We pulled Luke from the prednisone, cold turkey. Since we were given the option of weaning or cold turkey (since it’d only been 4.5 days), Ron said cold turkey. Even after talking to you, he said what Luke was going through was not withdrawal, it was being sick from the prednisone. I’ll write below what I think it *may* have been but I’m happy to go along with him.

I think I learned something today. When I talked to you, Luke was doing horribly. So tired he could hardly function. Alas, the next time I looked at his legs he was covered in new petichaie. I’m wondering if when his body is hemolysing platlets it makes him tired?????? We prayed over him for quite some time. About five minutes later he was perfectly fine. Perky, hungry, etc. And this afternoon, his petichaie looks much better again! I had Shelbe give him a quad dose of potassium and vit. C when he was feeling so miserable. Perhaps that started to kick in. Or perhaps God answered our call and desire for Luke to get past that moment quickly. I’ll take the latter until I’m shown otherwise.

I have so much more peace in my soul knowing we won’t give him anymore prednisone. It makes no sense to tear apart when you’re trying to heal. I used some salve of comfrey and plantain on the outside of his bottom to try and soothe his fissures. He said it helped. A few hours after all the potassium he also said he didn’t hurt as bad when he went to the bathroom. I know prednisone thins the skin. It makes sense it would thin the lip skin, etc. Basically, anything that is of a membrane of sorts would be affected. And that is exactly what we were seeing with him on that stuff.

We are trusting God. We believe this was God’s call to us to stop using any medical treatment and use only natural stuff. I told Ron a few weeks ago when this started that God may challenge us in this way as the time progressed. And it’s exactly what God has done. Get off the fence. Either natural, or medical. But pick one and stick with it.

Okay, I’m still thankful for ER for my broken leg!!! But honestly, we probably could have done the same thing they did in terms of bracing it. Our brace just wouldn’t have looked at pretty. I did take some homeopathic arnica and one other thing to help heal the bone and sprained ankle. Wondering if I should get some splint stuff on hand for my “medical kit!” We already have the crutches.

Interesting to me that Dramov was very concerned about us not using the prednisone. Hmmmmmmmm. But he’s not into homeopathy I found out. So, if this homeopathy works for Luke, that will be interesting. Everything I found on the web of people who had no medical success with ITP had success with either the homeopathy or the potassium and vit. C. There were some miscellaneous things out there, but mostly, it seemed like those two are what worked for people who had no success with IVIG, etc.

I did have an x-ray on my leg and ankle yesterday. My ankle has healed sufficiently that I do not need to have surgery. Yay! My leg bone is also healing. Actually, he said he wasn’t worried about my leg bone, just my ankle. Apparently that’s what people re-injure over and over again. I’ve already decided I’ll wear an ace bandage or some sort of bracing on it for quite some time after my cast comes off. So, 7 more weeks in my air cast. He did tell me to try each day and put a small amount of pressure on my leg while I’m walking with crutches and see how it goes. So, needless to say, I probably overdid it today. I’m EXHAUSTED!!

I’m so thankful for Shelbe and Grace running my house so well. Daddy took Grace grocery shopping today and she did very well. She knew exactly what we buy. One treat in our house has been rice dream ice cream. They don’t get any other sugar per se so this is our summer treat. Well, Grace went to buy it and Ron looked in the cart and saw all the fruits and veggies, etc. and said, “no way! I’m not buying that crap after buying all this healthy stuff!” hahahahahahahahahahaha

I tell you, my husband is becoming more natural with each passing day!! Perhaps someday we can have homemade, raw cows milk ice cream or coconut milk ice cream. Until then, I guess the kids are outta luck!

Going to go rest. Marla, your and Brian’s help has been indispensable. I know Luke will heal, and we will do it the right way. Wish we hadn’t been so scared and done that IVIG. Live and learn.

patti

I am so much happier with natural healing for my bladder. I just have to figure out what the trigger is food wise that’s giving me trouble. Usually it takes me a week or so of testing foods so I’m sure I’ll find it. In the meantime, back to the strict marshmellow. It really does work to soothe my bladder. I had gotten lax with it because coming off the ultram was working. It’s easy to get lax when we think we’ve got something licked! The Lord is so much teaching me diligence and persistance between the food allergies and my bladder healing.

I probably don’t understand enough about the cesium to feel like I can make a judgment about what I’d do personally. I *thought* it was basically a baking soda type mixture that made the body extremely alkaline so cancer cells can’t live. But I could be way off base. I chatted via mail with the gal yesterday and she’s pretty much leaning towards no chemo ever. Her biggest fear is fighting doctors to abort the baby. She’s early enough they could really push her. Anyways, it will be interesting to see what she decides.

Gotta jet.

patti

No, turbinado is not the same as sucanat. Yes, they are both from cane sugar (so is C&H white sugar), but the process is different because turbinado sugar is centrifuged to remove the excess moisture and most of the molasses. It doesn’t remove all of the molasses, so it is a little brown, but most of the molasses is removed, thus making it much like regular white sugar. What we’re interested in is that the sugar is not highly processed. So you need to not only pay attention to the source, but also the procedure.

Sorry to hear about your setback with the Ultram. Yeah, sometimes healing naturally is challenging! But I think in the long run it is much more satisfying both physically and with my conscience.

Oh, so sorry to hear about that gal on your WTM group. Hmmm. A while back when Jen was doing the cesium for Samuel, I looked into it because I was thinking of the possibility of my dad using it in case his myeloma got worse. Honestly, I had a hard time getting comfortable with it, and still not confident that I would use it on myself or family, either. Yes, it is an alternative, but I’d hardly call it natural. But good luck to her. I’d certainly suggest she continue to search for other healing modalities. Depending upon her symptoms, too, would help with how aggressive she might proceed. You know, sometimes some treatments can be worse than the disease. . .

Okay, must dash!

Marla

So much to tell but so little time and so many questions to ask!

Struggling at the 25mg. of ultram. I’ve only successfully made it three nights since the 1st of April on the 25mg. and usually it’s with great discomfort. So, I’m not sure if I need to tweak my diet better or if my bladder still needs more healing before I can be ultram free…… I keep tweaking my diet to see if it’s something I’m eating. For me, my bladder is all about what I eat. I was planning on being off this stuff by April 30th but now I’m not sure. Upping my intake of marshmellow tea again.

Stumbling to another thought here – there is a gal on my WTM forum that is in her young 30’s. Pregnant with her 6th child (about 14weeks) and just found out she has lymphoma. Desperately looking for the natural helps and trying to sort through the book Cancer: Think Outside the Box. It seems like a cesium/DMSO protocol might be safest for her baby but it’s hard to tell. My heart is so aching for her right now. She finds out this week what stage she’s at. She is not planning on doing any chemo until baby is born and maybe even then not if she’s having success with the natural stuff.

Thinking about cesium, vit. D, breastmilk. Need to connect her to Jen.

Okay, that was a totally thought jumping post but it’s all the time I have right now. Would love your thoughts.

patti

Congrats with your health improvements! Great news to be able to lower your Ultram dosage. And yes, more energy is a bonus! There’s so much to do that extra energy is definitely welcome! At this rate how long do you think it’ll be before you’re completely off all meds?

Neat that Grace sold more of her crafts! I’m still waiting to see a pic of some of her creations. . . heheheh. You know I’ve kinda gotten in the habit of taking pictures of many of the things I make because it’s nice to look back on them and see your progress. Also it helps with expanding upon ideas and techniques that you might forget you did before. Course, now it seems I make so many things that sometimes I forget to take pictures before they’re gone. And then there’s organizing them, ha! But just a thought that Grace might want to start a portfolio. Who knows where this will lead for her. She might become a designer one day. . .

Take care,

Marla

P.S. Good luck with the sugars, too! Hope it works out well for you.

New milestone. Last night I went down to 25mg. of ultram. Did fine, no pain/pressure when sleeping. I have been going down in 25mg increments, 30 days at a time. I figured that gave my body plenty of time to get used to the lower dose before lowering it again. So far, so good. So long as I keep my diet completely clean, I am fine. No hint of any bladder issues. But if I so much as touch foods I’m highly allergic to (dairy, bananas, pineapple) or go near latex, whoa nellie! I’m in for it! I will have some left over when I’m totally off of it. Sometimes when we go out to eat it is hard to avoid certain things. Mostly I can; but some stuff is hidden and I usually don’t know it until a few hours later. I imagine I’ll have a few times I’ll need the ultram until my body is totally healed. During my cycle is always difficult because of the inflammation. Quercetin seems to help that so I keep it handy. NOnetheless, I am thrilled and have so much energy today. I mean, like, “who am I?” energy! Makes me wonder if the ultram was an energy zapper even though I only took it at night? Guess we’ll see if my energy stays up this way.

Dramov’s new supplement came in the mail today. He designed a supplement that has the quercetin, probiotics and digestive enzymes all in one. Since he treats mostly patients with gastro issues this is a huge plus for his patients. It cuts it from three supplements down to one. We’ll be giving it a try tomorrow with the boys.

Guess that’s it. I took pictures of Grace’s two new animals. I will send them to you before too long. We found out she sold three of them on April 1st. She was sooooo excited! Time to restock the craft store as she was getting low there. The gal said people really like them.

have a good one!

patti

Sucanat is unrefined cane sugar, not regular brown sugar. To get a better understanding of this it would be helpful to understand more about the different kinds of sugars and how they are processed. There are lots of different kinds of sugars and they do different things. But basically the reason why regular brown sugar is not very good is because it’s essentially processed like regular white table sugar, but with the molasses added back in to “look” brown. Sucanat is not like that, and is minimally processed where the natural minerals in the cane have not been separated and removed. That’s the crucial point. The body uses minerals to process sugar. Natural cane sugar normally has components (minerals) that help the body utilize the sugar. But if those components are separated, as is commonly done with refined sugar (including regular brown sugar), then the body will have to use it’s mineral stores to process the refined sugar. That process, if done long enough and if the person has a low mineral intake, will deplete the body of minerals, resulting in a multitude of illnesses. This is a big part of the “whole food” concept and why we avoid processed foods and choose foods and supplements from whole food sources–to avoid fractionizing them, which are essentially what high fructose products are, fractionized. Another important thing about not fractionizing whole foods is not destroying the natural chemical bond they have such as the natural bond between fructose and glucose in natural cane sugar. How molecules are bound influence how well the body can use and process them. God put them together for a reason. Anyway, here’s a link to Wiki with a short description of sucanat. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucanat We used to also buy Rapadura, which if you read the back of the box has an explanation of their process. Rapadura is fine, too, but we buy sucanat in bulk. Brian and the boys like raw honey, I prefer maple syrup (it’s not as thick or as sweet). We don’t drink coffee, but we do drink teas, and we don’t sweeten our teas at all. So for us, we don’t need sweeteners with our drinks although we do eat cookies with our teas! The things we use the sweeteners on are homemade cookies, pancakes, and some sauces.

Regarding fruits, personally I try not to eat too much of them because I do react to eating too much fruit as if I just ate too much sugar. Although I am bad when watermelon season comes because I just love those. In the Philippines I’m a papaya nut, but here the good organic papayas are ridiculously expensive, so I go easy on them here. Plus, I do remember reading about fruitarians during my vegan years, and from reading about them, I do think you can overdo fruits. They seem to have trouble with their bones, particularly their teeth. And it makes sense, too, because if they constantly have too high sugar in their blood, it’s likely they’re leaching minerals and weakening their teeth (Dr. Page observed the importance of blood sugar control in relation to bone resorbtion). This reminds me that I did experience this first hand, too. I was trying to give myself a high vit C take at one point and decided to make a nice big fruit smoothie each morning. I did that for a while, and while my blood counts were good, my skin was terrible and my teeth started to get sensitive. So I stopped the smoothies and things got better. For me, moderation with fruits works best.

I thought I added the link to Mercola’s interview with Dr. Johnson, but I guess I missed it. Here’s the link http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/13/richard-johnson-interview.aspx

Basically, fructose is not metabolized the same way as other sugars are and while that may appear to be good in one way, it’s bad in other ways as highlighted by Dr. Johnson. How sugars are bound is important as well as moderation. Too much of anything can be troublesome.

Very nice that the kids can pick up and learn on there own. That’s a big objective we’ve had with our boys, too. We wanted them to learn and understand that they can learn whatever they want to just by taking the initiative to search things out. They don’t have to wait until it’s presented to them or follow a rigid course.

I like the topic Luke chose. It reminds me of when we went to London we visited the Florence Nightingale Museum where it not only described her life, but outlined her involvement with the wounded soldiers during the Crimean war. She really has made an impact on modern nursing and continues to be an inspiration to people like me. Her observations and ideas continue to be valuable today. Too bad they didn’t allow photography in that museum, otherwise I would likely have blogged about it, heheh.

Oh, that’s right Kassandra is getting into the yarn scene, too. She did make a nice red and white hat for herself! She apparently learns fast, and seems like she’ll also be making lots of fun stuff soon. I still haven’t gotten to trying any Barbie dresses although I did buy a Barbie and a book with patterns. I couldn’t help it, it was too cute to pass up. . . sounds like Grace is already discovering advantages of knitting! Great! Share pictures of their projects when you can!

Okay, must dash for now.

Marla

Ron wants me to do more looking into the agave issue. What you say makes sense. What I don’t understand is that all of the things they say agave does (weight, etc.), they are the total opposite for Ron and I. I actually do really well using the stuff. Maybe it’s because we don’t cook with it and it’s just for coffee/tea? Bottom line is, he wants me to find something for our hot drinks that is sweet enough for his taste but is healthy. I do use some coconut sugar but again, it is fructose. If I use 1/3 cup a week that would be a lot. So I have to really wonder if the fructose is the issue, then again, maybe it’s just moderation? I actually don’t agree with Mercola on limiting fruits. I think both fruits and veggies need to be balanced, but I get no heartache over eating farm fresh fruit. God created it for us and our bodies to handle it’s contents (ie, fructose).

Maple syrup and honey are out for coffee. They are too complicated for Ron. I’ve seen sucanat in the store but it looks more like brown sugar to me. Is that correct? Or, is it more like regular sugar that’s not been processed? I’m beginning to wonder, honestly, if it isn’t just better to use unprocessed cane sugar for our hot drinks. It would seem so much less complicating this all this! And what’s really funny is my husband telling me to find what’s healthiest and let’s use it. hahahaha. Boy, he’s come a long way!

Yup. The toes are separated on the shoes. The main thing is to make it more like one is walking/running barefoot. So they call them barefoot shoes. They are actually quite comfortable and after having them on all day I hate putting my regular shoes on! I think no matter how well fitted a regular shoe is, your toes always are pushed side by side to a certain extent. These make your toes straight and separated for easy gripping when walking. I walk totally different! Most people walk heal, toe. But if you notice when you’re barefoot you probably walk a little differently. I actually found my body naturally beginning to walk ball of my foot first. That’s why the calves get the workout and not the shins. Anyways, I am enjoying them! I’d love to get a pair of the lower front ones for wearing out to the store and such. But two pairs at that price are too much! Especially since Ron isn’t fond of them.

Grace sort of knew how to knit. She could knit and was struggling with pearling. She figured the pearl thing out last week while watching someone teach Kassandra to knit and pearl. On Monday we were so very tired from having company for 4 days and staying up way too late that I told the kids they had to take a book for 1hr and read on their beds and learn something new. That was our school day on Monday. Luke said he read about the Crimeon (sp?) war. Kassandra read about applying the book of proverbs to her life and Grace comes out with something round she had knitted with 3 knitting needles attached to it. I was actually so pleased that they really did all learn something!! Yesterday, Grace started knitting a sweater in rounds for one of her barbie dolls. She stopped at the neck and did a reglan sleeve from there. She had no idea what a reglan sleeve was but she was doing it! She’s so excited because now she’s pretty sure she can figure out how to make her doll dresses and such without a seam up the back where she connects it together. When she crocheted her socks she did them from the toe up so I would imagine that’s how she would knit them as well. I think if I can get her to the yarn store in Boise she will see how many options there are for things. But she did say the Red Heart is good for the Barbie stuff since it gets played with a lot and such.

Well, any info you can give me on the sucanat I would appreciate. Is it fructose or glucose? Both? What other options might we have? Or, is organic, raw, unprocessed cane sugar our best bet? What about beet sugar (it’s also fructose I would assume)?

thanks!

patti

Aw, sorry to hear about the three chicks. . . Ah, the poop on the patio. . . I remember that well, ha! But I totally agree that they are just so cute when they come right to the door. But it wasn’t so fun when one of the birds learned how to fly over the fence and ended up on our neighbor’s back porch! Ha ha! But our boys got it back before they noticed.

Regarding Mercola, yeah, he does come off alarmist at times, but I still appreciate the info. And I think you and I have already discussed agave being fructose, and our family has decided a while ago not to use it. I posted a little about it back in November 2008 http://goatrevolution.com/blog2/2008/11/26/mixed-stuff-from-surfing-the-web/#respond and did a little reading up on it then and decided that we just didn’t need it. We’re fine with using raw honey, maple syrup, and sucanat for our sweeteners. We tried Stevia, and I agree with you that it’s yucky. So that’s out, too. Mercola had a guest speaker on his site not long ago who discussed in more detail the problems he found with fructose. His name is Dr. Richard Johnson, and he wrote a book on fructose called, “The Sugar Fix.” I found the interview interesting. Part of the stuff that stood out to me in that interview was that he claimed that fructose caused injury to the pancreas and also causes insulin resistance. I do realize that fruits and other sugars have both fructose and glucose, but the significance I see is the “ratio” or concentration of the fructose in agave nectar. Being that my mom is diabetic, I don’t even want to play around with that. And just last week one of my other diabetic aunts had her leg amputated (she had the other one amputated last year. . . ) This is an aunt who can’t stand anything organic (her daughter tried to improve her diet). So that pretty much tells you that she’s not interested in changing her diet, not even for her health. Personally I think it’s psychological for her. She’s just one of those people who makes up her mind about something and that’s that. Other things this Dr. Johnson claimed is that fructose is somehow involved with raising uric acid levels and elevated blood pressure. The other more minor point he claimed was that fructose is a culprit in obesity. Anyway, that’s how we go about it in this household.

Whoa! Now those shoes are wild! Ha! I can definitely understand that frogman comment! For me they reminded me of Shrek, ha ha! Now are those separate toes? I don’t mind going barefoot a lot or wearing slip ons a lot, but I don’t think I’d be comfy with my toes being separated like that. I think I’m kinda funny that way. But glad you like them! I remember reading once on Jen’s website where she talked about how she wore boots to the beach because she didn’t like the squishy feel of the wet beach sand between her toes? I thought that was funny because I had never thought of that bothering anyone. It never bothered me. . .

Anyway, oh great news about Grace’s knitting! And here I thought she already knew how to knit, but just preferred crochet. I hope she likes knitting! She can always mix the two techniques to come up with really fun and lovely stuff, too. Hmmm I can see how the Red Heart works well for crocheted animals because it does work up to a sturdy fabric to help hold the shapes, but once she starts making stuff to wear, the more natural stuff will “feel” a lot better against the skin and drapes much nicer, in my opinion. Plus it feels so nice to work with–easier on the fingers and just totally addicting! Well, I suppose Red Heart must also have yarns in natural fibers, too, tho. Hmmm. What gauge is Grace planning to use to make socks? And is she starting from the top down or the toe up? There are quite a few ways to make socks! The first one I did was from the top down, just following a basic ankle sock pattern. That helped me to understand the sock anatomy. Then I tried it different ways and just picked the method I liked best. Would definitely like to follow along with Grace’s progress. If there are any tips I can help her with, I’d be happy to share!

Marla

I have been reading and going back and forth about agave nectar for quite some time. Mercola popped up with this article today. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/03/30/beware-of-the-agave-nectar-health-food-fraud.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

Sometimes I think he is just a little too sensationalist for me. Just the facts without all the, “you’re going to die” hype would be nice. I mean that tongue in cheek. He didn’t really say that. His stuff just sometimes comes out almost panicky and it need not. Quite some time ago, but confirmed by this article, I decided that using raw agave was going to be what we would do. We use it only for coffee and tea. I still feel that way today. I spend $40 every time I buy the stuff to get the raw, organic stuff and we make it last. I am so for eating healthy and natural healing but there comes a point when moderation has to come in to play. I don’t eat cakes/pies, etc too often but I did on my birthday! I guess I view agave the same way. I wouldn’t want to cook with it and use it in everything, but for my coffee and tea, it beats stevia by 500 miles. I HATE that stuff! I suppose we could use real cane sugar that is unprocessed but that somehow seems worse to me. Hmmmm. I’ll have to think about that.

My new footwear http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/products/products_KSO_f.cfm . They are so incredibly comfortable and my calf muscles are getting a good workout today. Yeeks. I’m planning on using them also as my exercise shoes. Ron won’t let me wear them in public. He says it looks like I have green frog feet. I bought the aqua ones. Only because there was a 4 week wait for the gray/yellow ones. Very fun though!

Well, maybe we won’t have to fence the chickens. The boy just came in and said the dog (she’s part heeler, part lab) was chasing the chickens to the back yard. That’s my girl!

This week, Grace taught herself how to knit! She also taught herself how to knit in rounds. So her next conquering is how to knit socks. She did great crocheting them (still don’t have pictures of those) but now she wants to knit them. I’m beginning to think she needs a personal Marla lesson. Hmmmm. Perhaps y’all need a vacation to Idaho? She needs to learn about yarns now. She tends towards the Red Heart because it’s cheap and sturdy but I keep telling her there are other yarns she needs to try also. She’s not keen on that. There’s a yarn store in Boise I’ve really been wanting to take her to but she’s so not interested. Oh well. I’m sure she’ll get to that point eventually.

chou