A More Holistic Approach

I was pretty disappointed after my last MS check-up. All of the disappointment and uncertainty that I felt immediately changed to encouragement and hope after my visit to a more holistic doctor yesterday.
Instead of potential long waits, hustling and bustling you in to get vitals, and a hurried discussion with a physician, this visit was so calm. There was soft music playing, hot tea in the waiting area, and stacks and stacks of different reading materials.
It's hard to put into words how completely different a more holistic approach to healing is.
I chose to go to Nashville Integrated Medicine because I knew that they focused a considerable amount of attention on what is called the Five Pillars. They are as follows:

• Nutrition/Diet
• Movement/Exercise
• Sleep
• Emotional Stress
• Meaning/Connectedness/Purpose

Turns out going grain-free/gluten free almost 7 months ago was actually very good. That would have been the first area that we would have addressed in a holistic approach. Dr. Forbes suggests eliminating wheat, corn, sugar, and dairy from the diets of almost all of his patients.  It was nice to have some confirmation that what we are doing has some very good potential benefits. We've already seen some of those too.
We wanted to know what else we could try without just simply relying on medicine. After going through the five areas of a holistic approach we left with several things we are going to try which include taking lots of specific vitamins, eating lots of cruciferous vegetables, eliminating all dairy, continuing with the running and possibly adding in some yoga or other exercise, and learning how to meditate.
Dr. Forbes seems just as excited as we are to see how these changes will affect my next MRI. Its really the only way we can see how things are progressing, especially if I am not having apparent flair-ups.
As always, I'll be sure to update on things along the way.

Preschool at Home: Week 5

Last week we focused on the letter "E," the number 5, the story of Abraham, and the poem "An Elephant Walks Like This and That." 

There were a few things we didn't get to on my Week 5 Pinterest board, but here's a look at what we did do.

 

We decorated a letter e with eyeballs.

We read My "e" Book.

Seth worked on this alphabet puzzle throughout the week.

We worked on some pre-writing skills. 

I printed out these writing cards and we tried several of them on a piece of paper.

We practiced tracing our letter E.

 

We worked on scooping pom poms with a measuring spoon. 

We focused on counting out 5 pom poms over and over.

Seth scooped and scooped for probably fifteen minutes.

  
We counted eyeballs in an egg carton.

We read about Abraham and Sarah from our children's Bibles, but didn't manage to fit in any crafts.

Our focus verse was "Every good and perfect gift is from above." James 1:17. We did sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star every day because we read about Abraham's descendants being as numerous as the stars.

We also learned the poem "An Elephant Walks Like This and That." 

We colored an elephant, made up motions for our poem, and repeated it every day.

This week we are moving on to the letter F, the number 6, fish related Bible stories (we might read several and do different crafts), and learning the poem "Firefly."

Adding Venison to the Freezer

1 cooler full of deer meat + 3 hours of slicing and dicing

 +1 grinder

=lots of healthy meat. 

Thanks to one of my dad's friends, we're well on our way to a freezer packed full of meat!

Statuses Never Posted

In this round of "Statuses Never Posted," I thought I would throw in a few photos just because I had them.

• Our neighbors put this monstrous blow up cat in their yard for Halloween. Every time I look out the window or go out the front door it startles me.
• I have never seen a child love a broom as much as Silas. He thinks it is the coolest thing ever.
• Today I wore skinny jeans for the first time ever. I feel like I desperately need someone to show me how to wear them stylishly.
• I have become a food snob.
• A cup of tea, a favorite book, and a beautiful sunny day...life is good.
• Just picked spinach, kale, swiss chard, and broccoli from the garden!!!
  
• I just picked up the November issue of SOKY Happenings. I can't believe something that I've written is in it!!!! 
• Just canned 16 more jars of tomatoes!
• Why can’t writing a literature review be as fun as writing for the blog?

Preschool at Home: Week 4

For the last two weeks our learning time has not been top priority. We would squeeze in something every now and then, but it definitely wasn't as consistent as it usually is. We're hoping to get back on track with our learning time this week. 

Here's a look at what we managed to squeeze in during a few learning times. 

We focused on the letter "d," the number 4, the Tower of Babel, and Hey Diddle, Diddle.

 

We made a dinosaur out of the letter "d."

 We read That's not my dragon...

 

and then made a fire breathing dragon using a cup, some streamers, pom poms, and googly eyes. The cup has a hole in the end of it and when you blow through it, the streamers move. It was a really cute craft and a really big hit!

 

We colored a dump truck and drew 4 rocks in it since we were learning about the number 4.

 

 For our Bible story we focused on the Tower of Babel. Usually we read the Bible story of the week out of a different children's Bible each day. Many of our versions didn't have the Tower of Babel in it though. So we pretty much stuck to this one. It is my favorite out of all the different versions we have by the way!

  

 We made our own tower out of Legos. 

We also made a tower out of blocks and random things around the house.

 Even though I think we are far from writing it, Seth is getting better at spelling his name. We practiced with our magnetic letters one day.

 I also found this dry erase letter booklet at Mighty Dollar a while back. 

Seth liked practicing over the letters.

 To help Seth recognize his numbers, which he struggles with, 

I let him hole punch the number of holes that each piece of paper indicated.

 I had to hold the paper for him, but he was able to punch all the holes.

 For our nursery rhyme, we practiced repeating Hey Diddle, Diddle. We read it out of various nursery rhyme books and we did a couple crafts. We made a dish out of a paper plate and glued a spoon to it. It's pictured above on the board.

  

We also did a sequencing activity. This really helped Seth with memorizing. I am going to have to remember to do things like this often. Seth was able to finish each line of the nursery rhyme with the help of this picture chart.

 This coming week we'll move on to the letter "e," the number 5, the story of Abraham,  An Elephant Walks Like This and That, and all kinds of other fun things.

Winterizing the Coop

It's starting to get cold around here. While it's still comfortable during the day most days, it's becoming pretty chilly at night. We thought it was time to start winterizing the coop. 

A couple months ago, we traded in our wood chips for peat moss. 

It's compostable and so much easier to clean than the wood chips.

 Bryan also built the girls a new roosting pole.

 I think it works out much better than the shutter that came with the coop.

 We traded out the lattice sides we used for the summer months with the wooden doors that also came with the coop. We did some modifying to one of the doors though. We cut out a smaller door that would allow easier access to the eggs once the girls start laying.

 

I thought I would add a decorative touch. 

  

Speaking of eggs, our two oldest girls will be 5 months old in a couple of days. To help the girls know where to start laying eggs, we were told by several people to put fake eggs in the nest boxes.

  

Since the other girls are at least a month younger, we decided against putting a light in the coop this winter. We thought we would just take our chances this year and see what happens. 

We might not have any eggs until Spring but we're ok with that.

 Next year when all of our girls are established layers, 

it might be more cost efficient to set up a light in the coop.

For now, we're patiently waiting for that first egg...

Where We Go From Here: An MS Update

When I stepped into the doctor's office Tuesday afternoon, I was excited and nervous. It had been 6 months since my last check-up. Since that visit, we started a Paleo lifestyle (because my doctor mentioned it at the last visit), I stopped breastfeeding, and I had an MRI done with and without contrast dye. There had been lots of changes.

I did the typical routine after I checked-in. I walked as fast as I could down a hallway (which happened to the fastest of all the patients all day), tried reading the eye chart (at least I could see the outline of the chart this time with my bad eye), and got all of my vitals taken (all normal). Then it was time to see Dr. M. I have to admit, I was really excited to tell him about the changes we had made.

When he asked how I was feeling, I told him better than ever. Then I filled him in on all the details of what we were doing, what we weren't doing anymore, how I was running now, etc. I'm sure I caught him way off guard. His reply to what I thought was wonderful news was "that's really hard to do, isn't it?" I told him it wasn't easy but that we thought it was worth it. 

Then he moved on.

Apparently, it was somehow my job to let him know that I had an MRI completed, even though it was scheduled through his nurses, because he had not even looked at it. He took less than a minute to breeze through it, and told me I had active lesions at the time of the MRI, which was done back in August. So really we learned very little about the MRI and then he started in on the medication.

He mentioned there was a new oral drug that just came out in September that was supposed to be a lot better than the other oral drug on the market because it came with fewer side effects. He didn't mention the odds for flare-ups on it, the benefits of taking it, just what the potential side effects were.

That's when I said it..."I'm not sure I want to take any medication right now."

He obviously didn't like where I was going with the conversation. You see he is a medicine man. He will always push for the medication. But I'm not so sure medication is always the answer or the only answer. I did ask if I could have my vitamin levels checked and he gladly accepted. I actually went across the hall and had a blood test done that same day (everything they tested for came back in the normal range). He also recommended I have another MRI done when I come for my next 6 month visit. I'm fine with that. In fact I think that would be wonderful.

Maybe we went into the appointment ill-prepared. Maybe we should have asked more questions. All I know is we left feeling confused and a little down.

So where do we go from here? I'm not exactly sure, but I do know it will involve a second opinion from a more holistic doctor. I am not convinced yet that there aren't other more natural things I could be doing to help manage this disease. By all means, I don't want to seem negligent about my health. If medicine seems to be the best option, then I will do it, but I want to know all of my options first.

According to the literature online, this new drug that Dr. M is recommending only has a 30% chance of preventing a flair-up and there are no guarantees it could prevent a flair-up at all. That's not very good odds in my opinion especially since the side effects from this medicine, as well as several other possible choices, could make me feel terrible (think flu-like symptoms for who knows how long). I think it's quite possible that my diet changes alone could give me those odds. It also scares me to take a drug that is so new. What are the long term effects? It already has a chance of severely affecting your liver and that's known only from short term studies. So that's where we stand right now and I will let everyone know how things progress.

I appreciate all the thoughts, messages, and prayers from everyone that has been on this journey with us. They mean the world to us.