and nine months, my blood test reversed. Well, about two years ago, I just happened stamps on a, on a gentleman who was diagnosed with Ms when he was 19.
And they were able to cure really. He's not had another bout. He won't say he's cured, but he's not had another episode. So with Ms and it's strictly diet, he eats lean meats, vegetables, and fruits, and that's it like, that's it. And as long as he stays on that, he's healthy. So I started that thinking, okay, Andrew, you can do better with your health here.
You can do better. Like I'm still feeling fine, but I could do better. So I started his. Diet which he calls the best bet diet and his name is Matt Embry. So if anybody wants to follow him, he's a great guy to follow on Facebook or on Instagram, he's also got a, website called M S hope.com. So he's pretty well nailed in his field.
But along about the second or third week of using his diet, I felt very strongly again, I needed to give up meat. And so I have now, and that doesn't mean everybody has to, that's just my choice for the way that I know I'll probably eat the rest of my life and stay well. So again, it's just about staying healthy and feeling as good as I can feel.
Inside of the circumstances in this body that I have.
Damaged Parents: [00:50:37] Yeah, well, that leads us to our closing. There are what are three things, cause there's been a lot of tidbits along the way. What are three tools, three guidelines, three, anything that you want to give to the listers so that if they're struggling with something like what you are struggling with, they can have hope.
Andrea Lende: [00:50:57] Absolutely. There's certainly hope there at the, the three things would be feed the mind, feed the body, feed the spirit. Those are the three things that we need to do. And if any, one of those are off balance in any way, maybe life's too chaotic. Those are a lot of choices that we make our, we living our lives.
We can choose differently there. And if we don't, we'll end up with disease, cause we're at dis-ease same thing with the spirit. If we ignore that, if we ignore our relationship with God and, just don't pay attention to that, that's that's again, going to affect our bodies and then our bodies. What are we doing to keep them healthy?
It's what's we're the only ones. They can do that for us. We're the only one's that can exercise. We're the only ones that can eat the right foods and, not have chemicals and toxins around us. So as we, tend to each thing, body, mind, and spirit they'll all work together to keep that or maintain and, or get that obtain that healthy body. .
Damaged Parents: [00:51:57] perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Andrea Lende: [00:52:02] Absolutely. Thank you for having me. My total pleasure, really.
Damaged Parents: [00:52:06] Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoy talking to Andrea about how she found a way to heal from lupus. We especially liked when she spoke of the important spiritual relationships she created. To unite with other damaged people, connect with us on Tik TOK. Look for damaged parents.
We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then.
