By Ben Ryan
After a quarter century of “Sir, yes sir!” Becky Halstead had to learn to say “no.” To do so was contrary to the very core of her personality. Relentless discipline had defined her life since early childhood and had helped her shatter one glass ceiling after the next as she marched her way up to the one-star rank of Brigadier General in the United States Army.
“My rheumatologist said, ‘Ma’am, the things that made you do really well in the Army, that served you well, are now working against you,’” Halstead recalled.
Staying in tip-top physical shape was always paramount to her duties. But beginning in 2004, the running she had enjoyed for nearly three decades began causing searing pain through her legs.
“It was as if you were blowing air into my legs and they were going to explode,” she said.
Typically a head-to-the-pillow sleeper who got by on four or five hours a night, she also began having trouble sleeping for the first time in her life.
She was diagnosed with fibromyalgia not long before her deployment to Iraq, where she was a Commanding General for logistics, leading 20,000 military officers who were responsible for providing supplies, transportation and other support services to a quarter million troops. True to form, she toughed it through. But at a great cost to herself. On a scale of one to 10, she said her pain level in those days was a 10, every single day.
She kept running.
“My attitude was, if it’s not going to kill me, then I’m going to keep doing it,” she said “It’s painful either way.”
After returning to the States, where she became the equivalent of the president of a university as the first female Chief of Ordnance and Commanding General of the Army’s Ordnance Center and Schools, she faced the growing reality that it was time to make a strategic move on her own behalf for once.
“I had an incredible military career,” she said. “I was blessed to be promoted early at every rank. I commanded at all levels. Some people would tell you I was destined for another star if not multiple more stars.”
In 2008, she decided to retire.
“Yeah, I was pretty upset about having to leave,” she said. “It was a disappointment. But I just took that challenge and turned it into an opportunity and went, ‘Okay, well, I’m going to live to be 100. I’m only 49, I’d better figure this out.’ My whole premise of life is you’ve got to lead yourself. And so the first thing to do, I think, is to accept that you have this condition, but do not accept that it’s going to run your life.”
Today, 51 and living in rural Virginia, she directs her own consultant group, Steadfast Leadership. She specializes in motivational speaking and leadership training, inspiring clients in the educational and corporate sectors as well as divisions of the military to achieve the kind of success she’s so long enjoyed.
Running her own business gives her the freedom to design her own schedule, take time to care for herself and reduce stress, and in her words, “to learn to say no.”
“Now, on a daily basis, two plus years out of the military with a lot of changes to my lifestyle, I would say the average day is more like a three,” she said of her current pain levels. “And I probably don’t let it get above a seven or eight.”
Those changes include adjustments to her diet, the use of chiropractics and a more moderate regimen of exercise. She’s always keeping a sharp eye out for new information that might help her, and keeps an equally vigilant eye on herself.
“The more educated you are, the more you see the signs and you don’t let yourself spiral out of control,” she said. “When my legs start to get where I can’t sit still and I feel like my heart’s going to come out my legs, then I know that I have pushed myself too hard. Sometimes it’s to the point where it takes me several days to get back down off of that. But at least I recognize it, so I don’t get any deeper into a hole.”
The lessons she’s learned from her own health struggles have informed the insights she shares with others, including her role as an active spokesperson for the Foundation for Chiropractic Progress.
“In my dealing with fibromyalgia, I think it’s helped me help other people to deal with not just fibromyalgia, but any kind of pain in their life: emotional, physical, spiritual,” she said. “It helped me be a more understanding, caring, encouraging person for other people.”
Last June 2010, the National Fibromyalgia Association urged patients in California to write their legislative officials to support the passage of a bill which would limit the practice by insurance companies known as “step therapy” or “fail first,” where patients have to take up to five older, less expensive medicines before they gain access to the treatment initially prescribed by their doctor. (“Patients respond to National Fibromyalgia Association’s Call to Action urging end to unethical practice of “Step Therapy”)
