Mama gets the sniffles

Here is a health-focused piece cross-posted from my main blog, Crunchy-Chewy Mama. I had been putting more health-focused pieces here and more snippets from life on the alternative mainstream divide over there, but I now that I am writing for The Washington Times Communities at "Reading Ingredients: Tales of a Health-Conscious Mom," I'm re-evaluating my blog strategy (which includes looking for someone to help me upgrade them all or combine at least these two blogs.)

Here is my tale of a recent illness and how I fought it off the pharma grid.

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We've got 60 degrees here in Metro DC and I think I'm finally getting over a cold that started two weeks ago. I never get sick and stay sick. This was annoying. Not so bad that I had to make the husband stay home or back out on a major event I was planning, but bad enough that I sounded like the woman from "The Nanny" if she had a sinus infection. Not pretty!

We don't do drugs in our house, so I did my best to self-medicate. This starts with food -- lots of nutrient-dense homemade (from pastured chickens) bone broth and a limit on refined carbs. When I look back, the weekend before I got sick I had hot rice cereal for breakfast one day and French toast another day (GF millet bread, but still) and a bunch of rice crackers. That's way more packaged food than usual. So I cut out what I could but still allowed myself some antioxidant-rich raw cacao.

When I started to feel an illness on I restarted the flower essences I maybe should have been taking all season long from Perelandra. On Tuesday the 12th, I tried the homeopathic remedy Hepar. Sulph. Calc. and promptly got worse with a sore throat and swollen glands. I think I honestly fell asleep on the floor of my bathroom while my son played with toys in an empty bathtub. A homeopath said it was most likely that this reaction was just pushing the natural course of events forward and that now I just had a cold I might as well let run its course. So I gave up on the homeopathy - none of the indications seemed 100% right on anymore,anyway - and just tried garlic & ginger in hot lemon water in the morning, eating well, getting sleep, staying in bed even if I couldn't sleep well (instead of getting up to work), and putting some eucalyptus in my shower. I kept meaning to get even just a basic saline nasal spray but didn't, and we found our humidifier but never got it working.

Well, all that, and a lot of water and a lot of bodywork. My head was killing me with major sinus pressure, so I looked for whatever healing hands had openings. On Wednesday, the day after I felt terrible, I had a chiropractic adjustment and acupuncture. On Saturday morning I had a massage, primarily of craniosacral therapy. On Monday afternoon I had another bodywork session, a combo of craniosacral therapy and lymphatic drainage massage. Each time I handed over my credit card after a session, I did feel better. But it didn't last to the next day, not as much as I wanted. I still had a lot of nose-blowing and some coughing.

Then, on Wednesday when I'd been sick for a week, my eye looked red in one corner, which I thought was from not sleeping well until the next morning when it was sticky and red all over. This was the day of my event. None of the many homeopathic remedies for conjunctivitis sounded spot-on for my symptoms, but I got so weepy when my friend rang the doorbell while I was trying to have my son nap, that I decided to take pulsatilla. And I found some homeopathic eye drops at CVS, which I think helped, for sure with the redness. The eye was cleared up a day later. (The second eye got it too and also cleared up after a day).

Friday I saw an osteopath who worked a lot on my head in general, my sinuses and even in my mouth and upper palette. I sounded like a different person after that appointment -- much less nasal. But the next morning I slept in and still felt like I'd regressed. Maybe shopping for a sofa, meeting friends for coffee and walking a mile in mild winter day were too much. But we did get a new rebounder, which I used twice, hoping that it would help my lymphatic system clear out. And I did fit in a little yoga.

Sunday I had to drag myself out of bed but felt a lot better after starting the morning off with Vitamin C before my lemon/ginger/garlic drink, to which I added turmeric and elderberry. And then I had a full breakfast and set to work on some reorganization of the house, which felt great. I even had a little decaf coffee and some GFCF sugar-free (maple syrup only) chocolate cake my son and I had made as a celebration of my successful event Thursday night (adaptation of this cake recipe but using mashed cherries instead of applesauce and adding cacao and coconut flakes).

Despite this indulgence, I could tell I'd turned the corner Sunday afternoon. It's now Monday afternoon, and though I still am not ready to go out and do a full run in this gorgeously warm day (or to be too far away from a tissue), I am glad I was able to ride this out and that so far, no one else in the house seems to have any symptoms.

When needs diverge

I am being pulled in opposing directions. Now, my wanting to do several things at once is not a new thing, I freely admit. However, I was starting to feel good about the idea of going to bed early in order to get up early and do yoga or work out and write before my son got up for the day. If I get up at 5:00, I figured, (something I did regularly while teaching high school), I can do 20 minutes of yoga practice at home and then write until he comes downstairs with his dad at 7:00. We'll get him used to sleeping or at least resting until 6:30, and then he can play quietly in his room or in the hallway while LJ showers and gets dressed. Or, on alternate days, I will write for just a short bit and then go to the gym to return at 7:15, when LJ has started breakfast but is about to be needing to leave for work.

Either way, I thought, I will feel refreshed from an early bedtime, exercise, centering and creative expression. Surely this will make me more than ready to face a day of focusing on my son when we're together -- being fully present with him. And on the days I do have some childcare, I'll be more on-task for having gotten some ideas down on paper already. I'll either be able to move ahead on that or work on work or leadership for the moms group I'm starting.

That sounds lovely, but I'm feeling like it just ain't gonna happen, not without a few rough days of habit change. Why? Because my son is no longer sleeping soundly through the night on his own or in his own room. He paddles into our bed sometimes as early as midnight. Sometimes he just snuggles in, but other times he tries asking to nurse first. I tell him it's sleepy time, not morning yet, and he usually complies, especially if I have some almond/coconut milk ready for him to drink. But when he wakes at 4:00 and I say no to nursing, he sometimes gets pissed. He whines, telling me "No!" and wriggling his hand back up or down my shirt. This also happens on occasion when I cut him off from the allowed post-5:00 feeding(s). I essentially feel like I'm done with my night's sleep at 4:00, and that is just too early even if I were getting to bed by 9:00. In fact, on New Year's Eve, I stayed reading on the couch when my husband took him up to bed, and for some reason that image would not let the boy rest without his mama. So we all went to bed together early that night. And 4:00 still felt just plain wrong.

Yet I never fell back under solidly, and he wanted access to the bar at 5:00 and 6:00, and then he was just up and wanting us all to be up for the day. That is now becoming the norm: he whines, "I'm hungry! I want to go downstairs!" He used to be willing to go play in his room for a bit, maybe bring in a doll or some books to us, but now the suggestion that he amuse himself just upsets him more.

I don't know what we're going to do. Since my husband will probably not start his new job this week, I think I'm going to say we bite the bullet and I just leave the upstairs at 5:00 and let them deal with it. I've planted seeds of suggestion about this to the boy, which he ignores to ask some unrelated question that seems to be a cue he doesn't want to hear about whatever I'm saying. I am not in a hurry to wean for good before age three, but we may have to morning-wean or bed-wean. I don't know if he's just coming on like gangbusters now in a last-ditch effort to claim the goods before he drops them or what. We had been down to just morning and night until just after Thanksgiving (also just after I ovulated for only the fourth time since he was born); then he was asking around the clock for a few weeks. Since that period ended, he's tapered back to morning and night, sometimes before nap and only asking otherwise if he gets hurt or is just feeling needy. I ought to read more of How Weaning Happens and Mothering Your Nursing Toddler. My friend's 13-month-old just stopped on his own -- was crying when she'd try to feed him. I just can't imagine my boy ever wanting to stop. I wonder if there's something I'm contributing to that dynamic -- some need to be needed?

I would like to wean and cleanse before the summer, before considering trying for another child if that's what we decide to do. If we do go for #2, I would want my body to have some recovery time and to get to the healthiest possible state, which it clearly is not right now. Seeing as it took 29 months to get my first postpartum period, I want to be gentle with myself.

One other thought about the boy is to get serious about restarting remedies. Tonight I gave him Bach Flower Essences Impatiens and Vervain in addition to our first time trying Rescue Sleep -- and I could get him back to the craniosacral therapist and get us both into one of our healers who helped before. I also read in Peggy O'Mara's "A Quiet Place: Your Child's First Healer" in the new (Jan/Feb 2009) issue of Mothering magazine that the homeopathic remedy Nux Vomica is a go-to helper if you're waking at 3 or 4 a.m. If I don't find that I have any in my medicine chest, I think I will pick some up tomorrow and give it a try. And I will also call my pediatrician (a homeopath) to finally get in for an appointment!

The belly is back

"Sugar is a bigger deal for you than gluten," concluded my doctor as she perfomed muscle-testing on me. A chiropractic neurologist, she was very happy with my progress since my first visit back in October, 10 months ago. At that appointment, I was weepy and not very hopeful. Plus my son was clingy and grabby, a little uncomfortable in his own skin. This time, Dr. Julie just adjusted me and didn't have to give me any homeopathic remedies. The last time she gave me something that was supposed to address my being revved up and not wanting to stop, pause, or go to bed. I almost fell asleep on the drive home that time.

But this past Wednesday, just back from vacation, I was told I was doing well, but that I had to watch the sugar. This I knew. After I brought fruit back into my diet, my belly started to return. I'd had almost six-pack abs while I was fruit-free and mostly grain-free training for the June 1 half-marathon. But then all those summer fruits beckoned, and I also decided I'd freed myself from an emotional intolerance to chocolate, so I even introduced that along with some refined sugar, of which I'd had very little in recent years.

On vacation in Maine, I enjoyed lots of rice flour and buckwheat pancakes and many a tasty blueberry; see the page with the bears in the book Goodnight Maine. I wish I could show a photo of the book and also of my poor posture/looks pregnant belly. But, alas, my camera either fell out of my pocket or was enticed by my son into the toilet at Burke Lake Park. We were able to download the photos of the train and merry-go-round, but the picture-taking ability is no more.

Trust me, it's a different look, and I've gained back close to six pounds. For a while, I ran out of probiotic -- I use Kyodophilus these days because it's safe to share with my son, who even asks for it in his "special drink," a spoonful of cod liver oil. But I just don't think I can tolerate much fruit, and I think I've also suffered from non-organic restaurant food that is probably not been gluten-free and dairy-free. In fact, I saw after I'd eaten some brown rice sushi at Whole Foods that the rice includes corn, another no-no for me.

So now do I go back to being as strict with my diet as I was in April? Or is it the lack of running and less yoga that's making a difference? My back sure is more tired. Or is it the fact that I'm staying up late again so my liver is flushing toxins back into my body instead of out? I can't seem to get religion about an early bedtime during the summer, but this bloat has got to give me some motivation, unless I'm really choosing it for some reason.

We'll see how I feel after I get back from three days in a bathing suit on the beach in North Carolina!

Getting the Groove Back

Back in August, I sprained my ankle two weeks before I was going to run a half-marathon (what would have been my longest race). It's been a long recovery that I'll write about from various perspectives in the future. What I'm feeling good about right now is that I am starting to imagine exercise being not a struggle that is at odds with my parenting.

I've had a hard time feeling totally okay with taking time to exercise and focus on my body even though I know it makes me more grounded, happier, more centered, more patient... in short, a better mom, partner, friend. Some moms I know just do it without a second thought and go about their business, and other moms act like they couldn't imagine running a mile or leaving their kids in childcare at a gym. I haven't felt comfortable on either end or in the middle.

After having had early and intense separation anxiety, my 25-month-old son has recently started to do fine at neighbors' houses for short babysitting, especially when there's another kid around. I decided that if I was going to pay for this gym membership, I had to start using their childcare. It's small, safe and fun. I watched EJ the first time on the video monitor and he did fine for the 30 minutes I spent on the treadmill. The time I tried an hour-long yoga class wasn't so great. I kept looking over and saw the childcare worker holding him, and before sivasana, I saw he was crying at the door, so I did my own quick corpse pose early and left before everyone else settled in. That was a few months ago, and I hadn't tried again, instead fitting in exercise around other times I had childcare at home, usually from my husband.

Last week the gym held a mommy and me yoga class and then a mother's day tea party after. EJ enjoyed playing with the big exercise balls and eating the (GF, homemade) cookies I brought for him and the fruit the gym provided. The experience seems like it might have accomplished my goal of setting a positive association in his head about the place.

This week, I jogged him down to the gym and told him we were going to play with Cassie for a few minutes and then come home. We did, and he found some toys that whetted his appetite, but we stuck to our plan and left together. Later that day, he was asking for Cassie, so I told him he'd see her the next day while I went to a yoga class. It seemed like I finally got in my head that this really could be okay -- we were both going to get something good out of the experience. He'd get to see some kids and play with new toys, and I'd get Zen. Or something.

My now-running-again legs were happy for the attention, and I realized how out of practice I am on my mat. On my run today, I spent some time thinking about working trips to the gym into our schedule more regularly. It just needs to be something we do rather than the thing that only happens if everything else aligns just perfectly. I don't need to apologize for caring about my body. If I want my son to grow up making his own health a priority, he needs to see his parents do the same.