Show Transcript

Today, my friend, I'm about to introduce you to one of the most amazing, heart driven souls I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

And I can guarantee you this is that if you choose to listen to this full interview, you're gonna come to love this woman as much as I do.

And truth be told, you'll most likely have a few tears rolling down your cheek.

But trust me, they're good tears.

But here's the thing, my friend.

What you're about to hear is more than any of that.

Because what you're about to hear today is a story, a message, a God given gift that was honestly designed just for you.

And yes, I said you.

Because if you choose to listen all the way to the end, and why would you not listen all the way to the end?

Youre going to hear me.

And todays guest, Kaylee Z, in a really heartfelt discussion about the challenges of life and what they mean.

Why were here?

Why were doing what we do?

Because when I met Kaylee, me and her, we realized, wow, we share so many common bonds.

Even though we come from total different walks of life, we both share this common bond to want to make a difference in your life.

Because, my friend, if I can help you, because of what I've gone through, because of the maybe life lessons I've learned, the insight that I've gained, then I say it with all honesty, it's made it all worth it.

Because if I can help just one person, and maybe that's you today, then again, it's all been worth it.

And with that, my friend, I hope that sets the stage for one of the most heartwarming, heartfelt, amazing interviews I've ever done with one of the most incredible people that I have ever been blessed to meet.

Her name is Kaylee Z.

And it's all right here, right now, inside of our 333rd episode of Grit, grace, and inspiration.

Yo, are you ready to flip the script on life?

Cause those bad days, they're just doors to better days.

And that's exactly what we do here at grit, grace, and inspiration.

Your host, Kevin Lowe, he's been flipping the script on his own life, turning over 20 years of being completely blind into straight up inspiration, motivation, and encouragement just for you.

So kick back, relax, and let me introduce you to your, your host, Kevin Lowe.

What's up, my friend?

And welcome back to another amazing interview here on the podcast.

Today, I am in the studio with none other than Kaylee z.

Kaylee, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks so much, Kevin.

I'm so excited to be here.

Oh, my goodness.

I am so excited.

You know, it's been so long since we first talked, and I have just been dying to get back in the studio with you so that we could really continue this conversation.

Your story is so powerful for so many different reasons.

I feel always is the best is to kind of start at the beginning.

And so would you mind kind of giving me a snapshot?

I'm curious kind of who you were before Ms ever even entered the picture.

So, first of all, just to make sure our listeners know, you said Ms.

So it's multiple sclerosis, which I know sometimes people can get confused.

Who I was before, you know, Kevin, it's such a.

It's such a great question.

I don't get asked it often.

I was a kid, I, at the time, thought was like a normal little girl.

Through my diagnosis, I realized was not so normal.

All I cared about was school and my grades, literally, as a child, as a young child.

And I wasn't very social.

I didn't play a lot.

It was.

I had this, like, intense perfectionist pressure from a very young age.

So that's who I was before.

That was my life before.

I don't know many like, you know, 910 year olds like that.

But that's how I was.

Yeah.

Now, were you a perfectionist just with things related to school or, like, other things, even outside of school?

Yeah, that was sort of my personality in all ways.

It just.

I wanted to do things right.

I had an intense drive to do things right, to do things a certain way, and was really.

Now, of course, as an adult and doing a lot of deep emotional work and psychological work, I now understand there was a lot of, you know, trying to get approval, trying to be seen, trying to get love was like, oh, maybe if I do it right, maybe if I do it like this, maybe if I get 100%, you know?

So I understand that now.

That was my personality at the time.

Yeah, absolutely.

Out of curiosity, you know, a lot of times as kids, we have dreams of a future, whether it's a career or what we think adulthood would be like.

Did you have any specific career aspirations at that age?

Yeah, it's so fun, Kevin.

Like, I'm like, wow, okay.

People really don't ask me these questions.

It's so much fun for me because, you know, when you do a lot of interviews, you start to kind of.

It becomes almost routine, and it's easy to feel like you're just saying the same thing over and over.

And this is really fun for me.

So thank you for bringing a freshen approach anyway, so, yeah, I always wanted to be a doctor.

Since a very, very young age, I had wanted to be a doctor.

I spoke about that all the time.

Wow.

Now, what kind of doctor did you have that specific?

No, I wasn't specific yet, no.

Okay.

Amazing.

So, doctor.

Yeah, I'll just.

Sorry, I'll just say one more thing.

That vision stayed with me, interestingly, all through high school and up through my first year of college.

And in college, I was pre med.

And it was the absolute, like, grueling.

Just the worst.

It's torture.

Being in organic chemistry was absolute torture.

And it made.

I had to face myself and be like, why are you doing this?

Like, oh, because I want to be a doctor.

And I was like, why?

Like, do you actually want to be a doctor?

Or is that just the thing you've literally said your entire life?

I was like, oh, oh.

That's literally just a thing I've said my whole life.

I don't actually want that.

Oh, crap.

Now what?

Start from square one.

So I'm just sharing from a young, young child, all my years, through everything, even diagnosis, didn't waver.

That vision, which I'm so surprised by, because it could be so easy to think, like, that'd be really hard to get through medical school with a diagnosis.

People do it, you know?

But the fact that that didn't even alter my quote unquote dream.

But then I realized, oh, that's not my dream.

Isn't that crazy that we go, like, our whole lives sometimes and not realize that, oh, I don't actually want that.

Yeah.

And I mean, I think, honestly, I think that's something.

I think it's more common than we even realized.

I think there's so many times that we get so focused on chasing something that we never actually take the time to take a pause and really ask ourselves those deep questions of, but why?

Why do I want this?

You know?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well.

Well, I would say for somebody who had ambitions of becoming a doctor as a young child, I mean, you grew up.

I would say you grew up pretty quick.

Going through medical issues is something that I feel causes any child to grow up much too fast.

A thousand percent.

Yeah.

It was, in a weird way, I think, you know, my personality, as I shared with you, it was like this perfectionist, and I was already very much.

I took on a lot of responsibility, so in a weird way, I was able to step into that quite seamlessly, but there wasn't really much childhood at all.

I had to learn and I still have to learn, I still as an adult, have to learn how to play.

My son, who's almost one, teaches me that a lot.

I'm like, oh wow, like I could just laugh.

I could just like feel the wind and just giggle.

Like, okay, let's do that.

So, yeah, there wasn't, I was immediately making my own medical decisions.

I mean, from beginning to end.

You hit the nail on the head.

I had to grow up very fast.

Yeah, well, talk to me about actually the whole diagnosis.

How did this even come about?

I'm curious to know if you'd been having signs and symptoms for a long time.

I'm just curious how, how as a young child you would end up receiving such a diagnosis.

Sure.

So when I was twelve years old, I went to a friend for a sleepover and I woke up feeling sick to my stomach.

And what was causing that feeling was a symptom called nystagmus, where the eyes are rapidly moving right to left.

That was my first attack or exacerbation as it's called in the MS world.

And, and at the same time I could barely stand and it felt like ants were crawling all over my feet.

So now, I didn't know that, I didn't know my eyes were rapidly moving and no one did.

I just felt so sick.

It was like having a really, really severe flu.

So it was sort of overnight one moment to the next, thats what was happening.

And that continued for the next 30 days.

And so I got, I basically, in order to adapt to that, and you and I were earlier, before we started recording, talking about how you adapt to vision issues, I just kept my eyes closed for 30 days because if I opened them, I would just throw up.

So I was like, okay, that doesnt work out because the room was spinning, right?

My eyes were rapidly moving, the whole world was spinning.

So that was the first 30 days.

And that feeling of those ants on my feet moved all the way up my legs to my hips.

So that was constant, 24/7 this really uncomfortable feeling in my legs.

I needed help to walk.

I was really off balance and weak.

And during those 30 days, really no one knew what was going on.

Of course the doctors and the medical team knew there was something serious.

I mean, right away I was in an MRI, things that people wait months to get, they were just like, okay, this needs to happen immediately.

Like they knew something was, was serious and yet no one wanted to diagnose a twelve year old with Ms.

So even though these were classic symptoms and classic onset, it was pretty much unheard of.

I was living in California at the time.

There was a record of one other child being diagnosed in the entire state of California.

So it was so unheard of.

And we had to go to doctors.

We were on Skype, which was very new at the time and not great technology, you know, Skyping doctors all over the world to figure out, like, what's going on.

And ultimately, it was just a fear factor.

No one wanted to say it.

And then what do you tell a kid?

Like, we don't know if there's medication that is appropriate for you.

So that was the first month, the second month, the second 30 days I woke up.

I had come into a routine.

I got into this routine that I don't know if you can relate to this, but as you know, one is experiencing symptoms and changes in your body.

You start to kind of.

You need to have a check in process of, like, what's working, what's not working, what is today, you know?

And so every morning, my mom would get my brother off to school and then come sit by my bed, and we would do our check in.

Like, how are my toes?

Can I feel them?

Like, can I move them?

What's working?

Then go up to my knees, and, like, I would just go up through the body, and the last thing I would do is open my eyes.

And of course, every morning, we were hoping that that would be the day that I would see fine and my eyes would not be moving.

And I remember the morning that I opened my eyes looking at my mom, and I go, you're not spinning.

And it was like.

It was this incredible moment.

And then I go, but there are two of you.

And, I mean, I'm laughing now at the moment, obviously, what's not funny, because I was just, like.

It was a very confusing, like, mixed feeling of this incredible relief.

I yearned for and waited for, for 30 days to just see normally.

And then I had double vision.

So then I had double vision for the next 30 days.

So I also was very uncomfortable.

Just kept my eyes closed.

So it's just interesting to share this.

I just want to say this to you, Kevin.

It's so interesting for me.

It feels very different for me to share it with you.

Yes.

Because I tell this story all the time, and I'm like.

And people are just, like, in this wonder and awe that.

Wait, what do you mean you just kept your eyes closed?

Like, what?

And I'm like, oh, well, you know exactly what this is like.

I'm like, this is.

This is, like, so weird for me to tell you because you actually get it.

Yeah.

And not only do I get that, but I also, I kind of help but think when, when you talked about every morning waiting to open your eyes, seeing if, if this eye condition was gone.

And I can remember for so very long, every morning, opening my eyes, hoping that God had healed me overnight.

Yeah.

And it's a harsh reality when something you have isn't able to easily be fixed.

Yeah.

How long would it end up taking for them to finally say that you have this?

From day one, it was 90 days.

It was three months.

Yeah.

And in an interesting way, I have such an affinity for the doctor who finally diagnosed me because it really was, it was him, like having compassion and mercy.

Like I needed answers, I needed, you know, direction.

And it was so, it was so obvious and just no one wanted to say that.

And, you know, I have so much gratitude, even though I've gone a very different direction than the medical system, you know, over the years and throughout my lifetime, I'll always have gratitude to him.

Doctor Myers at UCLA, always.

That was a life changing moment.

And he sat with me as a twelve year old.

He did not sit with my parents.

He sat with me and he spoke to me and took all the time I needed.

He answered my questions.

We talked about the future.

It was a treasured moment in my life, which is weird, but my diagnosis was a really powerful moment for me.

Yeah.

Wow.

Knowing what it's like to be with doctors, to hear this story that you share, that's such a powerful moment.

Because I feel like we live in a society that we marvel.

Superheroes are the ones on the football field, the ones on the movie screen, where I really look at it like that guy.

He's the real superhero, 1000%.

And we never know the impact we're going to have on a person.

We never know what that 10 seconds or ten minutes or 4 hours, you just don't know what impact you have on someone's life, especially a child's life.

And the first neurologist I saw, very, very beginning of the journey without a diagnosis, without knowing much, he took one look at my Mri, the brain scan, and said, you're gonna be in a wheelchair by the end of high school.

Don't plan on going to college.

It's like the polar opposite.

In 5 seconds, he could have just taken away my life, you know?

I mean, I also know I am responsible for my own life.

So I hope that eventually I would have realized it wasn't on him.

But, you know, what you say has an impact.

It matters and it has power.

And then in contrast, I'm so grateful that ultimately the diagnosis came from someone with so much compassion and care and presence, because it just was night and day.

So those moments matter.

And you're right.

It's like to me, Doctor Myers is the superhero, the other guy, like, complete jerk.

I could say some words.

I have some words for him.

Yes, you're right.

It's those people that are going to take the time that realize there's a child here that's going to change the rest of her life.

Be intentional in your words.

Be intentional in how you show up.

Yeah, absolutely.

I love it.

Talk to me about after this appointment, after finally being told that you have this condition, that I would love for you first and foremost to talk to me about a little bit more about exactly what MS is for those of us who aren't familiar with it.

And then kind of my follow up question that I was going to initially ask Washington, how does your view on life in the future change at that point as a child?

Yeah, so MS is an autoimmune disease, which means that the immune system is attacking the body and the immune cells attack.

A protective coating of our nerves in the brain and spinal cord.

And the brain is a supercomputer of the body.

So if that is being attacked, anything can happen with MS.

As I had shared, there were vision problems, walking problems, I'd been paralyzed.

I've had times when all my internal organs shut down.

I've had speech problems, cognition issues, memory issues.

It really can affect anything and everything.

There are different types of MS.

The type that I was diagnosed with is called relapsing remitting, which means that I could have a relapse, which is what all of you just heard.

That first initial onset of several symptoms, that's a relapse.

And then I could go into remission.

So I could have times of either complete health or better health.

And I really never went back to complete health after that.

I mean, until years later, now, thank God.

But throughout the time of my life when I was living with disease, going into remission would just kind of be.

I had, like my own baseline, where even in my baseline, the symptoms that remained were usually weakness, pain, and fatigue.

And pain and fatigue, I always say, are like the absolute worst.

Like, you can.

You can be sitting in pain, no one knows that you.

It's like, I would rather be on a morphine drip right now, and the morphine won't help.

I can't tell you how many times I went to an emergency room, and they're just like, we can't do anything for you.

And I'm like, okay, this is like, you're just in torture.

You're just being tortured.

So that's Ms.

And there are different types of MS.

So when people think of MS, they do tend to think wheelchair.

First of all, that's very different today.

It's not how it used to be.

There's way more medication available, much more information available.

People live very well today with Ms.

But again, it's a case by case basis and depends on the type of Ms.

So that's Ms.

How did it change, like, my vision of the future?

Is that what you asked?

It was.

I was going to say, I totally set you up for disaster because I