Gratitude, part 3 of 3
I want to express my gratitude for something else. I was sitting at the top of the high school bleachers recently, in the sunshine, watching my son Kincade play baseball.
His athleticism astonishes me. I have two brothers who played college baseball, but still. Cade made a diving catch in right field, he had two amazing hits (one a double), and he very nearly threw a kid out at home plate from the outfield. A month or so before, he hit a grand slam.
His fastball is nearing 85 mph average speed.
Forgive the bragging. But there’s a point to this:
When he was 18 months old, I was given yet another prescription for oral steroids, the 5th round in as many months. Kincade was regularly up all night, wheezing and coughing, turning blue, getting more and more sickly and underweight, on a regular basis. I fed him the usual suspects: infant formula, chicken nuggets, popsicles, dairy products, cinnamon raisin bread.
I dreaded night time when the asthma became terrifying and I rocked him for hours, panicking. I intended to give that rocking chair to a friend for his yard sale recently because it has bad memories for me. (Kincade asked if he could keep it as I was driving away to give it to the yard sale and said, “I have happy memories of that chair.” Who knew!)
Something happened that day in the doctor’s office when I was given that fifth steroid prescription. I became acutely aware that if I kept doing the same things, I’d keep getting the same results. I became aware that the drug therapies were hurting, not helping. They were masking symptoms, not solving underlying problems.
The results of following medical protocols were terrible: a sick kid, anxiety, hopelessness. The doc had sent me out the door with a warning: kids who have 5 courses of steroids in a year have stunted growth.
Long story short, I was desperate to avoid “stunted growth.” In his father’s family, the men are 6’4 to 6’8″, and height is a birthright in both our families. I began seeking, reading, learning. I changed his diet, starting with kicking sugar and dairy to the curb.
END of asthma. END of doctor’s office and ER visits. END of all-nighters feeding him cough syrup and strapping the nebulizer mask to his face so he could suck some bronchodilators and vaporized steroids into his lungs.
It seems like a miracle that my kid is 6’2″ and growing, 172 lbs., and strong and healthy as an ox now. And it is a miracle. Naaman in the Bible was told by the prophet Elisha to “wash and be cleansed” to be healed of leprosy. And he “turned and went off in a rage.” Fortunately Naaman repented after his servants challenged him: “If the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it?”(2 Kings 5:11-12).
It’s the simple things that often give us the miracles. Go and wash in the river–far too simple, right?
Can you handle the fact that the simple fact of replacing dairy and sugar, with whole plant foods, changed the course of not just Kincade’s life, but my whole family’s? Just a year of shifting to natural, mostly raw foods.
Is it too hard to believe, because it didn’t involve fancy medical technology, new drugs, herculean efforts? I wish I had a more whiz-bang story, but all I have is the truth.
I am so thankful.
Posted in: Mind/Body Connection
I just want to thank you for your website. I stumbled upon it tonight for the first time while looking at crafts. I was introduced to green smoothies 2years ago when my 6year old daughter was diagnosed with a rare cancer. Two years later she is cancer free, but we r not eating as healthy. Your website has got me thinking about our choices. How to start. How can we afford it. I know I just need to start. Thank you for stirring me.
Robyn, You must get this all the time, but I want to express my gratitude for YOU! Thank you for sharing what you have learned in a way that makes it so do-able for the average person like me. Thank you for your continued motivation and inspiration. I never thought I would be eating 15 servings of fruits and veggies a day, or making my own yogurt and kefir. But I do all that and more, and my life is so much better for it. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!
YES!!!! So simple! I love how truth is so simple! I also have a son who had asthma. I could so relate to this post, it brought back lots of memories and oh so much gratitude! Thanks for sharing! I have written about my experience with my son on my blog you can find it at http://simplehealthytasty.blogspot.com/search/label/MY%20STORY
thank you so much for your website and the free access to this information. i have four boys and we eat pretty abnormal compared to most! my kids beg me for seaweed snacks:) i am learning even more from your website~thanks! i love the added scripture~dont see that very often either! God is soooo good.
i have to say i noticed you talking about your son and being sick….my 2 yr old had rsv when he was a baby and ever since then we get hit hard in the winter time with the nasty coughs. it was such an awful time for us! God was so good and carried us through the scary er room visits b/c his breathing was so bad. i now have another precious boy who is 6 months and he has been hit with the cough and yucks and b/c of our last experience (and still what we deal with now) i am wondering if you have any suggestions for that small of age? he too is on organic formula due to issues of why i could not nurse any longer:(
i know this opens up a huge area of different things. i just didnt know if you had any suggestions off hand especially for the baby? we are pretty much a raw whole foods family, no wheat no dairy, no sugar really and yet every winter we get hit hard with the respiratory junk and it gets pretty scary at times! just thought i would ask! i know you probably get bombarded with questions:) thank you so much again for all you are doing! awesome:)
blessings
Julia, do you have access to Dr. Christopher’s Anti-Plague formula? (I think that’s what it’s called. My master herbologist friend makes it, but it’s identical to that Dr. Christopher formula.) I have had miraculous results with that, many times. Sorry you’re dealing with that!!