So today I have an expert guest post weighing in to give us tips on how to handle your pain while traveling this summer.

A lot of Americans suffer from chronic pain, and if you go through the same, handling everyday tasks can also become very difficult. On top of that, if you have to travel, pain can be hard to handle. In this article, we help you plan and take the right precautions so that you can handle pain while traveling. 

Before the Trip:

Here’s what you need to do before you start the trip.

Speak to a physical therapy team 

The first and most important thing you need to do before you start the journey is to speak to a physical therapist. If you have someone who is treating your chronic pain, you need to see them as they will have a deep understanding of the conditions in the body. You must communicate with the care team before you travel and explain your chronic pain to them. Share details about the trip duration and all the ways you expect to travel. They can create a plan to reduce the pain and enhance your comfort based on travel activities. 

Take time to focus and pack well 

When you have adequate packing time, it will help reduce stress before, during, and after the trip since it gives you the confidence that you have all you need to manage the pain. The moment you start packing, you need to place all the pain management must-haves in the carry-on. Carry a detailed printout of your exercise program for the entire duration of the trip. If there are any prescriptions or pain medicine, you need to fill them in advance and carry enough for the time of your trip. Do remember to pack the pain relievers and medications in the carry-on and have a record of the condition with you at all times. Pack disposable heating and cooling pads with you. Once you land, you can find a compounding pharmacist near your accommodation, but if you need something on the flight, you will have to carry it with you.

Buy your tickets in advance 

The sooner you can book the travel, the better opportunity to select a seat that is most comfortable for you. If you can afford it, buy a first-class or business-class ticket and always choose a seat that allows extra space. Choosing an aisle seat will allow you to get up and stretch easily during the trip, and you will also have more breathing room while seated. 

Ship luggage and all the other bulky items to the destination

When you are already suffering from chronic pain, you do not want to carry a lot of luggage with you. You can find companies that can handle your luggage and deliver it directly to the hotel or at any other location. If you can afford it, this service is a game changer. All you have to remember is not to ship the necessities for comfort and keep all the pain management essentials with you. 

During the flight:

Here’s what you should do once you are at the airport and ready to fly.

Skip the security lines 

A major concern for a lot of chronic pain patients is standing still and then walking. It is natural for you to be worried about how you will manage the long lines at the airport. This is why you should consider getting a TSA PreCheck since it will fasten the security screening process at the airport. You could also qualify for medical assistance or ask for a wheelchair and guide. Most airports provide assistance, but you must check with the airline you are flying with and then speak to the airport officials to confirm the same. Give at least 48 hours’ notice and ensure that assistance is arranged for the airport entries as well as the exits. 

Waiting for the flight

After you have gone through the security, reach your gate early. When possible, move around and keep up good circulation since it will not be as easy once you get on the plane. Inform the gate attendant that you would like medical assistance even on the plane.  

Make the most of airline services

You need to take advantage of what the airlines have to offer. It could be boarding before everyone else or asking for better legroom. Even if you do not need a wheelchair, you can use the accommodation. A lot of chronic pain is not visible to others, but you can self-identify as someone who requires this service. Another tip is to check out if the airline or credit cards give access to the airport lounges. It can be a spacious place for you to relax in comfort before you take off. Many airports also have massage stations and airport spas for you to use. 

Ground travel:

Once you land at your destination, it is time to get into the bus or car to head to your final stop.

Every stop is a rest stop  

If you travel for long periods of time without stops, it could make the pain worse. It is very true for older adults and the ones with chronic neck and back pain. You need to use the rest stops to your advantage. This is a good chance to treat yourself or take a brief walk and get the circulation moving. 

Rent a car 

Choose to rent a private cab whenever possible. It will give you enough space, and look for a vehicle that comes with automatic opening doors. Not a lot of companies will offer this, but if you search well, you will find the right company to work with. 

Accommodation 

Choose to stay in a hotel that has a quality mattress to ensure comfortable sleep and proper body rest. If you are staying in a hostel, you need to ask for a lower bunk bed so that you do not need to climb a ladder.

More than anything, look after yourself with good daily habits like staying hydrated, stretching regularly, and getting enough sleep. Do not let pain stop you from exploring the world, and look for a physical therapist who goes out of their way to ensure that you have a comfortable and memorable trip. 

For more tips on managing pain:

Top Back Pain Tip from the Arthritis Lady

Why Holistic Health is Life Changing

The post How to Manage Pain When Traveling appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Dr. Crippen is the author of this book and also a practicing chiropractor. His journey into a cure for his migraines led to his expertise on holistic health. This form of medicine treats the body as a whole, instead of just throwing medications at symptoms and hoping they go away.

Anyone who has had a health problem that doctors were unable to help you with can strongly relate to Dr. Crippen’s story that he tells in this book, of searching for answers and being unable to find them in a broken system.

I can strongly relate to this. When my health fell apart in 2014-2016, I had all sorts of crazy symptoms. Thankfully, I had one provider who thought outside of the box. If it weren’t for this one cardiologist I had, I would have never figured out that it was one part of my diet causing all of my problems. (In my case, it was gluten, and you read more about that here.)

So without further ado, here is Dr. Crippen. He is sharing with us a snippet directly from from his new book, Timeless Youth.

***Disclaimer: If you purchase through Amazon links on my site, I do collect advertising fees.***

“Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.”

ALBERT EINSTEIN

Dr. Lisa Saunders, a medical doctor, journalist, and professor at the Yale School of Medicine, whose New York Times column “Diagnosis” was the inspiration for the TV show House, wrote:

“A decade ago, I stood alongside my 99 fellow freshmen as we were welcomed into the ranks of medicine in a ‘white coat ceremony.’ Here, on our first day of med school, we were presented with the short white coats that proclaimed us part of the mystery and the discipline of medicine. During that ceremony, the dean said something that was repeated throughout my education: half of what we teach you here is wrong – unfortunately, we don’t know which half.”

That quote, often repeated by the Dean of the Yale School of Medicine, was originally spoken by Charles Sidney Burwell, a past Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Harvard, over 50 years ago. It is just as true today as when it was first spoken.

This book will explain why half of what is taught in medical school is wrong.

What if there was a better way? What if, instead of starting with disease and the parts and pieces that make up the body, we started instead with the principles that were true in the beginning and are still true today? 

The first principle of holistic health is The Yellowstone Principle: The Whole Is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

In the early 1990s, conservationists with Yellowstone National Park faced a titanic problem. Over the previous 70 years, an ecosystem that was once in balance was spiraling out of control, and conservationists were at a loss to reverse the trend.

One obvious symptom of the change was the ballooning population of elk. But this wasn’t the only change. Many of the trees were losing their bark, which led to a decline in the aspens and cottonwoods. Also, the songbird population had decreased.

Other changes in the Yellowstone ecosystem included a decrease in the beaver population, erosion of the streams, and a decrease in river animals such as muskrats, ducks, fish, reptiles, and amphibians — many symptoms of a diseased ecosystem.

All the symptoms of change, from beavers to rivers to elk, were connected by a single cause.

The ballooning population of elk led to an overgrazing of tree bark, which led to fewer aspens and cottonwoods, destroying the habitat of the songbirds and providing less wood for beavers to make their dams. Fewer dams resulted in erosion of the streams, and a reduced habitat for muskrats, ducks, fish, reptiles, and amphibians. Naturalists hoped they could attack the problem at its source — the growing elk population.

In the 1930s, the park services started trapping and moving the elk out of the park, and then, when that didn’t work, shooting them. This went on for decades. While one symptom improved (the population of elk did decrease) the other symptoms, the trees, birds, and beavers were largely unchanged.

What should be done next?

Plant more aspen and cottonwood trees? Introduce more beavers into the park? Dredge the streams and rivers to restore the wildlife habitats? All were logical — capable of treating one symptom or another — but none would restore balance to the ecosystem.

Why? Because, as the conservationists learned, the solution to the changes in Yellowstone would only be found by understanding the ecosystem as a whole, and not a disparate set of unconnected symptoms.

While the changes in Yellowstone’s landscape were becoming more apparent in the 1990s, the change started in the early 1900s.

When the U.S. Park Service took control of Yellowstone from the U.S. Army in 1916, they systematically killed all the wolves in the park, killing all 134 over the next 10 years. From this point until the early 1990s, there were no wolves in Yellowstone as wolves were a deemed a threat to cattle and livestock.

To make the ecosystem whole once again, naturalists could either kill more elk, plant more trees, add fish, feed songbirds, build dams, or, quite simply, they could reintroduce wolves.

Fourteen wolves were reintroduced in 1995 and 17 more the following year. Thirty-one total wolves were added to a 2.2-million-acre national park spanning parts of Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

This seemingly small addition produced a series of remarkable changes.

First, the wolves, a natural predator of the elk, helped thin the elk population.

Then, the potential threat of being eaten changed the behavior of the elk. The elk moved from the valleys and the gorges, where they could be easily hunted, to the areas of heavy timber. This allowed the bare areas of the valleys and gorges to regenerate.

Songbirds and migratory birds returned to the new regenerating trees. The beavers, with their food source of trees restored, began to proliferate. More beavers led to more dams. Otters, muskrats, ducks, and fish that relied on the dams for habitats returned.

Increasing vegetation stabilized the riverbanks, reversed the erosion in the riverbeds, and created a healthier ecosystem.

The changes in Yellowstone could not be understood by looking at only one species, one location, or one plant. The interventions aimed at treating a single problem produced only short-lived changes, and none restored health to the whole.

Instead, to restore balance to the ecosystem, all the pieces must be considered as parts of the whole, where every part impacts every other part.

Just as an ecosystem is made up of many individual plants and animals, of a variety of species, each independent yet interconnected, the human body is also made of many independent parts — cells, organs, tissues, and systems, that interconnect to form a whole.

This idea of holism fits within the context of nature. When we introduce wolves back into Yellowstone, we accept the cascade of changes as natural consequences. In nature, we understand that a change to one part affects the whole.

But somehow, along the way, we started to view the body as separate from nature.

Instead of seeing the body as a whole ecosystem, the way we might with a national park like Yellowstone, allopathic medicine treats the body as if it operates according to a different set of rules.

The body, the thinking goes, is not a whole but instead a collection of parts. This is called reductionism, the idea that a complex system can be understood by understanding the pieces that make it up. It is this thinking that lets us to cut out a cancer from the body without changing the conditions that led it to grow in the first place.

Reductionistic thinking lets us take an antibiotic for a cold — often without knowing if the symptoms are even caused by bacteria — instead of asking why the immune system did not fight off the bug in the first place.

In another context, reductionistic thinking allows for the surgical replacement of a knee without evaluating the health of the whole.

Specifically, without asking how and why the knee degenerated in the first place. And no, getting older is not a sufficient reason to have a bad knee. My favorite questions for patients who use the “I’m just getting old, Doc” explanation for knee pain is to ask, politely of course, “Well, if that is the case, how old is your good knee?”

The idea of reductionism is not universal, but it is foundational to the medical idea of health. Perhaps, it came from the Industrial Revolution with its proliferation of machines to increase output and its concurrent migration into cities and out of nature.

Or, perhaps, from the revamping of medical education that occurred after the Flexner Report, in 1910, with its increased focus on scientific research in the basic sciences like physiology and biochemistry (both of which focus on the parts of the body rather than the whole) at the expense of holism. However it happened, the medical idea of health mandates that we see the human body as a collection of parts, separate from nature.

This change had a profound effect on our health.

It is the difference between shooting elk and restoring wolves.

The idea of thinking of the health of the whole is foundational to how we see nature.

We do not need to consider the health of 2,000,000+ acres of a national park to see the principle of holism. We can observe the same principle in a single leaf.

When it comes to health, plants are simple. They are not like humans. Plants don’t complain. They don’t forget to eat. They don’t sabotage their health with Oreos and reality television. Plants grow. They add carbon dioxide (CO2) to sunlight to create food. They survive.

Because of this, healing plants is easy.

A healthy plant needs optimum amounts of three things: sunlight, water, and nutrients (found in healthy soil). A sick plant, one with brown leaves, needs optimal amounts of three things: sunlight, water, and nutrients (found in healthy soil). That’s it; that’s the whole list. The presence or absence of disease does not change what the plant needs to create health. It may need more or less of each, but healthy plants are the inevitable result of optimal amounts of these three inputs.

But what if things were different? Let’s imagine we enter a world of plants, a world that, for simplicity, we’ll call Plant World.

Let’s imagine Plant World has advanced well past the antiquated ideas of ensuring plants need optimal amounts of sunlight, water, and nutrients. How old fashioned! How antiquated! Instead, in progressive and innovative Plant World, plants are treated like people, following the three-step allopathic model disease care diagnose disease, treat with drug or surgery, eliminate the symptom or disease.

Step one, diagnose disease.

In plant world, before a sick plant can be helped, it first needs — of course! — a diagnosis. How can you treat a plant if you don’t name the disease? In the allopathic plant disease care, as with humans, the disease is given a name, often with a Greek root. We’ll call it Brown Leafitis.

In this progressive system, researchers and plant doctors search for a cure for Brown Leafitis. Lots of money, public and private, is spent researching pharmaceutical treatments and surgical techniques (step two!) to treat the symptoms of Brown Leafitis.

The allopathic plant disease care system even has teams of molecular biologists searching for a miracle drug that will cause an already sick plant’s leaves to turn from brown back to green. Other promising treatments include, covering the leaves with spray paint and the surgical removal of the brown leaf (a leafectomy, if you will). How progressive! How technologically advanced!

Even better, Plant World elected a government that demands equal access for all diseased plants to essential plant medications and includes a team of lobbyists petitioning Plant Congress and the Federal Plant Drug Administration to have medications approved for the new epidemic of Brown Leafitis.

Luckily — for the plants — Plant World disease care doesn’t exist.

We don’t waste our time and money on pharmaceutical drugs or tiny plant surgeries to treat Brown Leafitis. Instead, we restore health in a plant by ensuring the plant has exactly what it needs to create health (sunlight, water, and nutrients (found in healthy soil)).

By assuring a plant has the nutrients it needs, the plant returns to health and the symptom of brown leaves go away, or, better yet, never appear in the first place. Giving the plant water, sun, and healthy soil is healthcare.

We recognize, intuitively, that a brown leaf is not a disease of the leaf, but rather a sign of a problem within the whole plant. We intuitively provide healthcare to plants, but we disastrously provide disease care to humans.

What the medical idea of health seems to forget is that we humans are not reductionistic machines but instead operate under the principle of holism — like plants!

In the case of my headaches, taking pain relieving medications sometimes helped with the symptom of head pain, but didn’t make me healthier. How could I be healthier taking a chemical that (supposedly) helped pain yet at the same time damaged my liver and kidneys?

Doctors who understood the principles of health would take a different approach.

They would see pain in the head not as an isolated symptom but instead as a sign of dysfunction of the whole, much like we view a brown leaf on a plant. Instead of prescribing a drug to treat the symptom, the treatment might include the human equivalent of water, sunlight, and healthy soil needed to restore health.

So how do we find those basic first principles, the human equivalents of water, sunlight, and healthy soil that create health?

We must begin by seeing a disease of a part as instead a dysfunction of the whole.

Timeless You-th tells the story of my struggle to find a cure for my crippling headaches while navigating the established medical system. My headaches persisted and worsened despite seeking the best medical treatment available, including top doctors and pharmaceutical drugs. The overall goal of my book is to teach you five foundational principles of health so that you, too, can create a lifetime of timeless youth.

Timeless You-th is your go to resource to maximize your health without drugs and surgery. Grab a copy on Amazon and share!

The post Why Holistic Health is Life Changing: New Book by Dr. Crippen appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Super easy 10 minute meals are all I have time for lately. Have you ever had a phase like that?

This week I had to stay off my feet. I had plantar fasciitis in a mild, I-can-handle-this version for 4 months. A little over a week ago, it turned into big, fat roaring don’t-you-dare-take-a-step-on-these-feet plantar fasciitis. It hurt! I did go and see a doctor about it. He gave me some anti-inflammatory medicine, and he told me to stay off of my feet for a week to let them recover. So that’s what I’m doing.

Meanwhile, if I didn’t do something about dinner I was afraid my husband would feed everyone pizza every night, so I tried to be creative. Most of these meals are all probably things you already know how to do. All six of these meals are so easy you might even be able to get your older children to make them for you.

Here are the 10 minute meals that I made this week.

Night 1: Ramen Noodles and Canned Bread Sticks

We ate the chicken flavored Ramen noodles. I boiled 4 bags of these to feed 6 people, and there were no leftovers. These were a HUGE hit. The boys said, “Mom is the best cook ever!”

I also popped open a can of Pillsbury bread sticks, added Parmesan cheese, olive oil, garlic salt, and basil to them, and those things cook in only 10 minutes too.

Night 2: Crockpot BBQ Chicken, canned green beans, and instant mashed potatoes

Don’t let anyone mom-shame you about these convenient foods. Make them. My bet is it’s still way healthier than fast food.

For the chicken, I slow-cooked chicken breasts with a stick of butter all day long. About 15 minutes before dinner time, I squeeze in a bottle of BBQ sauce and stir it around and let it warm back up for 15 minutes. Serve with convenient vegetables.

I do add a touch more butter than the instant potatoes recipe calls for on the box. I am from Alabama, after all. For the green beans, I only use salt and pepper, and everyone likes them except for 1 kid. 5 out of 6 is a win.

Night 3: Hot dogs, frozen french fries, and canned fruit

For the canned fruit, our family is a big fan of mandarin oranges. I might as well be serving chocolate cake, they love it so much.

Night 4: Grilled Cheese and/or Chicken Nuggets with Applesauce or Peas

Two of my children dislike grilled cheese sandwiches, so for those two I heated up frozen chicken nuggets in the microwave, on a plate with a large helping of applesauce or peas. I have one that’s allergic to peas, so they can’t all eat them. The others happily eat the canned green sweet peas. Cinnamon applesauce is also a huge hit at our house.

Night 5: Spicy Chicken in the crock pot

Literally just put all of this in the slow cooker or instant pot together:

-3 chicken breasts

-1 jar of salsa

-2 cans of DRAINED black beans

-sprinkle in some cumin or taco seasoning for added flavor

-At the end, sprinkle on 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese. (Or you can use 2 cans of Campbell’s Nacho cheese soup if gluten is not an issue for you.)

I used to have a video for this spicy chicken on Facebook. You can imagine my dismay to realize I accidentally deleted it. Alan was off work on Friday, so he made spicy chicken for us.

It is very simple. It’s just chicken, salsa, black beans, and 2 cans of Campbell’s Nacho Cheese soup, all cooked together in the crock pot.

IServe this chicken with lots of tortilla chips or make it into a taco salad like I did in the photo above.

Now that I am gluten free, I cannot use this soup. Instead, I substitute in two cups of shredded cheddar at the end.

Night 6: Frozen Pizza

No explanation needed there, eh? I didn’t say this was earth-shattering, only that these things can all be made quickly and easily, without having to end up at McDonald’s!

(When you order from Amazon ads on my site, I do collect advertising fees.)

Here are a few more 10 Minute or less meals that we enjoy:

-Instant Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal

They even make gluten free boxes now that you can find at select stores.

-Quick Grits

I’m telling you they are delicious. Follow the directions on the container. Then add half a stick of butter (to a pan for four people) and plenty of salt and pepper. Cheese is also a yummy add on for grits.

-Egg Sandwiches

I’m talking just scrambled eggs with pepper on them between two slices of bread. I love it.

-Panera Soups from the grocery store deli section.

When you are in too much pain to stand at the stove, these are a life saver. Just heat them up. Use any kind of pre-made soup you like. It will still be way cheaper than eating out.

-This delicious slow cooker roast only has like 4 ingredients.

I used to love this one so much. Now I cannot make it because it isn’t gluten free unless you happen to have gluten free cream of mushroom soup.

-You can use frozen grilled chicken with a bagged salad to create a quick salad.

These are all easy ways to avoid the drive through or an expensive restaurant bill. Before long, this phase where you are injured or so short on time will pass and you can make more culinary masterpieces.

But hard times call for easy meals you can make in 10 minutes. It just does. Food does not have to be complicated to be good.

The post 10 Minute Meals for When You’re Injured, Over-Scheduled, or Just Plain Tired appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Mom and me at Kansas City International Airport

Last week Mom and I had to take an unexpected trip to Kansas. My aunt was in the hospital, in ICU. Mom and I were worried, so we trekked on out there.

I’m the arthritis lady that has to take a special trip to the doctor’s office so I can make it through an airplane and car trip. I have to schedule walks down the airplane aisle to keep my legs from going crippled.

Good news: My aunt DID get moved out of ICU, and we got to visit with her. Even in hard times, Aunt Linda’s sharp wit can save a dire situation. She’s funny when she tries to be. She’s even funny when she’s not trying to be. I hope I have that much grace when I’m in a situation like that.

Bad news: She has a long recovery ahead and will be in the hospital for a while yet, and she’s only in her 50s. Hospital stays are miserable.

Other good news: I got to see my cousin Amber, who I grew up playing with, so this was a big deal.

Mom, me, and Amber, taking a lunch break at Panera.

Other bad news: Amber’s back is maybe even more messed up than mine is. We have this family arthritis problem. We could have done without that part of the inheritance, Granny…

So Amber and I were both popping NSAIDs and muscle relaxers and spraying each other with BioFreeze. And by the way, we are still young. We are trying not to think about how much worse this could get!

Nothing was working too well. In fact, as annoying as it is, do you know what seems to help me the most??

Physical therapy exercises. I started them in 2010 when my chiropractor assigned me strengthening and stretching exercises, and I was hurting so much that I actually did them out of pure desperation.

I did them faithfully until I started feeling better. Ever since, I’ve had the hardest time getting back in the habit. I need my own personal physical therapist in my living room.

So I found this YouTube channel that is PERFECT. Actually, it’s more than a YouTube channel. It’s a whole website. I wrote all about it over at Monterey Premier. Check it out here.

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”   –Jesus, in John 16:33

The post Top Back Pain Tip from the Arthritis Lady appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Daniel, waiting for present-opening time at my parents’ house

Christmas is over, and boy, was it a good one. In the photo above, all 4 boys were watching the clock intently. Christmas truly is magical for children.

I’m so thankful for a Christmas when my kids were healthy, we didn’t have to fly, there were no funerals to attend, and all went smoothly.

Now on to the new year!

2016 was all about drama. Yep. Drama. I’m hoping 2017 will be more about persistence and less about big things happening.

But who can tell the future? I’m not even good about making plans for the future. This year I want to be better about it, even though our best laid plans are so often a joke.

Before I plan for the future, I always look back at where we’ve been. This helps me to stay realistic. I can be idealistic and get myself into ridiculous situations.

I want to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground and perhaps allow my head to wander into the clouds just a little bit…

So let’s look back. Google Analytics tells me which of this year’s posts were most popular.

Top 10 Stories from 2016

#10. Exciting News, Dirt Angels, and Checking on Daniel

This is what my to do list looked like the other day:

-Morning Chores

-Check on Daniel.

-Shower/get ready

-Check on Daniel.

-Start sheets.

-Check on Daniel.

-Put away laundry. Move sheets to dryer.

-Check on Daniel.

-Well, you get the idea.

#9. JD Presents the New VeggieTales DVD Giveaway

It was exciting to partner with VeggieTales. I’ve always loved them, and giveaways are always a hit.

#8. What do I wear to the wedding?

As it turns out, my friends love to help me pick out what to wear. Ironically enough, I woke up with a swollen hip, and none of those dresses fit. Want to see what I actually wore?

This, and it looked awful on me. That’s why I cropped the photo. But it was okay because we had so much fun at the wedding. Want to see the bride?

She’s the beautiful red-headed one in the white dress!! (Ha! Obviously) This is the family red-head photo!! Gingers rule!

#7. The Linq Procedure: Another Half Naked Story

Yes, occasionally I blog about my health problems. I hope that it helps other people with similar problems. And sometimes I DO just want to whine!

Only 1 more health article on the list, I promise:

#6. Health Update: Ventricular Tachycardia, My Favorite Doctor, and Tendonitis Everywhere

This tells the story of a PA who I was so excited to find after having so many MEAN doctors. What is the deal with the rude docs? Why are you a doctor if you don’t even like people? I get so nervous about medical stuff, I need straight up Mary Poppins  when I go to the doc’s office!

#5. Life gets really fun once you get over yourself! 

This one’s my favorite. Here’s a quote from it:

“Ha! I bet some of you wonder why I’m always sharing my crazy crap on the internet.

It’s worth it, y’all. Do what you love, and shamelessly share it. It may even turn into income for you.”

first Christmas in Nana’s new house

#4. The Story of My Wedding Dress: What Fire Couldn’t Burn

….Grab your tissues for that one.

#3. 3 Fall Funnies and a New Giveaway for Your Kitchen

Again, giveaways are popular! But this one did have some CUTE stories.

#2. When We Met Matthias: Story of a Military Family

This was the GOOD kind of drama. Emma stayed with us for just a few weeks. She labored at our house and brought her new baby home to our house, and it was so exciting to be a part of it.

#1. Logan

Alan lost two teenage cousins this year. These were two separate tragic single-car accidents, devastating events.

Good people pass away; the godly often die before their time. But no one seems to care or wonder why. No one seems to understand that God is protecting them from the evil to come.

Isaiah 57:1 New Living Translation

Last year wasn’t easy. Life is full of both the good and the bad for each of us. I wanted to share a happy Christmas video to perk us all up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRARmGIWgf8

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Thank you for being a part of our 2016.

The post Our Top 10 Stories from 2016: The Drama Year appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Alan and Mom. Mom was such a huge help the week of my procedure. Thanks, Mom!!

The Move

Yesterday I started cleaning out the kitchen cabinets and drawers. No, I’m not packing myself. Alan’s job hires people to do that, so why would I?

What I’m doing is trying to eliminate all things that I do not want or use so that I don’t have to unpack them in a few weeks. We have way too much junk.

Junk. Just junk.

How do we all accumulate so much of it?

Is it the result of retail therapy gone overboard?

The inability to let go? I don’t know. But somehow every two years, we haul off truck loads and truckloads of our old stuff to Goodwill and the dump.

Occasionally, we sell a thing or two. I got $25 for an Ergo baby carrier…

Bye-bye, Ergo, we had a love/hate relationship anyway.

I sold a Mickey Mouse Cake Pan for $5. Because let’s face it. I bought it 2 years ago and never used it. I’m obviously too intimidated by the directions and the hand cramping to actually decorate a Mickey Mouse cake.

My hand hurts now, just thinking about squeezing out all those icing stars.

So yeah, we’re moving. We still don’t actually have a house to move INTO yet, but we hand over the keys to this one on June 25th.

Do you know what the funny part is? The funny part is that my California Health Crisis earned me a plane ticket with JD, so I don’t even have to participate in pack and load week or the cross-country road trip. I leave on the 20th.

……Oh. my. goodness. Daniel is watching Teletubbies. I thought we killed those obnoxious things off years ago. How? How are they suddenly back here, back into our lives????

“Daniel, please, please, don’t watch this show. I can’t take it. It’s too dumb.”

“Yeah,” Daniel agreed. Now we’re watching an alphabet video. It’s not too bad.

What was I saying? OH YEAH! Our moving plan. I ended up getting the super-sweet side of the stick, thanks to my psoriatic arthritis issues.

Mom and Me at Point Lobos. We’ve established that Pt. Lobos is what I will miss most about California, right?

The Psoriatic Arthritis

Psoriatic arthritis is basically pronounced sorry-attic arthritis. In my head, I also call it sorry ass arthritis because that’s what it makes me feel like.

It’s back, and it’s ugly, and I’ve just stopped playing around about it. My big toe swelled, but I’ve figured out a way to walk without using it, and then I bumped it just a tiny bit on JD’s potty stool, and now it’s swollen, bruised, and bloody.

The ligament that connects my knees to my hips is inflamed all the way up, on both sides, and my left thumb is permanently bending slower than all of my other fingers. The shoulder tendonitis is back too. But at least the plantar fasciitis finally went away. So, there’s that.

The Heart

I asked my cardiologist about what anti-inflammatory meds I could take. I need them right now, for this flare-up and the up-coming travel.

He was obviously not too concerned. He said, “As long as you don’t take cocaine or meth, I’m good.”

As you can see, my cardiologists are super worried. Not.

I had my last appointment the other day. Dr. G is my super-soft-spoken but very personable electrophysiologist, a.k.a. a highly educated heart doc that specializes in electrical problems of the heart, arrhythmias such as ventricular tachycardia.

He was actually kind and sympathetic about my Linq monitor. Wait. A kind and sympathetic doctor? What is this new thing?? I’ve just had bad doctor luck these past two years, so this was a nice change.

He’s funny too. I asked if anything had shown up on my Linq monitor. He explained that he has the parameters on the thing set so that the v-tach won’t register unless it’s over 195 bpm or at least 16 beats in a row.

“Ha! I don’t think it’s ever that bad,” I said.

“Well, I set it that way because that’s the point at which we would need to do something about it.” he explained.

Sure.

“Can I put off going to a cardiologist for a while because I’ve got so much to do with this move… I feel like I’ve been to the cardiologist enough for one year anyway…”

“Yes, of course, you have a lot going on. Take care of that, and then you can get a new cardiologist. UNLESS you have symptoms.”

“I have a lot of symptoms lately, but none long enough to set off the monitor (16 beats), so what do I know?”

“Well, that’s because you got a plate full of s***.”

Haaa!!!  Ain’t that the truth.

I’m always surrounded by children or other stay-at-home moms or home school moms, so I don’t hear a lot of conversational swear words. So now when I do hear them, it’s really hard not to giggle. Yeah, I probably did snicker.

Oh, well. Dr. G says he’s not worried about my v-tach. My heart is structurally fine.  His actual words were, “You’re not going to die suddenly in your sleep or anything.”

Ha! So there’s my good news of the day, folks. I’m not going to die suddenly in my sleep, at least not this year. It sounds like a joke, but that DOES happen to v-tach sufferers when there is heart disease present or with an inherited condition, like Brugada. However, when those things aren’t present, and the v-tach is short, like mine, it is considered benign.

JD was seriously THIS small when we moved in!! 2 years ago!!

I have a good sense of closure from this California Health Crisis chapter: the pain, the fevers, and the heart thing…Most of it was all from psoriatic arthritis, which mostly goes away if I don’t eat wheat or get too stressed. So there you go. I’m learning how to better take care of myself.

And the funny part…

So did you catch the part about Alan? Did you read that right? They wrote me out of the cross-country move and the pack week. SOOOO..  Alan will be overseeing the pack out and the cross-country move by himself, along with our three oldest children. That’s right. Alan is  doing a week-long road trip with Joshua, Caleb, and Daniel.

I know. Poor Alan. What kind of a wife am I? Well, I’ve done all the other pack and moves, thank you, most of them by myself. But yes, I usually shipped off the kids.

I’ve asked him repeatedly to send another kid on the plane with me, to lighten his load. But Alan says it will be fun.

I’ll give you a minute to laugh…

It won’t be dull, anyway. You gotta give him that. A friend of ours suggested that we should strap a Go-pro on Alan for this trip. It would surely make for a funny video.

Nah, what am I saying? Our kids are perfect angels, and so are we.

In fact, today I gave Cherielle a ride home from church, and Alan had all four boys with him because we’re trying to keep the van CLEAN, in order to sell it.

Alan decided to take all the boys with him to the grocery store.

While he was there, there was quite a spectacle. A certain five-year-old boy took a gold “good behavior” reward coin from his big, eight-year-old brother.

“Hey, give that back!” the eight-year-old demanded.

But the little guy only clutched the good-behavior coin even tighter. Oh, the irony..

So the two ended up WRESTLING IN THE FLOOR of the check-out line over this coin. The oldest boy, a ten-year-old, was dismayed and embarrassed at his younger brothers’ behavior, so he started punching the middle one in the back saying, “Cut it out! Get up! Cut it out!”

my little wrestlers with Aunt Janet and Nonna

Don’t worry. They were quickly apprehended, and upon their return home, appropriate consequences were measured out. I’m sure those weren’t our little angels, scrapping it out over a Sunday School coin in the floor of the grocery store….Nah….

I’m just thankful I was not at the grocery store. I was at home putting the frozen pizzas in the stove.

Just another day in paradise, y’all. Have a great week!

The post The Move, My California Health Crisis, and The Grocery Store Scuffle appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.

Me and my birthday salad: My friend Laura thought this up. I thought the tomato with the candle was so cute and original.

Today I’m on the 9th day of a 21 Day Purification Cleanse. This cleanse has made me feel young and energetic. Brain fog went out the door with the gluten. Pain from all the tendonitis was down to a 2 or a 3 most of the time. Life was good.

On days 1-10 of the cleanse you are only allowed to eat fruits, vegetables, quinoa, approved oils, and the protein shakes and supplements that come with the cleanse. I have been eating delicious smoothies, vegetarian vegetable soup, and salads.

This soup was a life saver! Loved it! I made it with black-eye peas, lima beans, okra, turnip root, carrots, green beans, a pinch of salt, Rotel tomatoes, minced onions, minced garlic, black pepper, Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Thyme, Oregano, and Basil. Why do I have this need to capitalize the spice names??

Then on day 7 I saw my cardiologist, and they put me on Rythmol. This is a serious drug to treat my ventricular tachycardia.

I took my first dose of it, in addition to the Inderal I was already taking Friday night. Saturday morning I woke up and realized that Rythmol and I were not going to get along. I felt horrible. I checked my blood pressure: low but not bad low. I figured I just needed to get used to the new medicine.

I took another full dose Saturday morning, and I spent the entire day in bed. My head is whoozy, nausea comes and goes, my chest occasionally feels tight, and the fatigue does not play.

By Sunday morning, I decided that you can’t pay me any money to take another whole dose of this medicine. I think they are trying too hard to help me. I felt much better just taking the Inderal. My PA wrote out instructions for me that said, “If the new drug gives you low blood pressure, cut the dose in half, and call the doctor.”

Done. That’s my new plan. I did research on Rythmol today on the internet. I didn’t like what I found. I have seen it described as a “last chance” drug and a drug for “life-threatening arrhythmias” because the side effects can be so bad, and in some people it can actually cause arrhythmias.

In fact, most of the sources said things like, “used to treat life threatening arrhythmias like ventricular tachycardia.”

(Sources: Slideshow, WebMD, MedicineNet.com)

Heh?

My first thought is, “Am I missing something? I’m not THAT bad off.”

Have any of you ever taken this heart medication? I wonder if it gets better as your body gets used to it. They gave me this drug to help me, but I’m calling it my “frienemy” because I was finally feeling better before, and now I feel like I got ran over by, I don’t know, a bicycle or something. After all, it could always be worse.

I only took half of the Rythmol this morning, but I still felt nauseous, sluggish, and tired. My medication timer just went off, and I’m having this inner battle. There isn’t a single part of me that wants to take even one more half dose! I think I’ll skip it, y’all. It is nasty stuff.

***********

My precious friend Cassie brought us this yummy-licious chicken and veggie dish. We loved it. Thank you, Cassie! I need this recipe!

I know I keep mentioning the cleanse but not fully explaining it. I’m sorry about that.

First, here’s the website: Standard Process

I found out about the cleanse from my chiropractor. He knew I’ve been having a hard time, so he recommended this. It’s supposed to help clear out inflammation while also helping you figure out what foods may be causing you reactions. You eliminate all of the classic food allergy or intolerance foods for 21 days: no eggs, gluten, grains, dairy, no added sugar, no preservatives. You try to eat as cleanly as you can, mostly organic.

My favorite breakfast “shake”: (I don’t know why they call it a shake. It’s dairy free. It’s a smoothie, people.)

-1 whole banana

-1 overflowing handful of frozen strawberries

-1 teaspoon of coconut oil (Yep!)

-2 scoops of protein mix from Standard Process

-1 scoop of Whole Food Fiber from Standard Process

-around 8 ounces of water

-about 5 giant spinach leaves                                                                                                                                                 —

SO GOOD!!!! (I never measure anything. I know. This is why I could never write a cookbook.)

I am the only one here doing this. The rest of the family is still getting plenty of meat and potatoes. Don’t worry.

I have felt WONDERFUL during the cleanse. Actually, I started feeling better even just from cutting gluten. I’m hoping that when I finish my 21 days, I can still stick mostly to only cutting gluten. I want my oats and cheese back!

OH! Also, I lost 5 pounds, but that was mostly because I felt too horrid to get out of bed and eat yesterday, thanks to the heart medication. Before that, I ate too much fruit to lose weight.

Glorious news for this week: 

Tuesday is day 11, and on day 11 you get to add meats!  Can’t wait!!!

Okay. This post made me hungry. Time for a “midnight shake”….

The post The Purification Cleanse and the “Frienemy” Drug appeared first on Stories of Our Boys.