Joy Graham
Pueblo, CO
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

“Oh, no not is springtime…summer, winter or fall…no never would I leave you…at all.”

The song was softly playing at the same time Joy was asking her husband, Vaughn, to leave her. Joy had reluctantly accepted the fact that she would never walk again and did not want to be a burden to her husband or family. After being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), Joy’s life would never be the same.

In 1977, Joy awoke with a sudden and blinding headache. Emergency room physicians told her it was probably a migraine. Doubtful, Joy returned home only to find that two days later the pain was localized behind her eyes and she was losing vision, particularly in her left eye. Several specialists later, Joy’s condition was confirmed—multiple sclerosis. Two years later, Joy would be confined to a wheelchair.

Along with losing the use of her legs, Joy subsequently lost control of her bodily functions as the disease ravaged her body. She was no longer able to feed or dress herself and fatigue and a profound depression finally drove Joy to bed, refusing to get up. It was her husband who finally convinced Joy that they could live with her in a wheelchair. They ultimately resolved that if this is the way life was to be then they would make the most of it. It was at that point that Joy decided that she could either “be bitter or better.” She chose better. Joy began swimming daily to maintain strength in her upper body. She and her husband traveled all over the world. Vaughn would carry his wife on and off airplanes, ships, in and out of restaurants.

In January of 1991, Joy received a telephone call from her brother-in-law who had just returned from a medical facility in Nevada. He had traveled to the clinic with his wife who had been suffering for years with allergies. He told Joy that there were people from all over the world being treated for diseases such as lupus, arthritis, and MS with amazing results. What made this alternative medical clinic different from any other is that the physicians there treat the cause of the disorder and not just the symptoms. Joy was all too familiar with symptomatic treatment—at one stage she was on 41 different medications. Skeptically, Joy told her husband “I love your brother but he gets excited about things and I’m just not going to do this yet. I want you to go and I’ll go for preventative measures to keep my body strong.” Joy and Vaughn left for Reno, their daughter would recall, with Joy “kicking and screaming all the way.”

When they arrived at the clinic Joy first met with one of the physicians, who after an extensive examination, told Joy, “The first thing we are going to do is get you out of that wheelchair.” Joy laughed at her. “You don’t have to believe,” the physician stated, “Just do as I ask.” This would be the beginning of Joy’s healing odyssey. Joy would come to learn that multiple sclerosis along with many other “incurable” diseases is merely a diagnosis. In conventional medicine, they have no orientation except to treat a symptom and they use a pattern of symptoms to “diagnose” as disease. When a “disease” is diagnosed it is then treated; all cases being treated the same. By treating the cause of the disorder and not just the symptoms, many “incurable” conditions can be treated successfully.

Within two weeks of treatment, Joy’s bladder and bowel control were significantly improved. “I was incontinent all the time,” Joy affirmed, “I wore pads and had to catheterize myself. That was my goal at the clinic. To be in control of my bodily functions.”

On the last day of her fourth week of treatment, Joy walked into the clinic unaided. Patients, physicians, and staff all broke into a thunderous applause. Joy and Vaughn returned home to Pueblo, Colorado to her joyous family. Vaughn no longer had to carry his wife on the aircraft or to the bathroom. After eleven long years of being imprisoned in a wheelchair, Joy did it herself.

The first Sunday after they returned home, Joy and Vaughn walked arm in arm down the center aisle of their church. No one had ever seen Joy out of her wheelchair and tears fell from the eyes of each person that she passed. Within a few hours the news had spread all over town and the next morning the headlines of the local newspaper blazed the following: “Miracles do happen.”

Today, Joy enjoys long walks in the beautiful Colorado Mountains near her home. She is active in her church and teaches preschoolers at a mother’s-day-out program. She and Vaughn now have seven grandchildren. “I speak of my MS in the past tense,” Joy confides to those who contact her to hear of her miracle, “I tell people to listen to their bodies and take control of their destiny. My philosophy is to do the best you can with what life hands you and be happy.”

When asked if he ever thought of accepting her offer and leaving his wife, Vaughn quietly but firmly avows,
“No never…never would I have left her at all.”

And because the clinic returned a healthy wife to me, we would never, never leave Sierra Integrative Medical Center.