Recent Events

Elizabeth's arrival is the best of the recent events.  But, oh!, I do wish I had the strength and endurance to go help more, visit more, snuggle more. 

Gary's hungry.  He's having some health problems that require [deep serious voice--] Dietary Changes.  Right now it seems like there's nothing he can eat but veggie salads.  Nothing with sticking-power.  Yeah, but how much of that is real, and how much is scientists and chemists trying to figure out the art of medicine?  Once he gets the pain under control, I suppose then we can begin experimenting.  I'm wondering: if we fix guts, might the rest of the body straighten out too?

Sister, brother, and I divided up most of the belongings of my mom's house.  I've heard stories from other families about what happens when a parent dies.  Oh my goodness -- I am so thankful that we can get along and be nice to each other!

Maggie and I have an appointment coming up at Easter Seals to see if they have any programs that might benefit her. 

Between Gary, Maggie, Rachel, and me, it seems like we're seeing doctors or making appointments or receiving test results practically every day.  My head is swimming. 

Pretty soon I will be leaving my job.  Working and homeschooling and healing-from-stroke was at the utter limits of what I could do.  There was no margin.  Mom' death and helping with settling things just didn't/won't fit in.  So something has to go.  Since Maggie's not expendable, and since I have no magic wand to [poof] achieve full healing from my brain injury, the job is the only thing that I can take a break from.  I will miss it.  I will miss some of the customers.  I will miss the paycheck.  But mostly I will miss the nice feeling of having finished a task completely and correctly.  I keep reassuring myself that I can always reapply for the job when some of these family matters are wrapped up.

Google tells me that the European Union has instituted new rules for cookies on websites.  That means bloggers must inform readers about cookies and obtain consent.  I don't know how to do that!  And I don't have the time or brain power to bother with figuring it out right now.  So my counter (which is, I think, the only cookie I have) had to go bye-bye.  If you leave an anonymous comment, please sign something on the bottom so I know who you are, so I can allow the comment to go through.  (You could use initials, or first name plus last initial, or "Friend in Janesville," etc.)  It's getting tempting to just shut-down the blog or make it private (readers by invitation only).  But I'd need to save a lot of information first, including printing out recipes.  And that too is too much work right now. 

Katie, Maggie, and I watched "Pride and Prejudice" at APT last weekend.  Sarah Day does such a great job with fussy, busybody women-characters!  And Marcus Truschinski is the best Mr Darcy I ever saw.  

I'm working on lacto-fermenting veggies.   The corn relish was made with fresh-picked corn from the farm.  I made it a few years ago, and it was my favorite pickled recipe.  It's great to make another batch.  I should get my hands on some more corn while it's still available.  The pickle-batch I set aside today was sauerkraut.  Fresh, unheated sauerkraut is so much yummier than the cooked/canned soft kind.  I think broccoli slaw may be my next attempt.  There are so many possibilities that sound good.  And non-vinegar pickles are so much tastier ... as well as being super-healthy.

Arachnoiditis

When a brain aneurysm ruptures, blood mixes with the cerebrospinal fluid.  Your brain doesn't like that.  Neither do your nerves.  That nice, clean fluid is supposed to protect your nervous system, and blood pollutes it.  This can bring on arachnoiditis.

After my little aneurysm problem, I had debilitating pain in my lower back and my legs.  Once the doctors figured out the cause of my pain, they knew that the best solution was for the blood to be re-absorbed by the body so that it would be away from the nerves.  That meant my getting up to sit and even walk.  It also meant lots of pain meds to make it possible for me to sit or stand. 

Thinking about how arnica gel had helped so much in healing my bruises (where blood leaked and has to be re-absorbed) I asked my family to bring arnica to the hospital.  I can't say for sure that it helped.  But I sure felt better when I used it on the sore spots.  Of course, the improvement may have been caused by the doctors' treatments, or time, or a combination of many things. 

With some recent flare-ups, I'm trying arnica again.  I doubt it will help.  It doesn't seem reasonable to try, as pain now is residual nerve pain, and not pain from blood currently polluting my CSF.  But what would it hurt?

Turning My Breech Baby

When one of my babies was head-up and bottom-down, the midwife suggested I try turning him.  She said that doctors can sometimes manipulate kiddoes to turn them, but by this time my munchkin was too big and too far along for that.  (Also, some doctors worry about the safety of that exterior manipulation.) 

The midwife told me to lie on my back three times a day, about 15 minutes at a time, elevating the pelvis, oh, about 12 inches.  The theory is that gravity will help Baby out of the settled-in position, and when Mommy stands up, gravity could bring the [heavier-than-tuschie] head back down to the lower spot. 

This doesn't work for everybody who has a breech baby.  It's also important to have enough knowledge of your body, your baby's body, and be able to know through palpation your baby's position.  You must know when Baby's head goes down so that you Stop Doing The Exercise.  (Also, this is the internet, and I'm not giving medical advice, and all that jazz.  I'm just saying, "This is what I did and what worked for me.")

Also, I think it's good to make your request to the Lord that He turn the baby.

Gall Bladder

(Notes to remind myself.  Nobody else will want to bother reading.)

Low-fat vegan diet for several days: no caffeine, no sugar, no gluten, no alcohol.  Raw fruits and veggies as much as possible.  Lots of cukes, beets, tomato, lemon juice.  Rice salad works well.

Day before and morning of cleanse:
No fat.  No, really -- NO fat: olives, avocado, coconut milk, nuts, crackers.


Day starting the cleanse:
2:00 p.m. -- begin fast.  Drink plenty of water because of the salt later.  Unsweetened herbal mint tea is okay too.
6:00 -- first potion (3/4 cup water or apple juice with 1 Tbsp epsom salts)
8:00 -- second epsom-salt potion; prepare another potion for morning and put by bed
9:15 or 9:30 -- get ready for bed, pj's and brush teeth
9:45 -- mix 3/4 cup olive oil with juice of 3 lemons or 2 grapefruit (1/2 or 3/4 cup juice); shake well in jar until thin and frothy; go to the bathroom
10:00 -- drink the "salad-dressing" potion; it may help to use a straw or to chase sips with honey; drink it quickly (within 5-10 minutes); immediately go to bed; do not clean up the kitchen; lie down on the right side in the fetal position and stay still for at least 20 minutes; okay to get up overnight to use bathroom if necessary

Day ending the cleanse:
6:00 a.m. or later -- another dose of epsom salts; go back to bed
8:00 (or 2 hours later) -- another dose of epsom salts (may skip if stomach is too nauseous), then relax for another two hours
10:00 (or after 2 or 3 trips to toilet) -- may begin juice
10:30 or 11:00 -- may have some fruit
12:00 -- may begin eating light food
supper -- simple and easily digestible food




Organic better.
Freshly juiced juices better than purchased.

Knots in the Neck

Those pains in the neck?  I'm too tall; our back massager cannot reach them.   As I sat reading to Maggie, I tried contorting into weird positions, slumping down, anything so that the massager could hit parts of my neck.  I kept wishing there was a way to make it work.

And the next night, I walk into Aldi for produce and, lo and behold, they had a neck massager.  Not only Aldi-priced, but clearance priced.  Less than the co-pay for one doctor/chiropractor visit.  I nabbed it.  It was a hasty decision.  I detest hasty decisions!  But boy oh boy, that little contraption sure does help.

Kelp and Hot Flashes

One of my daughters (a lonnnng way off from menopause) mentioned that she sometimes uses refined salt because of the iodine content.  When she was exclusively on unrefined salt, she began having hot flashes.  She discovered that one symptom of iodine deficiency can be hot flashes.

Quite a few years ago, we bought a bottle of kelp supplements -- essentially seaweed in capsule form and thus full of iodine.  This summer I began taking a few capsules each week for the mere reason of thinking there was nutrition there that ought not go to waste.  But after hearing about my daughter's experience, it clicked: it's the kelp that has been keeping my hot flashes at bay.  Not the supplements aimed at menopause-type symptoms. 

So now I'm more careful to remember my kelp, and I'm having no problem with hot flashes anymore.  The downside of this is that --this year-- I'm needing sweaters and socks as the cool weather sets in.  Well ... better than growing me a goiter!

Gary's Back

Three weeks ago Gary hurt his back by committing the wild and crazy act of [gasp!] setting a coffee cup on his desk.  After several doctor visits, four days of working from home, lots of drugs, and six days of being [self-]banned from driving, he began to improve. 

God answered our prayers and decreased Gary's pain, increased his mobility, and provided the above torture device equipment via Craigslist.  (Torture device:  look how red his face is!)  The doctor suggested borrowing an inversion table from somebody to see if it might help.  Finding nothing to borrow, we were thankful to find one on Craigslist the very next day for a great price and only a half-hour away.

The inversion table has helped tremendously.  Gary even mowed the lawn today!

We stumbled over the inversion table which sat smack-dab in the middle of the living room for over a week.  But now Gary needs it only once or twice a day (instead of 4+ times daily) and Gary's capable of walking up and down the stairs easily [woo hoo!]. So it was time to relegate the torture device to the dungeon basement.

This involved a massive rearrangement of the basement.  Bookshelves were moved.  (Argh!  That is always SO much work!!)  We dusted and vacuumed.  Hardest of all, I sorted through some stuff to pitch.  Ow, ow, owie!  It hurts to throw away perfectly good homeschooling software just because the programs are too obsolete to run on any computer we've got around here.  It hurts to throw out vcr tapes of movies I love; but who wants videotapes these days?  The garbage stack will be big this week.  The finished part of the basement is opened, neatened, put in order, and cleaned. 

And we can walk through the living room again.

Darned Allergies

I polluted my body today.  Attending a conference, I consumed a cup of coffee (with sugar), a cup of tea (with sugar), some white-bread noodles with lunch (although I had the sense to skip the white-bread sandwich), store-mayo on the cole slaw, a delectable clam chowder (sigh -- dairy, of course), two bites of cake, a small Pepsi, a handful of white-bread pretzels, and two glasses of beer.   And I failed to take my enzymes with lunch.

Ah-choo!
Ah-choo!

At least I had the self-control to NOT guzzle sweet-tea all afternoon and to keep my hands off the candy-bars.

Ah-choo!
Ah-choo!

So this is why I bother to take my vitamins, drink my kombucha, take my enzymes, bake my whole-grain-laden brown bread, mix my own salad dressings, etc.  All that dag-blasted effort I put into eating right must make a difference after all.  One brief day of minor indulgences and this is how much I itch and sneeze?!

Tomorrow I will do better.

I hope.

Bronchitis Treatment? Or Coincidence?

Salt water from a neti-pot can clean out sinuses.  Salt-water gargles can soothe a sore throat and wash away excess mucus from the throat.

Monday night I was wishing so bad for a "neti pot" that could wash snot out of bronchial tubes and the lungs. 

For some reason, it crossed my mind that hot, moist compresses might help.  Soaking in a hot tub might do something, but that's not long enough.  So I placed a wrung-out hot washcloth at the base of my neck, covered it with a heating pad, used a wide Ace-bandage to strap the heating pad to my upper chest, turned it on, and went to bed.  (Okay.  Okay.  I know the instructions that come with the heating pad say you should NEVER sleep with the heating pad on.  It's a fire hazard.  Or you could burn yourself.  I'm sure they're right.  I was a bad bad person to go to sleep with the heating pad turned on.)

About three hours later, I woke up, coughing.  I spent an hour --an entire hour-- disturbing Gary's sleep mightily, coughing and coughing and coughing up mucus and snot-balls.  It was disgusting!!  But amazingly, by morning my chest was no longer tight.  It's not like I was done coughing for the next two days, but my health was much better than I'd expected it to be.

So was it a coincidence?  Or shall I try it again (bad bad bad to use a heating pad this way) next time a cold tries to settle in my bronchial tubes?  My logic is that we use moist heat to draw infection such as in a stye or an abscess or in mastitis or in boils.  Maybe the moist heat drew the infection together so that it could be coughed out? 

Shhhh -- The tricky part is going to 

be my trying to remember this little 

experiment next time my bronchial 

tubes get clogged.

The Conundrum of Healthy Eating

When you most need the good food,
when you most need to avoid store-bought products with their additives,
when you most need vitamin-packed whole foods,

is when you're sick or weak
and cannot prepare the usual wellness-instilling fare.

Arnica Gel

Because I bruise easily, I know that every single bump into a corner of a counter-top, a piece of furniture, or a car door, will result in a bruise. A tube of arnica gel is sitting in my bedroom to alleviate carpal tunnel pain.  As I had done with my inadvertent aloe experiments, a week ago I experimented with the arnica.  Arnica on only one of the bruised spots.  The newer bruise (which was just as deep, with the same amount of pain as the older bruise) healed much faster, much more comfortably. 

How does it DO that?!

That arnica is awesome stuff!  And no, I don't get paid by the Arnica Foundation to wax eloquent about this amazing herb.   :-)

Allergies

With symposium, company, and berry-time, I have been lax recently in remembering my vitamins, green drink, and enzymes. Now I'm feeling a temptation to pop some Claritin and Allegra into my mouth. It's utterly amazing to me how eating right and taking my digestive enzymes with meals does as much good for my itchy eyes and stuffy head as does a capsule of chemical concoction. If the diet and enzymes affect my body so that I don't have the allergy symptoms, I wonder what other good effects it has that I'm not aware of.

Carpal Tunnel

Arnica is supposed to be very good for healing bruises. While looking for suggestions on dealing with carpal-tunnel pain, I ran across a recommendation for arnica ointment. Carpal tunnel isn't a bruise, but I can see why something that's good for bruises might be effective. I bought some Arniflora Arnica Gel from my friend's store.

This is wonderful stuff! I gave my partially used tube to my Daughter-of-the-Aching-Wrist, keeping a smidge in a container so that I'm not arnica-less until I can buy another tube. I'm becoming so accustomed to lack-of-pain recently that it's a rude awakening when I forget to smear on a bit of the ointment.

That Old Wrist

Between counting money and working a mouse, I'm feeling carpal tunnel problems originally developed in gardening. (And I'm not even weeding yet, or snapping beans, or anything!) In addition to the wrist brace, the anti-inflammatories, and an increase in B vitamins, I tried some acupressure. It's amazing to me how I can look at the little map of a person's arm, touch that point, and FEEL the tenderness at that exact spot (and not feel it at all an inch away). But after a few tries at using the acupressure, the pain and numbness seem worse instead of better. I wonder if that's coincidence or if I should have flooded myself with water (as you do after massage) or what?

Sinus Rinse

Stores sell packets of sinus rinse for people with allergies or sinus infections. But if you want to use a neti-pot or a sinus-rinse kit, there's a cheaper way to do it.

The harder way: combine equal parts of baking soda and table salt. Use about 1/4 or 1/3 teaspoon per 8 ounces of water. That would be similar to what's in one of those 11-cents-each packets.

The easy way: just use 1/8 or 1/4 teaspoon of salt in your water.

Much cheaper.
And you don't have to mess with the little packets.

Split Heels

Winter means split, cracked, painful heels. Taking good care of your feet prevents the worst of the problems, but the dry air from the furnace still wreaks havoc on your feet as you get older.

This year I decided to try comfrey. Comfrey is an herb that encourages skin-cell production; it's good for healing cuts and other skin wounds. I had good luck with it before. I poured olive oil over a shot glass full of comfrey leaves and let it soak for a few days. Using a drop or two of that oil on my heels every day [well, you know how it goes, maybe it's actually 4-5 times a week] has done wonders for the cracking and splitting!

The only problem is that the cat likes to sneak onto my dresser and slurp up the olive oil. Weird Rosie!

Sunshine

Finally, somebody writing about the need to get our bodies out into the sunshine, without sunscreen!

I thought it was particularly interesting that kids can store up enough vitamin D during summer's sunny days to get them through winter, but adults cannot. (Kinda makes me think of Frederick.) Also interesting that even people with cancers (including melanomas) can be helped by sunshine.

Neti Problem?

Grossness warning --
beep
beep
beep

You have been warned ...


With ragweed season upon us, it's taking forever for me to use the neti pot because my head is stuffy, and the saline leaks through slowly instead of flowing through my sinus cavity. Sometimes it leaks out my tear ducts. Rachel talked about that once and I about barfed.

Last night I noticed pink eye. (I slept with garlic taped to my eyelids, and the pink eye has improved dramatically.) I am wondering if having some of the water from the neti pot exit via the tear ducts is giving me the pink eye. Yuck yuck yuck!

My Migraine Cure

I'd never had migraines until this spring when I started getting some pretty awful "ice pick" headaches. (Or at least, I'd never noticed migraines before. Maybe the persistent headaches were so bad that the migraines didn't stand out like they do now that the regular headaches have become rarer.)

Cherí and Gary were talking about neti pots after choir one night. I realized that I had not been using my neti pot because I hadn't felt stuffy from a cold. I thought maybe I should try it. I found that feeling like you have blocked-up sinuses may have nothing to do with what's really going on in there. I couldn't get any water to flow through. After a couple of days of whittling away at the rot in my head, I began to be able to use the neti pot properly. But I knew that, whenever I used it, I would get one of those ice-pick headaches --temporarily-- but aiming from the inside to the outside of my skull. It was the exact same pain as the migraine, only backwards. The good thing, though, was that it lasted only 5-10 minutes. Still, it was hard to force myself to the bathroom sink when I knew how badly it was going to hurt. Over the weeks, as I kept at it, I happily realized that I was no longer having migraines. And the mini-migraine pain that had initially accompanied the neti pot had also disappeared.

I get to feeling fine, and then I don't bother with the neti pot. If I forget for more than a week, headaches start sneaking up on me again. Then I have to diligently use the neti once or twice a day to get myself back to being comfy enough to ... well... y'know... forget to keep at the regimen again.

I know there are a gazillion causes for migraines, and a neti pot certainly won't cure most people. It probably wouldn't even help most people. But I was pleased to find that something this easy did so much to ease my pain.

Comfrey

After learning from a master herbalist that comfrey is totally awesome at healing cuts and other skin problems, I added a pound of comfrey leaf when I next ordered my spices and herbs. But I have no experience in making poultices. Whenever I try, I end up with all the poultice herb-gunk falling all over the place and not staying on the part of the body to which I presumably bound it. (Hey, lookie there, instructions that maybe even I could follow!)

Katie arrived a week ago for a visit of a couple of days. She had some sores on her hands. Alia had something on her eyebrow that looked like it might be a cold sore, but we're not really sure what it was. So we decided to experiment.

One shot glass, full of dried comfrey leaves.
Olive oil poured over the comfrey.
Heated briefly in the microwave for about 20 seconds.
We applied tiny drops of the oil infusion to Alia's cold sore, Katie's wounds, and a couple of itchy spots I had on my hands and arm.

WOW! That was speedy healing!
I don't know if plain olive oil would've done the same thing. But whatever it was, Katie and I were impressed.

She took home a baggie of comfrey leaves.