I Would Never Do Everything You Do...

     In a recent conversation with a very close friend, she said "I would never do everything you do. My kid would just itch and have eczema." But she was wrong, I told her that. Because I'm honest, I also told her that if it was her kid, her love for that kid would be what drove her to make it better. That is how I got here…I just spent almost two hours answering questions and typing up my sons health history with a synopsis of the last 5 years of his life. Boy have those been fun: digestive issues from birth, eczema, atopic dermatitis, leaky gut, ER trips, ear tubes, food allergy and delayed hypersensitivity reaction. Just reliving, and thinking of it all is exhausting. Did I ever sleep? No, not for a few years I sure didn't.

     Before him, I didn't care much about eating "healthy". I thought all of the healthy eating trend was more annoying then anything. I got tired of being TOLD whatever I was doing was wrong or bad for me. I didn't see how these things could be bad if they are being sold at the store and how they could possibly have anything to do with many of my own medical issues. No way.  Then this life changing event happened: I had a tiny human. One who needed more, who needed BETTER then I ever gave myself, one I love more then I had ever loved myself.

     When you have this tiny human who is in distress, and YOU are the person they rely on to make it all better, you do what you "gotta" do. You loose sleep finding any information you can. Because you have faith and hope that the answer is out there. So you learn, everything you can learn.

     I am a firm believer now that the food you eat GREATLY effects your health, not b/c someone told me that, but, because I see it in my son. If you have different "medical" issues, some of those could be controlled with what you stuff in your pie hole. Eczema and Psoriasis are both signs of a food sensitivity. Covering them with steroid creams is only masking and pushing the issue deeper into the body. Once you stop the cream, it will come back 100 fold worse. Find the real route of the issue. It's likely it will be food. If you are ok with just covering these issues with creams for the rest of your life and suffering, that's up to you. You have a choice as an adult. But this wasn't about an adult, this was about a child. One who relied on ME to make the choice for him, and I had NO RIGHT to sit back and allow it to happen that way. I needed to know if there was another way and or a reason, something in the situation that I could control for him that would give him relief.

     Do you think I wanted to have to make almost everything from scratch? NO. I sure didn't. I'm talking about the convenience foods kids get, they are inconvenience foods for me. Have a carrot and call it a day child! Pop-tarts have nothing in them that should be consumed by a child. I know this now, but boy, did I eat them up before I had my son!
   Do I want to make homemade laundry soap, body wash and creams? NOPE.
   Do I want to make loaf after loaf of bread to cut and freeze? NOPE. (Before we realized he needed Gluten and Diary free, he was just soy free and I would make 3-4 loaves some days that I would freeze for later).
   Do I want to make food that matches the food at every birthday party we go to? NOPE. That's actually a pretty big annoyance in my life.
   Going to dinner or a party at just about anyone's house, while a nice gesture, is actually something that makes our lives more difficult. I still need to cook, just come to my house!
     I could list 100 things I have to make from scratch or homemade and allergy free that are all done, not out of my love of doing them but, for the necessity of my child's health.

    Much of my life is consumed with and complicated by my sons internal/digestive/skin issues. After the Elisa LRA/ACT testing I had done on him, in December of 2103, we are FINALLY in a good place, and hoping to start therapies to heal his gut very soon.  After everything we've done, tried, researched or failed at in healing him over the last 5 years the most important lesson I've learned is this:  the leverage I needed to lead a healthier life, was the love for my child and the healing of him.  In healing him, we have all gained a healthier lifestyle as a family.

Here's to no longer having itchy skin my boy, Mommy is here, and she will do everything in her abilities to heal you. Because, that is leverage, that is love.