Let me introduce myself a little bit. I am a wife to Craig, who travels for work all around the Pacific Northwest selling capital equipment to hospitals. I am a mom to Sydney, who rides & trains hunter/jumper show horses and teaches lessons in Tampa Florida and to Audrey, who is a sophomore in college equipping herself to work in the music industry. I also share my life & my heart with my two furry babies, Libby (a chihuahua) and Bear (a manx cat). Bear is a big momma's boy although he thinks he is a tough guy, and Libby is attached to my hip. She goes pretty much everywhere with me except restaurants and grocery stores. She has travelled with us all over the country too. She has great manners for staying quiet while out shopping and usually people don't even realize she is watching everything from the comfort of her bag on my shoulder.
Admittedly, I do tend to gush about all my kids - fair warning :)
I'd also like to let you know how I learned the benefits of a healthy diet. I'll try to give the abridged version because I could go on & on about my passion for what I've found - well, I guess I will actually because that's part of the purpose of having this blog! But for now I'll start at the beginning: from the time Audrey was a year old until after she turned 5 she suffered from horrific bouts of high fever, full body stiff muscle soreness, headaches, and all over pain. She would have "episodes" that would last 3-4 days with all of those symptoms that gained in frequency until they were at least once a month. And when I say high fevers, I mean 105-106! I have used every thermometer sold over the counter for let's just say everywhere they can be used, and she would top them all out! A couple days before she would be hit hard, I could see it coming in her eyes and she would insist that I not take her temperature because she knew it too and didn't want to stop playing. I actually played a game where I would kiss her forehead and then take her temp to see how close my guess was. My lips became so calibrated I was always within a half degree of correct. Needless to say, we saw a lot of doctors with a lot of different specialties
through all of this. In the beginning they would prescribe an antibiotic and send us home. After about a year I stopped filling the prescriptions because they were a waste of money and they did nothing to help. Eventually we made our way to Children's Hospital in Seattle and were given a diagnosis of a very rare autoimmune condition and some medications that finally gave her relief. It didn't relieve everything, the headaches still continue, but it made a huge difference. She was able to function, go to school, dance and enjoy life. Her bubbly personality that was already there, came out even better. Her episodes diminished to about 2 a year and she was able to live a "normal" life. But there were side effects from having such high fevers at during those developmentally important years. She struggled in school quite a bit. It was described to us that it would take longer for her to heal the "wires" in her brain after having been on fire for so long. She could definitely understand all of her course work and keep up with her class but it was hard for her to sit still and pay attention to the board and her papers for too long. So, of course, that means she had ADD, right? I mean what else could it be? At least that's what I was told. I'm not that quick to believe stuff like that and I was certainly not going to give my happy little girl drugs that would alter her personality just so she could sit still in class. It was then that I began my foray into the research involved in how what we eat affects our bodies, personalities, emotions - everything! The first real help that we got was from the Feingold program that has done extensive research on ADD, Autism and food additives.
I was raised in a house that had Hostess products everyday for lunch and fried food every night for dinner. I had already changed some of that just because I didn't like it, but to take out all artificial flavors, colors and preservatives was going to be a huge undertaking. I am so thankful to Craig for his support because if he had not been willing to go through it all as a family I don't think we would have made it. But as a family we tackled it - I cleaned out the cupboards, the fridge and the freezer and we went cold turkey on anything artificial. I had to learn to cook much more from scratch and find alternatives for Audrey to take to school for all those celebrations and classroom prizes. But it was almost an instant change! Within a very short time she was noticeably different in her ability to focus and stay on task. It was so inspirational to all of us, even Sydney who while being little and in grade school herself, saw the changes and learned to look at artificial chemicals labeled as food as not just unhealthy but literally dangerous. I am convinced that the school system in general across the country has declined so much in part because of the overabundant use of these chemicals in our children - but we can have that discussion another day.
After cleaning up what she ate, we were able to discern that there might also be a problem with Audrey's vision now that she was actually trying to concentrate. She could do all of her school work verbally - she could tell you the answers to math problems by working them out in her head if you read them out to her, she could tell you how to spell if she could say (or in her case sing them usually) and she could tell you all the facts of a story after listening to it - she just had a very hard time writing any of that down on paper. After a trip to an eye doctor that specializes in vision therapy not just looking at a chart, it was determined that Audrey's eyes move at different rates and as she gets tired the rates get larger and larger. Basically her vision slowly caves in on itself until she can't see clearly at all. It is a form of dyslexia and can be helped by therapy but also requires more frequent breaks so as not to fatigue her vision. Another side effect from her fevers that she lives with still to this day.
As she grew and became stronger her body could accept some "junk food" without a complete meltdown and life became a little bit more relaxed. We still ate the right foods at home but it wasn't so much a worry when she went out with friends or at family functions. Although she could feel it if she strayed too far and would need a couple days to flush her system if it got too out of control. Then a couple years ago I started finding myself in more and more pain. I too suffer from an autoimmune condition that I apparently have had all my life but went undiagnosed. My body doesn't store vitamin B12 properly and because of that I don't make enough red blood cells to keep my iron levels up. I had been coasting along just barely getting enough to maintain until I hit about 40. Then I couldn't keep up and I drained my B12 levels completely. Thankfully, with the help of my sister-in-law, I found a wonderful natural path who is also a full MD and she helped my family take another healthy turn without resorting to chemical medication. That's how we ended up gluten free. Again, Craig was very willing to make it a whole family plan and I'm so thankful for it. After just a short time we all started feeling so much better. I was at a point that it took about an hour and a half just to get all my joints to work in the morning and now I'm a little stiff for about 20-30 minutes, but still functional! That is huge!
I can't even put into words how much better I feel, the difference it has made in Audrey's ability to function and for Craig, he feels like a bit of a "weight" has been taken off that he didn't even know he was carrying around. Then benefits of clean eating are so numerous that it is mind-blowing how hard it is to learn about it. Our fast-paced society runs toward whatever is easiest. It has paved the way for red KoolAid, McDonalds and twinkies to play far too big a role in the lives of way too many people.
Hmmm, I was going to try to keep this short. Well, my story is what it is and it takes a little bit to explain it. Trust me, I did leave a lot out :)
The bottom line here is that I am 100% convinced getting rid of artificial chemicals in our food, stopping the engineering of genetically modified foods, reducing gluten and increasing plant-based, whole foods into our diet will exponentially improve our lives. I'm passionate about it and I want to share it with everyone.
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