Arthritis Support Community Facebook ad: “Feel Like Yourself Again”

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I laid out my Sunday dress the night before my granddaughter's baptism and I still wasn't sure I was going to put it on. Emberlyn is 4 years old. She's my only grandbaby. And I was the one who begged my daughter Ashley to have her baptized at First Baptist in Cullman instead of that new church out by the interstate where they play the drums so loud you can't hear yourself think. But at 6 in the morning the day of the baptism, I was standing in front of my closet in my nightgown, staring at that dress on the hanger, trying to figure out how I was going to tell Ashley I couldn't come. Not couldn't. Wouldn't. Because I couldn't kneel at the altar rail without two deacons lifting me back up on the other side. And I'd rather have missed my only grandbaby getting baptized than have every single person in that sanctuary watching Bill Merritt and Kenny Pollard hoist me up like a piece of furniture. That's the truth. That's the ugly truth I haven't said out loud until right now. My name is Wanda. I'm 57 years old. I've been the church secretary at First Baptist in Cullman, Alabama for 19 years and I've known just about everyone in this town my whole life. My mama was a Fussell before she married my daddy, and the Fussells have been in Cullman County since before the county was a county. I've got a husband named Dale who runs a small engine repair shop out of our garage on 5th Street. I've got two grown kids, Ashley and Tyler. And I've got the sweetest 4 year old grandbaby in the state of Alabama. Her name is Emberlyn Rose. She calls me Mimi. And on the morning of her baptism, I was in my closet doing math. If I sat in the second pew and let Ashley bring her over to me afterward, I could probably manage. I could stand up for the invitation hymn and hold the pew in front of me for balance. I could sing along without falling over. I could smile. But the altar rail part. The kneeling. The part where Ashley wanted me up there beside her because I'm the one who taught Emberlyn to say her prayers. That part I couldn't do. I sat down on the edge of the bed and I cried for a solid 15 minutes. Then I got up, put on my robe, went to the kitchen, made coffee, and started calling myself every ugly name I could think of. Because it hadn't always been like this. Let me back up. Three years ago I could still kneel. Not like a woman in her 30s. But I could get down on the padded kneeler at the altar rail and I could get back up on my own, holding the rail for balance. My knees would talk to me about it for the rest of the day but I could do it. Two years ago I noticed I was avoiding stairs. Our house has a split level in the back and I started using the little bathroom by the kitchen instead of the one upstairs. I told myself it was because the light was better. Last year I stopped teaching the 3 year old Sunday school class. I'd been teaching it for 11 years. I told Pastor Danny that Emberlyn was getting older and I wanted to be free to sit with her in service. That wasn't the reason. The reason was I couldn't get up and down off those little chairs anymore. I couldn't sit on the floor for story time. I couldn't chase a 3 year old who ran for the door. The knees. It was always the knees. I saw my doctor about it. Dr. Prewitt at Cullman Regional. Good man. Went to school with my brother in law. He looked at my knees, moved them around, ordered some x rays, and told me exactly what I'd been dreading. "Wanda, you've got arthritis in both knees. It's not bad yet. But it's going to get there. You've carried an extra 30 pounds for most of your adult life and it's catching up with you. Take some Aleve when it flares. Try to lose some weight. Stay active." Stay active. I wanted to laugh in his face. I couldn't get out of my car without holding onto the door frame. He wanted me to stay active. I tried the Aleve. It helped for about 4 hours at a time and then my stomach started acting up. I tried the weight loss. I lost 8 pounds on some plan Ashley found on Facebook and my knees didn't feel one bit different. I tried glucosamine. I tried turmeric capsules from the vitamin shop in the Publix shopping center. I tried a copper knee brace I bought at Belk. I tried collagen powder in my coffee. I tried a topical cream a woman at church swore by. I tried CBD gummies my sister in law sent me for Christmas. Nothing. Every single thing I tried, I'd give it 2 weeks and I'd feel exactly the same as when I started. And I kept getting quieter about it. That's the thing nobody tells you about getting older. It's not the pain itself. It's the slow shrinking of your world because of the pain. The things you stop doing. The invitations you stop accepting. The way you start staying home from things and telling everyone it's because you're tired. I stopped going to the ladies' garden club because their meetings were at Miss Beverly's house and she had 6 concrete steps up to her front door with no railing. I stopped hosting Sunday lunch after church. Not because I didn't want to. Because standing at the stove for 90 minutes made me want to cry. I stopped taking Emberlyn to the splash pad at Sportsman Lake because I couldn't sit on the ground and I couldn't get up if I did. Dale noticed but he didn't know what to say. Dale is a man who fixes things. Lawn mowers. Weed eaters. Chainsaws. When he can't fix something he goes quiet, and I could feel him going quiet about me. Which brings me back to the morning of the baptism. I'd been up since 5. I'd cried in the closet. I'd made coffee. And I'd made my decision. I was going to call Ashley at 7:30 and tell her I'd caught something at work and couldn't come. Then I remembered my hair appointment. I'd booked an appointment at Kim's Cutting Corner for the Friday afternoon before the baptism because I wanted my roots done. Kim Henderson has been cutting my hair since we were both 34 years old. She knows more about me than my own sister. I'd meant to cancel Friday morning. But I forgot. So at 2:15 that afternoon I put on some earrings and drove down to Kim's. I want you to picture Kim's Cutting Corner. It's a little pink building on 4th Street SW, next to a bail bondsman and across from a Sonic. Kim's daughter Cheyenne answers the phone and does nails in the back. Kim has been there 22 years. The magazines on the little table are 3 months old and nobody minds. There's a picture on the mirror of Kim's mama, Miss Judy, holding Kim as a baby in 1968. I sat down in Kim's chair and she draped the black cape over me and started running her fingers through my hair the way she always does before she starts. "You look tired, sugar." "I feel tired." "Emberlyn's baptism tomorrow, right?" "Yeah." She could tell something was wrong. I don't know how she could tell. Kim can always tell. "Wanda. Talk to me." And I did. I don't know why. Maybe because she was standing behind me and I didn't have to look at her. Maybe because I'd been holding it in so long. Maybe because Kim has a way about her. I told her about the altar rail. I told her about the deacons. I told her about sitting in the closet that morning trying to figure out how to skip my only grandbaby's baptism. I told her about my knees. She kept running her fingers through my hair the whole time. She didn't interrupt. She didn't try to fix anything. She just let me talk. When I was done, she pulled up a stool and sat down next to me. Set her comb on the little rolling cart. Looked at me in the mirror. "Wanda, can I tell you something? And you can take it or leave it. But I want you to hear me out." "Okay." "You remember my mama." "Miss Judy. Of course." "You remember she was a home health aide for 34 years." "Yeah." "Wanda, my mama has seen more knees in her life than any doctor in this county. She sat with people whose knees quit on them at 55, 60, 70. She's seen every brace, every pill, every shot. She's watched what works and what doesn't from about 6 inches away." She paused. "And she started giving my Uncle Ronnie something about 8 months ago. Ronnie is 61. He used to run cattle up in Vinemont before his knees quit on him. Couldn't get on the tractor. Couldn't crouch to check a calf. He'd stopped going to the sale barn. Stopped going anywhere." I was listening. "Mama gave him some capsules. Some kind of Indian gooseberry. Weird name. Sounded like something a hippie would take. Ronnie didn't want anything to do with it. But mama has that thing she does where she just puts something on the counter and says 'try it, don't try it, I don't care, but I love you.' And you know how she is. You end up trying it." Kim laughed a little. "Ronnie called her 6 weeks in. Told her he got up on the tractor. Told her he'd been out at the sale barn on Saturday. Told her his knees still hurt some but they weren't the whole conversation anymore. That's the phrase he used. 'They aren't the whole conversation.'" I sat there in the mirror looking at Kim's face. "Wanda, I'm not a doctor. Mama's not a doctor. I don't know what's going on in your body. But my Uncle Ronnie was a mule of a man and he'd given up. And my mama gave him some capsules and something changed." She squeezed my shoulder. "Let me call her. Just let me call her. She'll come by your house tomorrow after the baptism and talk to you." "Kim, tomorrow's the baptism. I don't even know if I'm going." "You're going. Because I'm gonna tell you something. If Ashley wanted you at that altar rail, she wanted you. Not your knees. Not your dignity. You. And if you have to hold onto that rail with both hands while Bill Merritt and Kenny Pollard help you up, you let them. And you smile at your grandbaby. Because that little girl doesn't care about your knees. She cares about her Mimi." I started crying again. Right there in Kim's chair with the cape on. I went to the baptism. I sat in the second pew. Ashley brought Emberlyn over to me before service and Emberlyn climbed up in my lap and put her little hands on my face and said "Mimi, are you sad?" I told her no. I told her I was just thinking about how much Jesus loves her. When Pastor Danny called the family up, I held the pew in front of me and I stood up. And I walked up that center aisle beside Ashley. And I got down on that padded kneeler at the altar rail. And Bill Merritt didn't have to lift me. Dale did. My own husband. Who reached his hand under my elbow and pulled me up like it was nothing. I don't know if that's because my knees had a good day or because I finally let Dale close enough to help me. Both things, probably. I cried through the whole thing. Emberlyn Rose Whitfield was baptized at First Baptist Church in Cullman, Alabama on a Sunday morning in October. And her Mimi was there. Miss Judy came by the house that afternoon. I hadn't seen her in probably 3 years. She's 79 now. Small woman. Sharp eyes. Wore a house dress and white Reeboks. Kim brought her because Miss Judy doesn't drive anymore. Dale made coffee and the three of us sat in our kitchen for about 2 hours. Miss Judy didn't lecture me. She didn't hard sell me. She sat there with her hands wrapped around her mug and she told me about her 34 years of sitting with people whose bodies had quit on them. "Wanda, I'm not a doctor," she said. "But I'll tell you what I've watched. I've watched people take pills for 20 years and get worse. I've watched people get shots in their knees that helped for 6 weeks. I've watched people lose weight and still not walk right. And I've watched a small number of things that seemed to actually reach whatever was really going on." She reached into her purse and pulled out a small brown bottle. Set it on my kitchen table. Auniva. Amla. I'd never heard of either. "You know what amla is?" "No ma'am." "It's an Indian gooseberry. It's been used in India for about 3,000 years. They call it the nurse. Because it takes care of the body from the inside without doing damage on the way in." She tapped the bottle. "Wanda, this is not a knee pill. I want you to understand that. If you're looking for something you can take like an aspirin that goes right to your knees, this isn't that. This is something different." I asked her what she meant. And this is where Miss Judy said something that changed how I understood my own body. "The cells inside your joints need energy to keep themselves going. Same as any other cell in your body. That energy gets made by tiny little things inside every cell called mitochondria. They're the little power plants. And here's what nobody tells you. As you get older, and after 50 years of processed food and stress and medications and everything else, those little power plants start slowing down." She looked at me over her mug. "You've got cells in your knees right now that are supposed to be maintaining your cartilage. Supposed to be keeping things lubricated. Supposed to be calming down inflammation before it gets loud. But if those cells don't have the energy they need, they can't do the job. It's like sending lumber to a construction site with no electricity. All the material in the world doesn't matter if you can't power the tools." Dale set his coffee down. He was listening now. Dale doesn't listen to most things but he listens to mechanical explanations. "So the Aleve. The glucosamine. The turmeric. The collagen. All that stuff. Some of it might help a little. But none of it was ever getting to the actual power plants. They were all trying to patch the roof while the electricity was out downstairs." That made sense to me in a way nothing had made sense in 3 years. "So what does amla do?" Miss Judy smiled. "Amla has been shown to help support a pathway called AMPK. Don't worry about the name. Just know that when AMPK is active, it helps your mitochondria work more efficiently. Like flipping the breaker back on. Your cells can start making the energy they were designed to make. And when the cells in your joints have energy again, they can start doing the maintenance work they've been falling behind on." She picked up the bottle. "It's slow. It's not aspirin. You take 2 capsules a day and you give it time. Some folks feel a difference in 3 weeks. Some in 6. Ronnie was closer to 6." "And it's just a berry?" "It's a berry that's got one of the highest antioxidant profiles ever measured in a food. And the antioxidants matter because they help protect those power plants from the same damage that wore them down in the first place. It's not just turning the lights on. It's protecting the wiring." She slid the bottle across the table to me. "That's a bottle from my own cabinet. I want you to have it. If it does nothing, you throw it away and I'll never mention it again. If it does something, you order your own from Auniva. That's the company. They ship it from a warehouse in the states. And they've got a 90 day guarantee, which I appreciate because I think a company that stands behind its product for 90 days is telling you something about what it's seen." I took the bottle. That night I took 2 capsules with a glass of water after supper. I didn't feel anything. I didn't expect to. Week 1, nothing changed. My knees were my knees. I got up in the morning and I hobbled to the bathroom and I made coffee. Week 2, I noticed I got out of my chair at church without thinking about it. I noticed because when I sat back down I thought "wait, how did I just do that?" I sat there for a minute trying to remember what getting up had felt like. And I couldn't. It had just happened. That was the first crack in the wall. Week 3, Dale asked me if I wanted to go with him to the flea market at the Cullman Ag Trade Center. I hadn't been to that flea market in 2 years. I said yes. We walked around for 90 minutes. I sat down once, at the concession stand, but only because I wanted a lemonade. Not because I had to. I cried in the truck on the way home. Dale didn't say anything. He just reached over and put his hand on my knee. Week 4, I sat on the floor at Ashley's house and played dolls with Emberlyn. I sat cross legged like a person who does that all the time. Emberlyn didn't notice. She had no idea that this was a miracle happening on her living room rug. I got up an hour later using the coffee table for balance but I got up. On my own. I called Ashley from the car after I left. I cried into the steering wheel and told her what had happened. She thought I was calling because something was wrong. And I told her something was right. Something was right for the first time in years. Week 6, I went to Miss Beverly's garden club meeting. Walked up all 6 concrete steps holding the railing on the side of the house but not gripping it like I was about to fall. Just resting my hand there. Miss Beverly hugged me at the door and said "we missed you, honey" and I smiled and did not tell her the whole story. Week 8, I hosted Sunday lunch. Made a roast in the crock pot the night before but I stood at the stove and made the potatoes and the green beans and the sweet tea myself. My mama would have said I was showing off. I probably was. It felt good to show off. Week 10, I kneeled at the altar rail during communion. Kneeled. Got back up on my own. Didn't hold anyone's arm. Didn't hold the rail. Just did it the way I used to do it in my 40s. My eyes were closed and I didn't even realize I'd done it until I was walking back to my pew and I thought "when did that get easy?" I stood in the aisle for a second, just marveling at it. I've been on Auniva's Amla for about 5 months now. I take 2 capsules every night after supper. Dale started taking it too because he watched what happened to me. His shoulder that got messed up when he fell off the tractor in 2019 has been quieter these last 6 weeks. He hasn't said it out loud but I've seen him lifting things with his right arm that he was using his left arm for all summer. Miss Judy comes by every couple weeks. Not to sell me anything. Just because she's my friend now. She tells me stories from her home health days and I tell her about Emberlyn. I want to be careful about what I promise you. I'm not a doctor. I'm a church secretary in Cullman, Alabama who thought her only grandbaby was going to grow up remembering the day her Mimi didn't come to her baptism. I don't know if what happened for me will happen for you. Bodies are different. What I can tell you is that for the first time in 3 years, my knees are not the whole conversation. If you have someone in your life whose world has been slowly shrinking because of their knees, or their hips, or their back, or their hands, I'd tell you to look into Auniva's Amla. It's 2 capsules a day. A bottle is a 30 day supply. It ships free from a warehouse in the states. And it comes with a 90 day money back guarantee, which means if it doesn't do anything for you, you send back what's left and you get your money back. That's it. No arguing. No forms. No hoops. I think about what would have happened if Kim hadn't sat down on that stool next to me. If Miss Judy hadn't come by that Sunday afternoon. If Dale hadn't lifted me up at the altar rail so I didn't have to sit down and give up. I think about it a lot. And I want to be Miss Judy for somebody. That's why I'm telling this story. Because there's a woman reading this right now who was up at 5 in the morning trying to figure out how to skip something she never should have had to skip. You don't have to skip it. There is a padded kneeler in your future with your name on it. And somebody in your life who wants you to be there. 👉 auniva.co/amla/33 P.S. Emberlyn is 5 now. She's going to start kindergarten next fall. She asked me last Tuesday if I'd come to her first day and walk her to the classroom. I said yes without thinking about the distance from the parking lot to the classroom door. That's what this has been for me. Not just my knees getting better. It's the way I answer questions now. It's yes. It's yes without doing math in my head first. P.P.S. About the guarantee. 90 days is a long time. That's 3 full bottles. Miss Judy said something to me that stuck. She said a company that stands behind a product for 90 days is telling you something about what it's seen. I've thought about that a lot. Nobody at the vitamin shop ever offered me my money back on the glucosamine. Nobody at Belk offered me my money back on the copper knee brace. Nobody offered me my money back on any of the other things I tried. Auniva does. Take that for what it's worth. P.P.P.S. Auniva is not a big company. They ship out of the states and I know from Miss Judy that they've been out of stock a few times over the last year. I keep 2 bottles in my cabinet at all times now. One I'm taking. One I'm not. Just in case. If your knees are what they are, don't wait for next month. Order it now. Get the first bottle in the house. Take 2 capsules a night. Give it 6 weeks. If nothing changes, you send it back and you're out nothing. If something changes, you'll write a story like this one someday and some woman on Facebook is going to read it and it's going to be her turn. P.P.P.P.S. I have not told this story to a single person at First Baptist. I told Kim. Miss Judy already knew. Dale knows. Ashley knows. And now you know. But nobody at church knows why their Sunday school teacher started teaching the 3 year old class again last month. They just know Miss Wanda is back. And Miss Wanda is glad to be back. Come sit in her class if you're ever in Cullman. She's got the little chairs pulled out and she's sitting in one of them. 👉 auniva.co/amla/33

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Feel Like Yourself Again

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