Privacy Policy Consent

WholeHumanMama.com and GraemeSeabrook.com is owned by Graeme Seabrook (“Company”, “we”, or “us”). The term “you” refers to the user or viewer of WholeHumanMama.com and GraemeSeabrook.com (“Website”).

This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, process, and distribute your information, including Personal Data (as defined below) used to access this Website. We will not use or share your information with anyone except as described in this Privacy Policy. The use of information collected through our Sites shall be limited to the purposes under this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service to customers.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy on the Website at any time without notice. In the event of a material change, we will let you know via email and/or a prominent notice on our Website.

Use of any personal information or contribution that you provide to us, or which is collected by us on or through our Website or its content is governed by this Privacy Policy. By using our Website or its content, you consent to this Privacy Policy, whether or not you have read it.

Information We May Collect
We collect personal information from you so that we can provide you with a positive experience when utilizing our Website or content. We will only collect the minimum amount of information necessary for us to fulfill our obligation to you. We may collect:

  • A name and an email address so we can deliver our emails to you — you would be affirmatively consenting to this by providing this to us in our contact forms.
  • Billing information including name, address, and credit card information so that we can process payment to deliver our products or services to you under our contractual obligation.
  • A name and an email address if you complete our contact form with a question. We may send you marketing emails with either your consent or if we believe we have a legitimate interest to contact you based on your contact or question.
  • Information from you from a co-branded offer. In this case, we will make clear as to who is collecting the information and whose privacy policy applies. If both / all parties are retaining the information you provide, this will also be made clear as will links to all privacy policies.

Please note that the information above (“Personal Data”) that you are giving to us is voluntarily, and by providing this information to us, you are giving consent for us to use, collect, and process this Personal Data. You are welcome to opt-out or request for us to delete your Personal Data at any point by contacting us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com

If you choose not to provide us with certain Personal Data, you may not be able to participate in certain aspects of our Website or content.

Other Information We May Collect:

Anonymous Data Collection and Use
To maintain Website quality, we may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Website by identifying which areas of the Website are most heavily used, and to display content according to your preferences. Your IP address is the number assigned to computers connected to the Internet. This is essentially “traffic data” which cannot personally identify you but is helpful to us for marketing purposes and for improving our services. Traffic data collection does not follow a user’s activities on any other websites in any way. Anonymous traffic data may also be shared with business partners and advertisers on an aggregate basis.

Use of “Cookies”
We may use the standard “cookies” feature of major web browsers. We do not set any personally identifiable information in cookies, nor do we employ any data-capture mechanisms on our Website other than cookies. You may choose to disable cookies through your own web browser’s settings. However, disabling this function may diminish your experience on our Website and some features may not work as intended.

What We Do With Information We Collect

Contact You

We may contact you with information that you provide to us based on these lawful grounds for processing:

  • We may contact you if you give us your clear, unambiguous, affirmative consent to contact you.
  • We will contact you under our contractual obligation to deliver goods or services you purchase from us.
  • Legitimate Interest. We may contact you if we feel you have a legitimate interest in hearing from us. For example, if you sign up for a webinar, we may send you marketing emails based on the content of that webinar.  You will always have the option to opt out of any of our emails.

Process Payments
We will use the Personal Data you give to us in order to process your payment for the purchase of goods or services under a contract. We only use third party payment processors that take the utmost care in securing data and comply with the GDPR.

Targeted Social Media Advertisements
We may use the data you provide to us to run social media advertisements and / or create look-alike audiences for advertisements.

Share with Third Parties
We may share your information with trusted third parties such as our newsletter provider in order to contact you via email, our merchant accounts to process payments, and Google / social media accounts in order to run advertisements and our affiliates.

Viewing by Others
Note that whenever you voluntarily make your Personal Data available for viewing by others online through this Website or its content, it may be seen, collected and used by others, and therefore, we cannot be responsible for any unauthorized or improper use of the information that you voluntarily share (i.e., sharing a comment on a blog post, posting in a Facebook group that we manage, sharing details on a group coaching call, etc.).

Submission, Storage, Sharing and Transferring of Personal Data
Personal Data that you provide to us is stored internally or through a data management system. Your Personal Data will only be accessed by those who help to obtain, manage, or store that information, or who have a legitimate need to know such Personal Data (i.e., our hosting provider, newsletter provider, payment processors, or team members).

It is important to note that we may transfer data internationally. For users in the European Union, please be aware that we transfer Personal Data outside of the European Union. By using our Website and providing us with your Personal Data, you consent to these transfers in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Data Retention
We retain your Personal Data for the minimum amount of time necessary to provide you with the information and / or services that you requested from us. We may include certain Personal Data for longer periods of time if necessary for legal, contractual, and accounting obligations.

Confidentiality
We aim to keep the Personal Data that you share with us confidential. Please note that we may disclose such information if required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that: (1) such action is necessary to protect and defend our rights or property or those of our users or licensees, (2) to act as immediately necessary in order to protect the personal safety or rights of our users or the public, or (3) to investigate or respond to any real or perceived violation of this Privacy Policy or of our Disclaimer, Terms and Conditions, or any other terms of use or agreement with us.

Passwords
To use certain features of the Website or its content, you may need a username and password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the username and password, and you are responsible for all activities, whether by you or by others, that occur under your username or password and within your account. We cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your username, password, or account information. If you share your username or password with others, they may be able to obtain access to your Personal Data at your own risk.

You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized or improper use of your username or password or any other breach of security. To help protect against unauthorized or improper use, make sure that you log out at the end of each session requiring your username and password.

We will use our best efforts to keep your username and password(s) private and will not otherwise share your password(s) without your consent, except as necessary when the law requires it or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary, particularly when disclosure is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to others or interfering with our rights or property.

How You Can Access, Update, or Delete Your Personal Data

You have the right to:

  • Request information about how your Personal Data is being used and request a copy of what Personal Data we use.
  • Restrict processing if you think the Personal Data is not accurate, unlawful, or no longer needed.
  • Rectify or erase Personal Data and receive confirmation of the rectification or erasure. (You have the “right to be forgotten.”)
  • Withdraw your consent at any time to the processing of your Personal Data.
  • Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority if you feel we are using your Personal Data unlawfully.
  • Receive Personal Data portability and transference to another controller without our hindrance.
  • Object to our use of your Personal Data.
  • Not be subject to an automated decision based solely on automatic processing, including profiling, which legally or significantly affects you.

You may unsubscribe from our emails or updates at any time through the unsubscribe link at the footer of all email communications. If you have questions or are experiencing problems unsubscribing, please contact us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com

Security
We take commercially reasonable steps to protect the Personal Data you provide to us from misuse, disclosure, or unauthorized access. We only share your Personal Data with trusted third parties who use the same level of care in processing your Personal Data. That being said, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Data will always be secure due to technology or security breaches. Should there be a data breach of which we are aware, we will inform you immediately.

Anti-Spam Policy
We have a no spam policy and provide you with the ability to opt-out of our communications by selecting the unsubscribe link at the footer of all emails. We have taken the necessary steps to ensure that we are compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 by never sending out misleading information. We will not sell, rent, or share your email address.

Third Party Websites
We may link to other websites on our Website. We have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of any other individual, company, or entity whose website or materials may be linked to our Website or its content, and thus we cannot be held liable for the privacy of the information on their website or that you voluntarily share with their website. Please review their privacy policies for guidelines as to how they respectively store, use, and protect the privacy of your Personal Data.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We do not collect any information from anyone under 18 years of age in compliance with COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) and the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation of the EU). Our Website and its content is directed to individuals who are at least 18 years old or older.

Notification of Changes
We may use your Personal Data, such as your contact information, to inform you of changes to the Website or its content, or, if requested, to send you additional information about us. We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to change, modify, or otherwise alter our Website, its content, and this Privacy Policy at any time. Such changes and/or modifications shall become effective immediately upon posting our updated Privacy Policy. Please review this Privacy Policy periodically. Continued use of any of information obtained through or on the Website or its content following the posting of changes and/or modifications constituted acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy. Should there be a material change to our Privacy Policy, we will contact you via email or by a prominent note on our Website.

Data Controller and Processors
We are the data controllers as we are collecting and using your Personal Data. We use trusted third parties as our data processors for technical and organizational purposes, including for payments and email marketing. We use reasonable efforts to make sure our data processors are GDPR-compliant.If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at graeme@graemeseabrook.com

Last Updated: January 2025

Discovering I Have Long COVID

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses.
January 17, 2025

Original Publish Date: 12/23/24

There are men crawling all over my house, like ants. They are ripping siding off, replacing something called sheathing, and they are constantly finding problems. 

*knock knock*

Again?

Yeah, you’d better come take a look. 

Damn. 

Well…yeah…

That’s how it went yesterday, when they knocked on the door for the third time to show me a problem they’d found. Each problem sinks me a little (let’s be honest, a LOT) more in debt. And each problem makes me feel less safe in my home. 

These guys are good. They don’t try to cover anything up. They come and get me and we talk through the options and make a plan. By the time the new siding is up my home will be stronger and safer as well as more beautiful. 

The journey though… damn.

I didn’t know I had long COVID.

And that sounds utterly ridiculous now. But it’s the truth. For years, I kept going to doctors and asking for help, begging for relief, and they would take a billion gallons of blood and run a million tests and tell me that everything was normal

Looking at those test results now, with the help of my MD from Google University, I see that very many things weren’t normal. They still aren’t. They are, however, in the normal range. Doctors kept peeling back my old siding but not finding anything serious enough to knock on the front door about. Well, until the brain damage. 

What are those white spots?

White matter.

I thought it’s supposed to be grey?

It is.

I had been trying to get some type of answers for two years at that point. But this really wasn’t the answer I wanted. Parts of my brain are dead. I’m walking around with death in my head. That’s some hard shit to process. Not that I was doing much walking at the time. 

My symptoms:

  • Migraine
  • Fatigue
  • Joint pain
  • Swelling under my armpits
  • Full body aches
  • Sensitivity to light
  • Sensitivity to heat
  • Long term memory retrieval issues
  • Short term memory creation issues
  • Anomia (trouble finding the right words)
  • Vertigo

My experience of those symptoms was that life was bearable in my bed, in the cool dark of the basement. Everywhere else, life was something between a teeth-gritting nightmare and completely impossible. 

No one had answers to as to what had caused the brain damage. I was given no hope of reversal. One of my doctors suggested that I learn a new skill, something involving hand-eye coordination that I could do from my bed even at low energy. The theory was that creating new neural pathways couldn’t hurt. We made a list — drawing, painting, knitting, crochet, calligraphy, and a few others that I can’t remember. I chose knitting and it quickly became a lifeline. 

I couldn’t play with my kids in the snow, but I made them scarves and hats. I couldn’t sit up on the couch and read to them, but I made them blankets in their favorite colors. I couldn’t get out of that damned bed, but I could make something. There was tangible proof that I still existed in the world and that I still had talent, skills, some modicum of power to affect the outside world — it took the form of a sweater. 

And then it got worse.

I don’t remember exactly when it was. My mother-in-law was here. The kids were in school? I think? I do remember waking up and knowing that I had done too much in the days before and that I was about to pay for it. I remember coming to consciousness and being terrified to open my eyes and ‘start’ the day. I wasn’t wrong. 

There were times I would push through. Holidays, the kids birthdays, when family was visiting, or when I just got so desperate for my life that I’d force myself to forget the cost. But I always paid. The cost for doing too much — like sitting up at the table for dinner or hanging out on my porch with my in-laws or *gasp* baking a birthday cake for one of my kids — was PAIN. Not pain. Not aches. No. Full body, muscle and bone and nerve PAIN. Amounts of ibuprofen that would make the folks at Motrin blush was the only way that I could manage it. That and screaming into my pillow. 

But that day, in the in-between of sleep and wakefulness, I knew that nothing I’d felt before could prepare me for what was coming. I remember that clearly. And then I remember only flashes of the day. 

Writhing on the couch and moaning in agony while my mother-in-law got that calmness that comes from utter panic. 

Throwing up on the floor in front of the toilet and crying because I just wanted to pass out, but not in my own vomit. 

My husband, Adam, on the phone with my doctor. 

Adam and his mom trying to figure out if I’d get help faster at an ER or the urgent care. 

Both of them supporting me to the car while I tried not to scream so I wouldn’t scare them more. 

I can’t describe the pain to you. It was so bad that it wasn’t a feeling, it was a reality. It was my only reality. 

I was curled into a ball on the exam table at the urgent care. The doctor who came in was a Black woman, and the relief that I felt in that moment was fucking miraculous. I knew I looked like shit. Hair wild, face puffy and wet with tears and snot, smelling like vomit and panic sweat, wearing pajamas in the middle of the day. If a Black woman is going to ask for pain meds she CANNOT look the way I looked. Not even a white husband by her side can make a doctor look past all that. But she walked in and I suddenly had hope. 

She talked mostly to Adam, because I couldn’t talk. I tried to nod or shake my head. 

Then we were alone again and I cried. 

Then there were shots. Two of them. One was pain medication. One was steroids. 

Steroids changed everything.

I slept on the 5 minute drive home. 

Then I slept more. 

Adam woke me to eat and to take a steroid pill. The doctor had written me a five day prescription, and suggested I talk to my doctor about inflammation. 

The next morning I danced in my kitchen. 

I DANCED IN MY KITCHEN. 

Nothing hurt. Not one damn thing on my entire body. No soreness. Not shooting nerve pain. No dull ache. No sharp heat. 

NO 

PAIN

AT 

ALL

I couldn’t stop smiling. And laughing. And showing off what I could do, “Watch me get up out of this chair!” I wanted to take steroids forever and ever. I could have my life back! 

My PCP said no. She wanted to put me on an antidepressant. 

I was stunned. 

What followed was about a month of back-and-forth as I tried to get an answer for why steroids were a bad idea for me. The pain and fatigue returned, and my world shrank again. 

Only this time I refused to fucking go quietly. I had tasted life and I wanted mine BACK. I called a pain specialist. I made an appointment. I decided that my life wasn’t going to hurt like that ever, ever again. 

Answers, finally.

Before doctor appointments I always either print out the forms they need from the website, or call and ask them to email the forms to me so that I can walk in with them completed. I also type up a timeline of what’s going on. I keep it as succinct as possible while also trying to answer all of the questions that docs usually have. The brain damage means that I can’t always find the word that I need when I need it, so having things written out helps. This time, it was a total game changer. 

The pain specialist walked into the room with the paper I’d written. He asked a few clarifying questions. And then he asked me if I’d been to the Long Covid clinic down in Denver. Just casually. As if it was obvious.As if I hadn’t spent years trying to get any type of answer. As if it wasn’t a fucking sky splitting revelation. 

My symptoms started after I got the vaccine, though. 

Yes. I see. And they got worse after each subsequent vaccine.

Yes.

And they don’t get better in between?

Uh. No.

Then I doubt you’re having a reaction to the vaccine. This is Long Covid. 

But I was trying to do the right thing! 

You did. You did do the right thing. For 99% of people. Unfortunately you’re not one of them. 

Are you sure this is Long Covid?

Well, I don’t have a test for it. But you have the same symptoms as many of my LC patients. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses. 

Well…fuck. Oh! Sorry!

No. That was right.

I typed out the conversation to my husband (who was stuck in a meeting) as soon as the doctor left the room. But I don’t think I’ll ever, ever forget it. 

The pain specialist took the time to talk to me seriously about steroids and all their complications, especially for LC patients. But since they had so dramatically helped my pain he said it was worth exploring other anti-inflammatory options. He wrote me a prescription. And he put me in touch with a Physical Therapy center. He reassured me that if this didn’t work, we would try something else and we would keep trying until we found some relief. It wouldn’t be as dramatic as with the steroids, but we were going to get my life back. He supported my decision to find a new PCP.

It’s been a little over a year since then. 

I will never have the energy level I once had. I will always have brain damage and a weakened immune system. My chronic fatigue, migraine, and pain are all well managed but chronic still means chronic. 

And plus also… 

This summer, I drove my kids to day camp and picked them up every day. I make dinner 3 nights a week. I take Pilates classes in the mornings. I’m re-planting my garden. I’m rebuilding my business. I’m writing to you.

There’s a moment in the horror movies when the kids are huddled in a house or behind some kind of barricade and the monster or the bad guy is trying to get in. You hear pounding on the door, scraping and ripping — you know the sounds I mean. That is what it sounds like right now in my house. 

Ladders thump against the house and there’s a jarring rip and tear as siding is stripped. Eventually, there’s a knock on the door, they found another problem beneath the surface. Our project manager is continually surprised by how well I’m taking these hits. 

I don’t love it, of course. But we knew this house was a mess when we called him. It’s WHY we called him. He’s bringing the damage that is there out into the light so that it can be addressed.

After everything I’ve been through I have an affinity for answers.

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