Gracie Facie

Good morning!

So we’ve been busy this week with dr appts, cooking, and babies, of course.  I just made my first trip to Whole Foods this week and can’t wait to go back.  I am very impressed.  The selection they have was incredible and pricing was pretty good, great with some items. 

Many of our friends and family have been inspired to make some changes to their ways of eating, and have been asking where to start.  It’s so overwhelming at first.  Some of them are ready for big changes and others are looking for baby steps.  I tell them all the same things:

• Find one or two recipes a week you’d like to try.  They are pretty easy to find on the internet, if you know where to look.  I’ll give some resources at the end of this post.  Get the items you need into your house, and two thirds of your task is done! 
• Change to brown rice pasta.  The brand we use is Tinkyada and can be found at PickNSave and all health food stores I’ve been to.  Be sure to undercook it just a bit and you’ll never know the difference from your old stuff.  I always keep some in the house along with some Neuman’s Spaghetti Sauce(simple ingredients in his products).  This, along with tacos, are my fall back dinners. 
• Start making shakes.  To get more veggies into us, I throw basically anything I have in my fridge into a blender.  Carrots, zucchini, celery, cucumber, red cabbage, kale, avacado, fresh parsley, etc.  Then to sweeten a bit, I’ll throw a banana and some frozen berries, and pour either water or rice milk and sometimes even some ground flax.  I got this idea from the Montel Williams show and ran with it.  They used an orange, a head of romaine lettuce, and water.  A blender is all you need.  Very simple and you get so much out of it!

What I did at first was to take a field trip with Todd and the kids to a health food store, i.e. Outpost, Whole Foods, Health Hut, and wandered around for a bit.  It took a while to find things without dairy, eggs, gluten, white potatoes and almonds, but once you find a few starters, it gets easier from there.  Your restrictions probably aren’t as strict as Grace’s. 

Many people have been asking me when we’ll know if things are working.  Well, the nephrologist is going to be looking at her blood tests every three months, and we have another one coming up at the end of March.  BUT……..we visited Dr. Kim Saxe, our naturopath on Monday.  After evaulating Grace, Dr. Kim feels that Grace is definately improving.  One of the tools many alternative medicine physicians use for evaulation is feeling for a pulse in your wrist.  It’s a very subtle thing, and gives an idea of the general strength or energy of certain organs.  Kidney, liver, spleen and other organ pulses are what they feel for.  Dr. Kim checked Grace’s wrist pulses on Monday and mentioned that when we first came to her, she could barely get a kidney pulse from Gracie.  Now, she is actually feeling an improved kidney pulse, not a terribly strong one, but better than before.  This in combination with the dark circles under Grace’s eyes lightening and some other factors, make Dr. Kim feels there is definite improvement. 

The next day at Dr. Gandy’s office, Grace was rechecked by means of Muscle Response Testing.  Dr. Gandy checked for overall energy, emotions, chemistry, structure, integration, and a few other things.  Grace tested very strongly for all except structure.  Dr. Gandy, also a chiropractor, adjusted her, and then Grace tested well for everything.  I told Dr. Gandy about the wrist pulse improving and she was very impressed.  She stated that it’s such a subtle thing to begin with that any improvement is signifigant.  Both Dr. Kim and Dr. Gandy were very happy with Gracie’s progress.  WooHoo!

Dr. Gandy is keeping Grace on the Standard Process protomorphigen and the NET remidies for Scars & Adhesions and Water(the water system of your body i.e.kidneys, bladder, etc.).  Dr. Kim has changed now from draining/cleansing Grace’s systems to building up the kidneys and adrenals.  (In naturopathic medicine, the physician alternates between draining and building).  On that note, with Dr. Kim Saxe’s permission, I’m going to give a link to her website.  I’ve tried many times to explain naturopathic medicine when asked, and find it difficult.  Her website does an excellent job of clearly explaining the basic principles of this type of medicine.  It is:

http://www.milwaukeenaturopathic.com/

One of our new favorite shows is on BBCA, or the BBC America channel, just on basic cable.  Dr. Gillian McKeith hosts “You are What You Eat”, and she is awesome!!  Gillian is a holistic nutritionist and offers much knowledge and creativity in her quest to help people to improve their health.  Basically all her recipes are anti-inflammatory, which is basically what my family is on.  I just got her cookbook, ”You Are What You Eat Cookbook” from Amazon.com for about $21.00.  It is honestly the best cookbook I have ever had.  The few recipes I’ve tried are simple, colorful, flavorful, and very good for your body.  (If you do decide to get it, be careful to get the cookbook, not the one that’s her “You Are What You Eat” program).  She does a great job of prefacing every recipe with an explanation of what the ingredients will do for your body.  (Good for increasing energy, or kidneys, or for your liver, or to lose weight, etc).  I love having specific health intentions for my cooking!

Anyway, to find samples of her recipes, google “Gillian McKeith recipies” and you’ll find quite a few.  The lettuce wrap is one of our favorites.

Well, that’s it for now.  I’m off to eat some Golden Lentil Stew.  Yum!

Love, Angie

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Happy snowy February!

Many things have been happening since I last posted three weeks ago.  Grace is enjoying the snow.  She has great fun pelting me with snowballs as I use the snowblower.  Quinn started crawling two days ago, and Hollyn is not far behind.  Both saw the pediatrician yesterday, weighed in at 22lbs each, and the dr’s comment was, “they couldn’t be any healthier.  You make large children”.  Music to my ears.  Quinn can clap her hands, Hollyn is always babbling about either mamamamama or bob bob bob bob bob, and both smile all the time.  So precious!!  They are so easily amused and light up every time anyone looks at them.

I’ve been very busy not only with the twins, but with cooking, health food shopping and recipe hunting.  My knowledge of the benefits  of eating whole foods is expanding every day.  Lots of reading both on the internet and books has been even more eye opening for me. 

For example, we all know that MSG is a chemical flavoring put in Chinese food, right?  We also know that it’s really bad for us to consume and therefore only eat it once in a while, right?  Well, I recently found out that MSG is in a lot more than I ever suspected.  It is also known as ”natural flavoring”.  Try to buy a can of tomatoes without “natural flavoring” in the list of ingredients.  Try to buy a can of anything without it, for that matter.  I was stunned to see how many things in my home contain it.  It’s taken me a while to become an avid label reader, but my next step is learning to recognize the hidden nasties.  Dr. Oz was on Oprah a few years ago and gave a few helpful rules of thumb for label reading:

• If there’s more than 5 ingredients, don’t eat it
• If you don’t know how to pronounce an ingredient, don’t eat it
• If it says enriched or bleached anything, don’t eat it
• If it says hydrogenated anything, don’t eat it
• If sugar, in any form, is in the first 5 ingredients, don’t eat it

In the last two months, not only has Grace’s diet changed, but everyone in my family has done just about the same changes.  The babies are off gluten, dairy and eggs.  Todd, Grace and I are off gluten, dairy, eggs, and we eat limited amounts of organic meat and very, very limited amounts of sugar.  Todd installed a reverse osmosis water filter in our kitchen sink, so we no longer consume the heavy metals, chlorine and flouride in the tap water.  (The stuff in tap water is another horrific episode I’ll save for another day-you may want to do a little research). Ever since we have made these changes:

• None of us have been sick.  Not one little cold, runny nose or sore throat. 
• I’ve gotten my weight down to where it was before I had Grace!!  Pants I haven’t wore for years are perfect!  The best part is, that wasn’t my intention, just a beautiful side effect.  (Can’t wait for summer!)
• I have more energy than I can ever remember having.  I never crave a nap in the middle of the day like I used to. 
• We all sleep great at night.  Getting up in the morning is EASY.
• Babies haven’t had one diaper rash.
• Can’t remember the last time I had to blow my nose.
• My skin is healthier than it’s been in years.  (I’ve actually gotten unsolicited comments
• Grace’s chronic congestion is gone.

I could go on and on. 

A few weeks ago, I visited the Kinesiologist, Dr. Gandy,  for a few issues, the prominent one being a constant pain under my right ribs.  I had suspected it was my gallbladder for a number of reasons.  Anyway, Dr. Gandy did a lot of testing, agreed that it was gallbladder pain and addressed my other complaints.  The long the short of it is - the gallbladder pain and the other issues, some of which I’ve had for years, have all either improved or completely subsided.  She used clearing to help some of the issues, and sent me home with a gallbladder “support”, or a suppliment with things to help my gallbladder function optimally and to do the job of emptying itself out.  I have no doubt that had I ignored it, the pain would have continued and would have eventually had my gallbladder removed.  Yay for preventative measures!  At work that night, I ran my symptoms past a few nurses and one doctor, and they all agreed that they would’ve suspected it was a gallbladder problem.  An astounding amount of them said at that point that they had had theirs removed in their late teens or early twenties.  Apparently, it’s a very common surgery, like removing tonsils or your appendix.  News to me.  I also found out that gallbladder attacks are extremely stress related (imagine that), are common in post partum women, and they are removing more gallbladders than ever now.  Hmmmm.  I can’t help but wonder what would happen if more people knew that they hold their health in their own hands. 

As for Gracie, we have no new test results to report.  The nephrologist antipicates doing lab draws about every three months, and hasn’t heard back from the pathologists on the East coast, yet.  Honestly, I don’t hold out much hope from them.  Anything they may suggest will either be experimental or a shot in the dark.  If there was any solid or successful treatment, we would have known it by now.  But, fear not, I don’t.  Grace’s health is in our hands and spirits.  Dr. Gandy, and the naturopath, Dr. Kim are working hard along with us to achieve balance within Grace’s body, and that will help her to heal.  We do have real hope and anticipation that her kidney tissue will actually heal, and Grace’s condition will be reversed.  We know someone who did have success healing/reversing what doctors told him was fatal.  I hope to tell that story soon.  I need more time!!

 Please keep your thoughts bright and sunny when thinking about Gracie, or anything else for that matter.  I hope you are all healthy and happy and enjoying this beautiful winter season!

 Love, Angie