Life side-tracked our plan to do the Arbonne detox in August. My mother-in-law became was gravely ill. So, after settling my dad into assisted living for only 48 hours, I grabbed the kids and headed back east to meet Joe and say goodbye.

The following months were very stressful and sad. We chose to deal with it with food and alcohol. I would say we “toxed” not “detoxed”. We were feeling terrible and then Joe got sick. After Christmas, and our 20th wedding anniversary, Joe had the flu. On top of it, he came down with Shingles. Then one morning, I looked at him and said, “Get in the car we’re going to urgent care.”

I had never seen him so sick. Urgent care sent us straight to the ER. Hours later we were home with anti-virals, antibiotics and pain killers. It was two more weeks before he was better. That’s when I decided we needed to make the change. We’re killing ourselves.