Letting Go

My dad's hands are cold, the skin blotching pink and white, and I want to take them in mine and rub them until the color comes back and the cold leaves.  His thin legs look like they need to be gently stretched and take a short walk.  I'd like to give him a cold chocolate shake to sip on and moisten his dry mouth.  His eyelids are heavy - I'm sure he just needs a nice afternoon nap.  The skin on his feet is stretched thin and dry, crying out for a little foot rub with smooth lotion.  There are thing that beg to be done - I need to get on them and go.

I'm his daughter, a caregiver, a mother.  It's my job to soothe and set right and heal and nurture.  But now, as I sit by his bedside, all I can do is listen to his raspy breathing.  He's not long for this world and there isn't anything I can do to change that.  I have to let go.

I let go of my role as caregiver.  I let go of my role as chief information-gatherer.  I let go of my role as worrier supreme.  I let go of the reins I've struggled with for so long, and hand them over to God. Hand Dad over, hand my heart over.  It's hard, but I'm learning to let go. 

Flu Deodorant - a New Recipe

We all got the flu a few weeks ago.  Thankfully, I have a family full of strong, robust children (and husband), and they are all doing much better. Some of them didn't even get sick.  Some were only sick for two or three days.  And then, me.  Still sick.  I have this nasty cough and I'm still so, so tired.

I got up this morning at the usual way-too-early-in-my-opinion hour, had a nice discussion over breakfast with my high school boys, snuggled my elementary boys, helped the girl brush her hair, and got them all off to school on time.  I'm trying to do all the mom stuff, but it just wears me out.  So I went back to bed.  And I stayed there.

A couple of hours later, my phone decided to go bananas with texts (Trent's dad had surgery this morning, and his family is great to keep each other posted).  But I was stubborn and wanted to stay in bed.  I was still tired!  So I stayed and stayed, read Facebook, scrolled Instagram, got caught up on the news, perused a few favorite blogs...

And finally, when I felt like the laziest human being that wasn't walking the earth and doing productive things, I got up.  I should get dressed, but I'm out of deodorant and I can't possibly pull on a shirt that will get stinky.  So I stayed in my house dress and wandered into the kitchen for breakfast.  I think it was past noon.  I had a nice bowl of granola and bananas because my nice husband made a batch of granola and I found the jar.  I picked out all the rock-hard raisins and sat down in the sunshiny spot at the table.  Felt nice to go so slowly.

I got my phone and looked up natural deodorant recipes while I chewed.  I can't use the store-bought ones because I'm too sensitive to all the chemicals they put in them.  Fortunately, deodorant is one of the simplest recipes ever, so even I can make it.  One little batch lasts me for months, and keeps me smelling like a daisy.  Except that I'm not sure off the top of my head what exactly a daisy smells like.

I got out the coconut oil, the non-organic corn starch, and the baking soda.  See, I told you it was an easy recipe!  I use this one from Wellness Mama.   I'm getting going on this day, I tell ya.  And then I proceeded to carefully spoon that good powdery stuff into my bowl of granola.

Maybe I should go back to bed after all.

Dementia Caregivers Conference

This is where I am today - studying crazy.  I know, I know, one cannot go where one already is and all that.  I often feel like I am the one who is losing my marbles, but whatever my personal sanity is, this fact remains: I am a full-time caregiver of a man with dementia.

My sweet dad has Parkinson's Disease.  He also has Lewy Body Dementia.  They are really two sides of the same coin, since when the body runs low on dopamine, the neurotransmitter that helps brain cells relay messages, it will affect both the body's ability to move (Parkinson's Disease), and the brain's ability to function (Lewy Body Dementia).  They don't always go together, but usually.  50 to 80% of Parkinson's patients will eventually get some dementia.  70% of Lewy Body patients develop some movement difficulties.  I learn as much about it all as I can.

Much of the conference was geared specifically towards Alzheimer's Disease, because it accounts for 60 to 80% of dementia.  Lewy Body Dementia is the second leading cause of degenerative dementia, but it's a distant second.  It was nice to hear the caregiver presentations, and to see so many of the people at my table nodding their head in understanding of the difficult parts.  It is wonderfully validating to be around other people who know how difficult it is to be a caregiver.  It's nice to talk with folks who just.. get it.  You can only do so much explaining, or outlining lists of needed tasks, or trying to describe what the burden feels like.  Unless you are in the trenches all day long, you just can't really understand like someone who is.

I loved it.  I liked the camaraderie, the information, the support, the resources, and the fruit buffet.  Yay for fruit!  I wish they had more conferences, and I would go to them all.  Trent is always so supportive and he worked from home, keeping an eye on my dad, so I could go.  I need to process all the information I got, and decipher all my notes, and see what I can start implementing.  There are always ways we can improve.

Now, back to the trenches.

For more information: Lewy Body Dementia Association and National Parkinson's Foundation

Hashimotos in the Park

Sounds like we're having an Oriental picnic, no?  The kids were begging to play at the park, but the weather, indecisive about whether to be winter or spring, has been leaning towards winter.  Finally, we had a clear day and I figured I could sit as well at the park as at home.  Away we went.

I make this out to seem like a big deal, but it's really not.  The park is nice and safe and just up the street from our house so it's quite easy to get to.  I've just been... so... tired... lately.  Any exertion is a big deal to me.  But what mother won't ever let her kids go to the park?  I'm sure I'm not THAT mom.  Even though I want to be.

So up the street we traipsed.  Twins, girl, cute husband, maybe an older boy or two, balls and plastic bats, sturdy shoes and warm jackets.  And me with a giant quilt coming slowly behind.  I thought I'd spread the blanket out in the grass and sit on it to watch the kids play.  The wind turned out to be windier at the park than at our house, so I sat at a picnic table, wrapped up in the blanket, trying to keep all the body parts tucked in.  I felt like an old lady burrito.

It was nice to watch them play - mostly.  And it was nice to be outside - mostly.  They laughed and played on the swings.  They organized some kind of hot lava monster game on the playground.  They played wiffleball with the fat plastic bat.  Georgie spun and spun in circles until he fell to the ground, laughing and dizzy.  As he waited for the world to stop spinning, he noticed how fast the clouds were racing across the sky.  He wanted me to see, so I lumped over and rolled on the grass beside him.  The clouds really were magnificent.  Big and fluffy, with sparkling light tops and dark bottoms heavy with rain.  The wind blew them into piles and wisps all across the sky.  I was done moving, so I laid there and watched.  

It's not how I had envisioned going to the park.  It's not how I envisioned playing with my kids.  But for right now, while my body deals with this latest Hashimoto's flare, it's just right for me.

A Little Overwhelmed and Pizza

Deferred maintenance can be a killer.  On a house, not keeping things up over time will lead to left messes, decay and  eventually structural issues.  Not keeping a car running well will kill it even faster.  As I'm looking at my blog, I'm glad it doesn't break down, but there is a lot of work that needs to be done - and I haven't been doing it!  Notice how young my children look in the header?  They are quite a bit older now.  I'd like to update the background too, now that we don't have current world travelers.  And I just found a whole pile of old posts that I had started, but never got finished.  Sigh.  There is always something, isn't there?

So I don't know if I'll post every day, or even every other day.  But I am going to start chipping away at my old stuff.  Like this post from last April about what we had for dinner.  New and complete!  And then I will feel like I've been productive.

Honestly, it's been hard to feel productive lately.  My health hasn't been exactly bright and perky, so I haven't wanted to be up and doing things.  I've not been feeling well in the mornings, so I haven't been walking the kids to school.  There have been some difficult family things going on, so it's sometimes hard to find my happy.  And my dad has been more shaky, so I can't even leave the house until someone comes to spell me off.  So maybe this is a perfect time to start writing again.  Then I feel like I've accomplished something even when I have just been sitting on the couch.  Hooray for little wins!

But hey!  We did do something good today!  Have you seen the "Light the World" challenge?  It's being put on for the month of December by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Every day, we see one trait or characteristic of Christ, then we see how we can do better in that way.  Today is the kickoff, and it's a day of service.  Please click on the link there.  The videos are so well done and inspiring!

We learned that there are 60,000 refugees who now live in our state, and that they are in need of food for the holidays.  Our closest refugee center was asking for rice and bean meal packs.  It costs 5 or 6 dollars for a pound of beans, 2 pounds of rice, and 5 pounds of flour.  This week, the kids have been doing chores to earn their own $5 to help with this effort.  We went to the store and picked up the supplies.  They were excited to pick out which kind of beans they wanted, and help tie a pretty ribbon around each package.  Tomorrow, Trent will take them to the refugee center.  It doesn't seem like much, but I think every little bit helps.

And then, if we needed a reminder that good things come back to those who do good, our neighbor brought us pizza for dinner.  This is a snapshot of the leftovers.  We have the best neighbors!  And when we try to do our part to make it a better world, I think we become better neighbors too.

Maybe we are more productive than we think we are.  Maybe there are ways we can help and serve, even if it's only a drop.

Mission Monday

As the weather here moves into spring and warmer, it is growing cooler in Madagascar.  Ben told me that it's not as rainy as it has been.  Although it isn't as hot as it has been, it's still plenty warm!  I am glad he will be coming home to our summer instead of in the middle of winter.  I think he would freeze to death!

That's one of many things I can be thankful for.  I think I'll challenge the kids to write down as many blessings as they can think of in just a few minutes.  I think we would all be surprised at how many good things are all around us.  That's one thing Ben did in his last letter.  It's always interesting to see what other people are thankful for - and usually we are happy about things that we haven't always have.  Life lived too easily makes us complacent and we don't notice how good we have it.  I'm humbled by some of the things Ben mentions in his thankful list:

My stomach is not having problems.
I don't have a headache.
The power is going right now.
This cyber has GREAT internet.
I have clothes.
Food.
A roof that doesn't leak.
Washing machines and dryers
A stove.
My bed.
My parents were sealed in the temple and I was born in that covenant.
Rice.
I've been healthy enough to do everything I could possibly need to this week.

That last one really got me, especially since I haven't been particularly healthy recently.  But I think I've been healthy enough to do the things that are most important.  Thinking about our blessings really does make us realize just how many blessings we have.  I am for thankful when I count my blessings!

More Madagascar blessings here.

Slowing Way Down

So the other day (which means a vague sometime in the past but not necessarily recently.  We're liberal with our definitions here) I wrote about getting an inspiration in the temple that I needed to slow m life down.  I tried!  I thought seriously about it and everything.

But the reality of life for me is that I am the Mama of a large family.  Six kids at home rely on me for food, clothing, love, and attention.  I am the homemaker in charge of a house and land.  It's not huge, but there are always things that need cleaning up, fixing up, taking out, and tuning up.  I am the primary caregiver to a wonderful man and his Parkinson's Disease and he's not improving.  This disease is slowly stealing him and his abilities away from us.  And not lastly (but bestly!) I am the wife of a good man.  I'm so lucky to be the one to love him.

None of this will let up.  In  spite of the fact that we cleaned the front room yesterday, it needs to be cleaned again.  The laundry does not stay folded and put away.  Kids need to go to school again.  Track practice got out late and the boys need a ride home.  He needs a new pair of shoes.  She needs her hair brushed.  They need dinner (seriously guys?  We just ate yesterday!  Can't we call that good?).

And in the middle of all this thinking about slowing down and realizing that life was just not going to make this easy for me, I got a phone call from the doctor's office.  "So sorry, sweetie (she always calls me that and I love her for it).  The blood test results came back and you have Epstein Barr.  You need to get your back on the couch and stay there until this flare settles down."  Wait, what?  What is it, exactly?  Didn't I have mono already when I was twelve?  It comes back?  How bad is that?  How long will it take?  "Probably a month until you start feeling a bit better, but the fatigue can hang on for a while."

The fatigue.  Oh, I remember that part.  I was too sick to go to sixth grade for weeks.  My mom would take me to the doctor's office for more tests and I'd still be panting when we got there from the exertion of walking out my front door to the car.  Sometimes I had to crawl down the hallway to the bathroom because I was too exhausted to walk.  I lived on the old hide-a-bed couch in the living room where Mom could keep an eye on me.  Then they got new blue couches and they moved me and my old brown plaid one under the peninsula counter in the kitchen.  I was always so tired and never even wanted to move.

And I get to do that again?  Oh goody.

So now I live on the couch again.  Sometimes in the front room, and sometimes on the squishy green couches in the back room.  And sometimes I hide in my bedroom while Trent makes dinner and David hosts his own birthday party with his friends.  Lots of times I get up and do things, which I thnk is ok - in tiny amounts.  Because if I do any more than a microscopic amount, I pay for it afterwards.

It's hard to slow down.  I appreciate my family more than ever.  Trent is a dear to take care of half of everything I can't do.  David and Eddie have each made dinner this week (er, helped, but they are getting better).  Angel unloads the dishwasher.  The twins cleaned the bathroom, and it is actually cleaner now than when they started!  Even Chris was kind and was willing to help out (when he's not at school or work or track - which is not very much).  I'm blessed with wonderful people around me.

So we'll see what lessons I get to learn from this adventure!  Patience, I'm sure.  And gratitude.  And being able to see the things in slo-mo that I miss on fast-forward.  Stay tuned... I'm not going anywhere!

And thanks, Lord, for giving me a heads-up there at the organ.  I appreciate that.

Working Together

As I slow down, I am realizing that I am not a one-man-band.  The universe does not revolve around my efforts. I am not indispensable.  And contrary to how I often feel,  I do not carry the entire weight of the world in my poor arms.

Instead, I do my little part and those around me do their parts and we all manage together. None of us are perfect, but we manage to make things work in spite of our mistakes.

Nowhere is this more true than at the junior high band concert I attended tonight.  Eddie plays the trombone in the beginning band and I went to cheer him on.

I'd really rather have stayed home on the couch, but if I stayed, I would have been on for dinner patrol.  I gladly let Trent manage the last part off dinner prep, getting everyone to the table, the happy chaos of eating, and the cleaning up. For my part of parenting duties,  I'm sitting comfortably in a padded chair,  listening to the different junior high bands. 

They aren't as painful as I remember from when I was in junior high and for that I am grateful.  As the beginning band stayed up, a single clarinet came in a count to early.  An oboe squawked and the low brass played heavily over the top of the woodwinds.  A tiny girl crashed cymbals that were nearly as big as her arms were long,  and she struggled to stay on beat with the heavy metal cymbals.  The snare drummer executed a lopsided drumroll, and a single note from the bells sounded out clearly during what should have been a quiet part. At the end of a song, a single flutist hung onto her note too long.   But we all clapped enthusiastically anyway.

We cheer them on because we see ourselves in these fresh-faced kids who are trying so hard to do a hard thing well.  Most of them just started playing their instruments a few scant months ago.  They might not have known how to read music,  or have had the strength to hold up their instrument more than a few minutes.  But they keep practicing. Every honest try earns a modicum of improvement., a smidgen of skill.  And together, they get sounding pretty good.

The second band plays,  then the third.  Each band is more practiced,  more sure of themselves,  more skilled.  They transform the tunes into heart-moving music.  They grow into musicians.  And they touch our hearts.

We applaud them and hope that somewhere there are cheerleaders for us as we keep trying to do things that are hard for us - things that we aren't yet as good at as we'd like to be.  I do my little part and you do yours,  and together we make something worth listening to.

Cataracts, Not Part II

We had Dad's other eye scheduled for cataract surgery this week.  That makes it sound like we could just pop the eyeball out, send it in for refitting, and then pop it right back in.  Wouldn't that be nice!  But no, his whole body was required at the cataract surgery.  Too bad.

At any rate, the second surgery hasn't happened yet.  That left eye just is not seeing well enough and we don't want to take out the good eye.  I mean, not take out.  Just put it out of commission for a while.  It would be nice to be able to see out of the left eye before they operate on the right eye.  The left eye is improving, but more slowly than they wanted it too.  Right now, with best correction, he can see 20/1000 out of it.  And that is an improvement!  So we'll just wait and see.

I'm hoping all these procedures help with his... seeing things that aren't there.  I don't know whether it is the Parkinson's (hallucinations are not uncommon) or his vision, but I'm guessing it is a combination of bad vision and his poor brain trying to make sense of it.  He sees "curtains" or "strings of dust" all over, but particularly in his bedroom.  Sometimes big strands follow him out, evidently.  Sometimes they are gauzy and thick around the windows.  Other times they are thin cobwebby strands over his train set in the garage.  Sometimes they are sparkly and glittery, and he says they can be very pretty.  He says that when they build up it is hard for him to breathe, so he has to leave his bedroom door open all the time.  He brought me his magnifying glass the other day so I could look at the dirt under his fingernails because that is what it looks like.   He's pretty frustrated with me that I can't see it and feels like I don't believe him.

I'm guessing that the left eye, the one that can't see well, is still sending occasional shots of light and he can't make sense of those sparkles.  Also, it may be like looking through smeary glasses where you see halos around lights or shoots of light coming from the windows.  Strands of dust, as it were.  His brain connections might not be able to make sense of it and interprets it incorrectly.  Or it's a combo of that and Parkinson's.  We shall see if it gets less "dusty" for him when his eyes are working properly.

I spent a few hours deep-cleaning his room the other day to get rid of all the "dust."  I cleaned his bathroom with a toothbrush (and had problems with chemical fumes for several days afterward), dusted everything, wiped the baseboards, cleaned the ceiling fans, moved everything and vacuumed thoroughly .I got out the air purifier to clean the air and sprayed air freshener.  After I was all done, he sat back and said, "There.  Now do you see them around the door there?  It is really thick with dust all the way around it."  Can't win there.  All I can say for the cleaning is that I'll need to do it more often (he has been insisting that he could do it himself) because it was nasty.

Maybe when I'm an old lady, my world will be beautiful with sheets of light and sparkles.  Or maybe my eyesight will be bad enough that I won't be able to see the real dust that is there so I won't have to clean.  Either way, it's a win!

Cataracts, Part I

This is a really bad image, but I suppose that takes down the gross factor, right?

I'm sitting in the eye clinic, watching my dad's eye surgery.  They have a monitor all set up so I can watch the live feed of everything they are doing.  It's pretty interesting... to anyone who didn't get squeamish during high school biology classes.  Fortunately, I never did.  I poked through the pig carcasses and cut apart the earthworms and dissected the crayfish while my partner gagged. Not even the field trip to the university cadaver lab got me down,  although the smell threatened to do me in as we approached the building.  Formaldehyde and I don't get along well. So a bloodless eye surgery is no problem for me - I watched it while munching on my breakfast muffins.

I've learned some good life lessons while working with my dad and his failing eyesight these last few months. After his retina surgeries in December and January,  his cataracts got worse.  He can barely see shadows out of his left eye and his depth perception is laughable.

I'm grateful for my eyesight.  I'm getting older and my eyes are bad and I should get bifocals, but I can see.  I can see!  Clouds, birds, a beautiful sunset, the adorable faces of my children,  my husband's grin - I can see them and I'm thankful for it.

Desire and the Dangerous Doughnuts

I ate a doughnut last week.  No, that isn't telling the whole truth.  I think I ate four or five of them.  Trent brought home a whole tray full of day-old doughnuts as a treat for the family.  There were so many that we  - I mean the kids - oh, and my dad - and Trent too - couldn't eat them all up in a day.  So he put the leftovers in the garage, where it was cooler than the kitchen and there were more places to put a big old tray full of doughnuts.  I am grateful that he didn't leave them on the kitchen counter, but in the garage wasn't much better.

You see, they were calling to me.  They know my name.  And they whisper and cajole and tempt and sing siren songs of sticky sweetness to me.  It is so hard to resist!

I am on a special diet because my body isn't functioning properly right now.  I CAN eat fruits and vegetables and whole grains and a little meat every now and then.  I can even eat a tiny bit of fat occasionally!  That's new and I'm happy about it because it means I'm ok for some nuts or avocado or coconut.  I'm nuts about nuts, I admit.  When I eat the things I know my body tolerates, I feel better.  I have energy.  I don't have mood swings.  Life is happier.

But there are some things I still need to stay far, far away from.  Like sugar, of any kind.  And yeast, white flour, and anything processed.  More than just a smidge of plant-fat will do me in.  And no dairy.  A list like this means I need to make all my food from scratch, all the time.  And I need to be really, really careful to keep my guard up.

The doughnuts did me in.  I can only resist goodies for so long, and they were so alluring!  It was bad.  I ate one, and then another.  There may have been a third.  One was a powdered sugar mound of crispiness embracing a raspberry filling.  Another was actually a moist lemon cake disguised as a muffin-top, laced with delightfully tart frosting and peppered with bits of tangy lemon peel.  I savored every morsel, then sucked on my fingers so as not to miss a single atom.

As expected, I got a bad stomachache.  But the next morning there were still doughnuts!  Calling me, taunting me...  I picked up the three holdouts, tied them tightly into a bag and buried them in the garbage.  I didn't care who thought it was wasteful.  Out you go!

But throughout the day, somehow that bag worked its way back up to the top of the garbage and fell open.  And one at a time, those delicious doughnuts fairly jumped into my mouth.  I'm not sure how it happened, but every delicate nibble was delectable.

Payment was extracted over the next few days.  My stomach hurt - for days.  My guts endured all kinds of gastric distress that I'm sure you'd rather me not detail.  I got grumpy.  Normally I'm pretty easy-going, but with sugar I'm downright mean.  I caught the cold that the kids were passing around even though I rarely get sick.  I was discouraged and devoid of energy.  As long as I'm already feeling lousy, I might as well eat one of the cinnamon rolls Trent brought home, right?

That one gave me a bladder infection.  I was so miserable that I ate white bread, which induced a yeast infection.  And I'm still grouchy.

Last night, I even dumped a lengthy laundry list of complaints on my sweet husband.  Poor man.  He's been trying to cope with the kids and an irrational wife, all while adjusting to the learning curve of a new job.  I'm grateful he's so patient with me.

It takes about two weeks to get the sugar out of my system, to replace the cravings with vitality.  Until then, I'm grumpy that I don't get to eat any treats.  I'm trying not to see all the goodies the kids brought home from their Valentin's parties, and failing miserably.  I will continue to attempt to convince myself that the pizza Trent is bringing home for dinner is poison to me.

And I'm begging him to never bring doughnuts into the house again.

Living With Parkinson's Disease

It's been eighteen months since we moved in with my dad to help him out.  He's got Parkinson's Disease, and his neurologist said he couldn't live alone.  My mom was here, but she passed away three and a half years ago.  My brother and his family lived here, and now it's our turn.  

I've learned so much about this disease, and about my dad, and about myself, and about my sweet husband.  I haven't written much about our experience here, because I wanted to respect my dad and not have him feel bad about something I wrote.  I don't think I have much to worry about now - he doesn't get online anymore.  I do want to be careful and respectful of our challenges here.  I do feel a bit compelled to include our Parkinson's adventures on this blog, because maybe it would help someone else who has similar experiences and feelings.  Sometimes I feel so alone and misunderstood and I wish there were others who know what it is like to be a Parkinson's caregiver.  I'm sure I'm less alone than I think I am.  

Yup.  It's just me and Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali and 10 million people worldwide.  60,000 people every year are diagnosed with Parkinson's.  If I want to read different points of view, I can look at this list of 49 Parkinson's blogs, or this list of 14 blogs.  I have more information than I can shake a stick at.  Even if it is a very big stick.

What I don't have is a little afternoon chat with someone else who is living with a Parkinson's patient while trying to parent their own children.  It has been wonderful and very trying to live with my dad.  I'm sure there are others who understand.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll find some.

Save tomorrow afternoon for me.  I'd love to chat.

Patient Outpatient

I'm hanging out in the hospital with my dad today.  This is his second surgery within a month, and we'll have two more to go after this.  He's had some challenges with his eyes, and these four surgeries will clear that all up.  (How many bad eye puns can I come up with without even trying?)  None of the surgeries are very serious, and all of them are out-patient stints at the surgery center of the hospital, so I am very glad it isn't more intensive.

Still, it takes all of my day, plus most of the next couple of days to care for him.  Not that it's totally  a bad thing.  I get a couple of hours to myself in the hospital, where I can read any book I want to.  Without interruptions.  That is, if you don't count clanging hospital beds and constant foot traffic and the ever-present murmur of conversations that I try not to listen to and sometimes succeed.  But at least not the demanding Mom kind of interruptions.

I really don't like hospitals.  I think I went to way too many of them with Jay and his cancer.  They are just so sterile and cold, all paper and metal and matter-of-factly clinical when I'd rather have soft and warm and home.  That, and the specter of hurt and illness and what-if is always lurking about.  

It's amazing, isn't it, what modern medical technology can do?  Without these surgeries, he would be relegated to slowly losing his eyesight, then blindness.  But now, everything can be restored.  It's impressive, especially since I would so hate to lose my vision.

The procedure went well, just as they thought it would.  The waiting room was cold and noisy, just as I though it would be.  Dad's got a patch over his left eye, even though he was sure we should be working on his right eye this time (he got the right eye done last time).  

We'll wait for him to come out of groggy, eat a little to make sure his stomach isn't queasy, and get dressed in non-disposable clothing.  After that, we'll be on our way back home.  

Eating is Good for You

When I started this sick-of-feeling-sick journey, I did a lot of research.  I read about leaky guts and irritable bowel syndrome.  I found out about chemical sensitivities and food aversions.  I watched documentaries about better diets.

My current diet goes closely along with Forks Over Knives.  I eat a whole foods, plant-based diet.  That means I eat things that came from plants, instead of things manufactured in plants.

Sorting through blueberries before I freeze them for later

I eat whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.  That's pretty much it.  No processed fake food.  No commercial yeast, sugar, fat, or dairy.  I'm staring to be able to digest the fat in nuts., but no other fats.  Yes, you can survive this way, and even feel better.  I do!

Don't believe me?  Here is what I ate today:

Breakfast:

  Breakfast bowl with old-fashioned oats, Grape-Nuts, almond milk, and a whole pile of blueberries, pineapple, and banana

Lunch:

  Brown rice and black beans topped with onions and squash sauteed in water, diced tomato, parsley, and a garlic hummus sauce

Snack:

   Medium orange, apple slices with a tiny smear of natural peanut butter

Dinner:

   Big salad with greens, tomatoes, corn, peas, shredded carrots, and grapes with balsalmic vinegar and garlic toast, a few almonds and dates

It's all yummy, and it feels so much better!

Healthy Me in 2016

How could I make that rhyme?  Healthy teens and tween in two thousand sixteen?  Healthy beans?  Human beans?  I'm a queen in 2016?  Yes, I like the royal idea.  I need a crown.  None of your spindly tiaras, but a full-out crown for me, thankyouverymuch.

Yes, that may do.  The crown has nothing to do with health, however, and it may even cause headaches, so I'll go back to my original topic, if you don't mind.

About a year and a half ago, I started feeling tired.  Started, nuthin'.  I've been tired for decades!  But I started getting more tired.  And irritable.  And just... off.  I got my thyroid levels checked and they were fine.  I made a concerted effort to get more sleep, and that helped some.  I swore off sugar and that helped more.  But my body wasn't working right, and I knew it.  

I had a hard time falling asleep, and I would wake up several times every night,.  My vision was blurry.  I had mild stomachaches most of the time, unless I actually ate something, and then it would hurt more.  The food would stay in my stomach for four hours or longer without progressing through the system, and then it would hurry on out.  My feet hurt and I couldn't raise up on tippytoes.  I had headaches.  I had bad mood swings connected to my monthly cycle.  My skin hurt in patches.  I got terribly sensitive to chemicals of all kinds.  If any neighbors sprayed their lawns, I felt sick.  I couldn't use deodorant, shampoo, perfume, or any sort of cleaning supplies without feeling sick.  I could taste the chemicals!  My face broke out like a teenager.  My hair got thinner.  And I was so tired.  Me and the couch were best buddies.  By last summer, I'd had enough. I had felt miserable for long enough that I was willing to do anything to feel better.  I was desperate enough to (gasp!) go to the doctor.

With the help of a friend, I found a medical doctor who works with a homeopath, and I scheduled an appointment.  When I got there, I felt more validated than I have for a long time.  You mean I am not making this up?  There is actually something wrong with me?  I'm don't have crazy in my coconut?  Well, I probably do have a lot of crazy, but this wasn't one of them.

With their help, I changed my thyroid medication, revamped my already-getting-more-healthy diet, and started taking a handful of supplements.  I've seen quite a change in the past 6 months.  I can eat without stomachaches.  I lost most of my baby belly and twin skin.  My digestion is nearly normal.  My energy is going back up.  My brain isn't quite so foggy.  My skin is clear and rosy, and my hair is growing like crazy.  I love my family instead of being perpetually annoyed by everyone!

I'm not all the way out of the woods.  I'm off most of the supplements, but I still have a restrictive diet.  If I cheat, the gut pain lets me know about it... for days.  But I'm growing accustomed to feeling healthy and eating healthy.  If this is what it takes to be healthy and feel good, I think I'll take it.

It feels good to be back.  Here's to a happy, healthy year!

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday to my family!  This crazy, wonderful train ride officially started 23 years ago, with these two babies:

I look a lot different now.  My dad took this picture the day before Jay went into brain surgery.  Jay was joking that it would be his obituary shot, but it wasn't.  We were in my folks' backyard, in front of their apple tree.  Those little green apples remind me of my boys, so young then, but growing up quickly.

To celebrate our family birthday, we had spaghetti on china, with sparkling grape juice poured ever so carefully into crystal goblets.  It's a tradition to eat something regular on fancy dishes, because our family is a bunch of regular, common, everyday and nothing impressive things, made special by our enduring family ties.

Happy birthday to us, and many more.

I Need a Nap

I am so tired.  So really, really tired.  That is a big reason why my writing has faltered over the past several months.  My health has been failing.  Failing.  I pause over that word.  It sounds so dreadful and dead-full.  I'm not dead, and I won't be for a long, long time.  I'm too stubborn to go ,I've too much work still to do, and God's not done with me yet.

But as I think of the word "failing," it works for me.  I often fail.  And I often get back up again.  Sometimes it takes me a while to get back on my feet, and sometimes I'm quicker.  But there should be no shame in failing - only in the refusal to try again. 

So yes, my health was failing.  My body was not functioning properly.  There is no shame in that.  I'm working on making better- and different - health choices, and am under the care of a few good health providers, so I'm getting better.  Slowly, but surely, I am healing.  But it all makes me so tired.

To my credit, nearly all the Christmas shopping is done.  I just have to pick up the gifts for my man and we're there.  I've started wrapping.  The tree is up and has lights on.  Maybe we'll even put some ornaments on one day.  Maybe.  The lights are up on the front of the house.  I successfully navigated two Holiday parties without falling apart.  We've gone to one Christmas concert (David's choir was absolutely angelic.  I don't usually expect that from a junior high chorus, but they sang straight to my heart this year.), and we'll hit another one tonight (Eddie's beginning band concert.  Should be fun.).  My kids are well fed and happy for the most part.  I finished the laundry.  My house is passably clean.  Everyone made it to school on time this morning.

And now, I shall go take a nap.

Just Like Riding a Bike

I've been feeling like I needed to start writing again.  It's been a while, and I feel so rusty - like I've forgotten how.  Folks say it's like riding a bike...

I haven't ridden a bike for a while, either.  I used to bike often.  We would take our little family on a biking outing - me and Jay and three little boys on three little bikes.  Then we bought a bike trailer for the baby and Jay pulled it behind his bike.  He would go in the front and I would take the rear, making sure we didn't lose anyone.  At the time, we lived in a very small town, so the roads were safe.  When we moved to the Seattle area, the biking continued because there were so many beautiful bicyle trails.  Our favorite went along the banks of the Sammammish River and had frequent parks.  Jay would come home from dinner, announce that he wanted to go biking, and start rounding up the kids.  I'd take whatever I was making for dinner, attempt to fashion it into something we could take on a picnic (casserole portions wrapped in a tortilla sound good?), and off we'd go.

I like to bike with my kids.  I rode with them to school every morning, all the way through my pregnancy with Angel.  I loved the ability to get somewhere faster than my lumbering belly usually let me.  We got some pretty funny looks, my bike, my belly, and me.

Since then however, the cover on my bike seat rotted off.  My tires went flat.  I wasn't strong enough to haul three little kidlets in the trailer.  We didn't ride any more.

A couple of months ago, I thought I'd ride anyway.  It had been a while, but hey, it's just like riding a bike, right?  Running late to school helped me make my decision.  Angel was alread zipping up the street on her pink bicycle and the twins hopped on their little red bikes, and I didn't want to run alongside them again, so I pulled out David's bicycle.  The seat was good - the tires were pumped.  I threw my leg over the center bar and we were off.  The children were delighted that Mom - Mom of all people! - was riding a bike with them.  They don't know that I used to ride lots.  To them, it was novel and fun.  And we made it to school on time.

I rode home again, enjoying the... wind in my hair!  Say that like it was a shampoo commercial.

When I got home, I rode the bike up the neighbor's driveway close to the gate going into our backyard.  I swung my foot over the seat - and missed.  The front tire caught the edge of the grass, my foot caught on the seat, and bike and I went down in a most ungraceful slow-motion disaster.

I untangled my foot, rubbed my scraped palms together, and realized that if I tried to stand I would immediately be back on the ground.  So I sat there on the neighbor's driveway and gave thanks.  I was thankful that I didn't appear to be seriously hurt.  I was grateful that my knee was numb enough that it didn't hurt yet.  I was grateful that no one watched me fall.  I was grateful that my own front door was less than 50 painfully hobbling steps away.  I was grateful that I didn't wreck my son's bike because I'd never hear the end of that one!

After a few painful minutes, I slowly got up, put the bike in out bike rack, limped to the house and crawled back in bed.  I spent a week shuffling around the house and a month not doing anything which required kneeling.  I still have a tender lump at the base of my knee, but I'm all functional.

I'm so thankful for bodies that heal.  And hopefully, getting back into writing will be better than "just like riding a bike."

Sick Again

I've been sick again.  I just can't seem to hold on to my health these days.  This time, it was some sort of stomach flu that hit me right in the guts.  Let's just say that the things I ate gave me stomach aches and always wanted to leave in a hurry, and leave it at that, shall we?

In a last-ditch effort to regain my health (and become a less-frequent bathroom visitor), I made a drastic change in my diet.  I decided to only eat fruits and vegetables, since those were the only things that didn't hurt.  I've stayed mostly good about this for three weeks, and my guts are feeling much better.

Trent and I watched Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead during this time, and he was converted to eating a cleaner diet.  He has joined me for the last week or so, and it has been interesting to see the results.

The good parts:

Together, we have lost nearly 10 pounds.  I know most of that is water, and much of it will come back, but for a few minutes, it is a nice feeling!

My mouth does not crave the sugary, carbohydrate-laden food it used to.  That is a good thing, since I usually have pretty wild cravings.

Our taste-buds are getting retrained to really like simple fruits and veggies.  I really like eating a green pepper, or a spear of pineapple, or a crunchy apple.  I snack on carrots - and feel like Bugs Bunny - while I make dinner.

My face didn't break out this week like it usually does at this time of the month.  What's not to like about that?

I feel healthier, and my guts don't hurt!  I am glad that we've been able to make some good choices in taking better care of our bodies.


Now, the bad parts.  Did you think there weren't any?

After the first week, when I felt so much better, I've had no energy.  After talking with a nutritionally-smart friend of mine, I added beans and lentils back in, and I feel a bit more energetic.  I think some of my weight loss was muscle because I definitely felt weaker.

Eating fresh foods is kind of boring.  It wasn't so bad for me, because I'd eat an apple and two carrots and a green pepper and a handful of spinach and half a tomato while I was fixing dinner.  By the time everyone else sat down to eat the pasta that I couldn't eat, I was satisfied.  Trent, on the other hand, wants to eat a real meal... and I don't have a large repertoire of fresh-food meals.  We ate a lot of salads and lettuce wraps.  Then we remembered spaghetti squash and cauliflower rice, but it still not as flavorful as what the rest of the family was eating.  I feel like I'm feeding my body, but not... eating.

I don't like cooking two different dinners for each meal.  No thank you.

It's expensive.  Not gonna lie on this one - we went through veggies like crazy!  Spaghetti squash is quite a bit more expensive than pasta, and salad is more spendy than bread.  If it was just one or two people, I think we could hack it financially.  But moving the whole family to whole foods would not be cheap.

It takes a while to adjust.  At first, Trent didn't get satisfied.  He'd eat three giant bowls of salad and groan, "I've never been so full and so hungry at the same time!"  It took him nearly a week to adjust to not having that heavy-stomach feeling.


I have to admit that I binged a little tonight when I made cinnamon rolls.  For the kids!  I made them for the kids!  I was not supposed to eat them.  And now I have a stomach ache.  Tomorrow, I'll eat well again.

After I feed the rest of the cinnamon rolls to the kids so I won't be tempted again.  Don't do that again!

When Mom is Sick

When I am sick, my house is sick, too.  I always hope that everyone will stop and notice how much I normally do, gush over me in appreciation while they step up and clean up the house, do the laundry, make dinner, and rub my feet.  Um, I get a little delirious when I am sick.

I was laying on the couch, listening to my heart pound in my sinuses and my ears ring without a hint of harmony, when the twins thundered up to me.  "Can we watcha movie, Mom, canwe, huh?"  Yes, please, if you will do it very quietly!

But in order to maintain my mean mother reputation, I had to weakly insist that they cleaned their room first.   They crashed down their stairs and I was left to moan in peace for a while.  A short time later, they tumbled back in and sheepishly claimed the work was done.  

I didn't believe them, so I sent Freddy down with my tablet to take pictures of what their room looked like.

Nerf gun wars, stroller accidents, dirty pans on the stove... man, I love those little feet on the rug!

What do you think?  Should I let them watch a movie?