My Valentine

As a single mom by choice who’s been primarily single for this parenting journey, I have made a point to do a little something with Wallace every Valentine’s day. Just for fun, because I can. And let’s not forget, he’s my longest relationship ever. Ha.

For his first Valentine’s, I made him a crochet bowtie and a crochet stuffed heart. He was adorable, of course, and drooled all over everything.

His second year, he painted a white heart on a red shirt. It was cute and he was super proud of it when he wore it!

Last year, I was in Chicago for my much awaited worker’s comp case and it was our first night away from each other. I bought Wallace a pink stuffed fox and cut a heart out of red paper. I missed him, but it was fun to have about 36 hours that I didn’t have to be a parent.

I looked at stuffed animals last week and was not inspired by any of them. Also, we have way too many already! I decided I wanted to make him something and posed the question to the queer single parents by choice group on Fb. I settled on making him an apron and a bowtie and making gluten free vegan sugar cookies with him! Enjoy this flood of pictures and 10 points to anyone who knows who he resembles.

We also made a coffee filter marker craft, but haven’t finished it. Oh, and he made me a Valentine!

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Nina

One year ago today, my cat and best friend of ten years, Nina, died. She had struggled with hyperthyroidism and kidney disease for over a year and the last few weeks were terrible. Letting her go was one of the hardest moments in my life.

I held her for the last couple hours. At some points she was lucid and knee who I was, trying to climb into my lap or be petted. At other moments she lay exhausted half off my lap, clearly in pain. I knew it had to be done, after months of doing everything I could to keep her happy and alive, so I consented to euthanasia and held her as she died. I watched the life go from her eyes and her body as the vet sat on the floor with us and checked her heart. This still brings me to tears as I write it.

One thing I learned from this ordeal with my sweet, noisy, loving, demanding, silly cat is that dry kibble is not what cats should be eating. Cats naturally need food with water in it and low to no grains/starches. Feeding them kibble, even high quality grain free that she had mosyly been on for years, cause kidney disease as well as other chronic conditions. Their bodies are not meant for it!

Please check out Cat Info for lots of information on feline nutrition. I am grateful for the vast knowledge on this site including how to make raw food, which is way easier than you’d think, and what canned foods that are low in phosphorus, which was downloaded on my phone and utilized at the pet store for months.

I have been coming across old pictures of Nina, so I want to share some of them. They are from her happy healthy days before she was sick, back when she was at least 14lbs of lovely cuddly fluff and attitude.

Farmacology CBD

I love CBD oil and have been using it over a year and a half. I am an affiliate for Farmacolgy brand, which is produced by the fine folks of Poofy Organics. The line just relaunched and they are doing a big sale! Please follow my link and enter the code to receive the discount. There is also free shipping! If you have any questions, I can do my best to answer them and there is also a group on Facebook for questions and testimonials. The sale is just three days and shipping is only to US customers. Due to the Farm Bill, CBD is now legal in all 50 states!

MicroBlog Monday: Green Beans

I love food with flavor and a variety of vegetables. So being a single parent to a picky 5 year old cramps my style. He is definitely way more adventurous than a lot of kids his age, but I have worked hard to get there! We keep crackers and cereal to a minimum and he is required to eat a vegetable with lunch and dinner. He also has texture issues that come from global hypotonia and the feeding issues he has as an infant and toddler. His current choices are broccoli, raw or cooked carrots, sweet potato fries or mash, sometimes cucumber, and a couple times cauliflower. I figured green beans would be a good one to try and one I liked at a young age, so I grabbed a bag of fresh green beans on our last Aldi trip.

He didn’t give me a full thumbs up, but I call green beans a success! We were going to have vegan Mac and cheese leftovers with broccoli for him. I was going to make green beans and garlic to go with it and get him to try one bite. He said he’d try it if we came up with a good sauce to put on it. I pulled out a vegetarian Thai cookbook – this kid loves flavor and spice – and we found a recipe for red curry tofu and green beans. At 1pm, having not had a big breakfast, we abandoned leftovers and he helped me cut the green beans and tofu. It turned out really good and he ate everything on his plate along with more tofu and rice. Relatively cheap meal and I got him to try a vegetable he has refused for years, yay!

What vegetable should we try next?

Fumbling Along

I have been feeling really bad for about a week. My whole body hurts to the point it is hard to sleep some nights. I am so exhausted and fatigued. I am snapping and irritable and down.

I have some ideas as to what could be going on, but I have no desire to attempt to pin it down with an allopathic diagnoses and treatment. It could be EBV, some other infection, RA, or some other pain syndrome that is more symptom than diagnosis such as fibromyalgia (I believe in the experience, but not the western diagnosis, because it does not include a cause).

Over the summer when I was going through my stuck gallstone drama, my bloodwork came back with a positive IgG. The doctor said I should see a rheumatologist, but that there are none in the county who accept my insurance and new patients. They didn’t bother so I didn’t bother. I managed to make it 7 years with celiac disease before acquiring any additional food intolerances, 12 years before showing up with another autoimmune marker.

I have been dealing with chronic pain and fatigue since about 6 months after Wallace was born. Various things have helped, such as certain foods and supplements, and various things have hurt, such as various foods, stress, and not enough sleep. Back then, I made myself go see a doctor after weeks of waking up and barely being able to walk. I was dismissed. A couple years later I tried again with a different doctor, in tears in the office, and was again dismissed.

I had been doing really well the last 6 weeks with daily celery juice and mostly decent sleep. Then it hit hard and I am miserable. I’ve got Wallace in bed and am waiting for him to fall asleep so I can take a shower. I was going to take a bath but that seems like a more daunting prospect. For now, I will just keep working on the things I can do for myself and my health and save up to see a doctor who will believe me and have some ideas on how to treat me.

*Update*

I went to urgent care today. I have a kidney infection and I tested positive for influenza A despite having no symptoms of it. I am on antibiotics for the infection and got a shot of steroids for the body pain. I’m hoping that will allow me to sleep tonight.

Celery Juice

The subject I wanted to write about and forgot the other day, is celery juice! I randomly came across the Medical Medium on Instagram, who promotes celery juice as a vehicle for healing the liver and chronic diseases. I have migraines, Celiac, chronic EBV, possibly RA, chronic pain and fatigue, and this last summer I had a gallstone blocking my common bile duct causing jaundice. I narrowly avoided surgery by going against allopathic medical advice and finding a way to dislodge it.

Anyway, coming across this was fortuitous and I jumped into action. I immediately got out my old juicer that is missing a piece and has a broken spot, but it still works! I began juicing celery that very next day. His recommendations are to work up to 16oz first thing every morning, which is roughly an entire bunch worth.

I am not a big fan of celery, but the benefits have been amazing already. I have had four migraine days over the last 5 weeks. Previous months were 6 to 8 migraine days, some lasting 2 days of misery. I will say that two of December’s migraines were due to extenuating circumstances – getting glutened and hitting my head getting Wallace in the car.

The other benefits I have noticed so far are no heartburn, much better digestion (aka pooping), more energy, better hydration (all those mineral salts in the celery!), better attitude, less puffy face, and fewer cravings. The taste of celery juice has grown on me and if I get a batch that isn’t as good, I just add some Himalayan salt to it and it is much better. I feel like my brain fog is also improved and I look forward to being able to focus enough to read his books in the near future.

My current regamin is a gluten free and mostly vegan diet, celery juice first thing in the morning, more celerey juice in the afternoon if needed or I didn’t finish it, CBD oil once or twice during the day, magnesium and iron supplements, I am out of my B vitamins and need to get more, a PM CBD oil before bed, and usually a bedtime tea. I need to get better about doing 20 minutes of yoga a day and about going to bed by 10pm. Those two things would help me a lot. And eating more fruits and vegetables, of course.

My goal is to keep working towards optimal health including detoxing from the heavy metals I have been exposed to from lead paint, vaccines, and mercury fillings. I want to reach optimal health, not just for myself, but for Wallace and for the ability to have another child in the future. The testimonials from people who have and are healing themselves are pretty amazing and the only thing he sells are books. He has a list of supplements he thinks are beneficial and high quallity, but does not have his own line. For now, I will just keep juicing along!

Ramble

I had and idea to write about. It was a good one. I opened up the app on my new Kindle after connecting my mom’s bluetooth keyboard, in order to see if I want a case with a keyboard, and I completely blanked. I have no idea what I was planning to write about and don’t want to write a general update. Random ramble time…

I recently came across an article about why white people shouldn’t say namaste. I haven’t brought myself to read it yet because Christmas and stuff. I am curious what argument they are making and what contexts they are referring to. I teach yoga every Friday night. My teacher learned from an Indian yoga guru and is part of a lineage, which now I am part of. I don’t think it is cultural appropriation to say namaste at the end of my classes as part of the cultural tradition of yoga.

I bought myself a pair of LuLaRoe leggings at a holiday market at my yoga studio. I am of the belief that yoga pants and leggings are meant for doing yoga/exercising and wearing with appropriately long shirts/tunics/dresses. I don’t wear pajama pants outside of the house unless I am headed to go have a baby or am very sick. What other people do, I do not care. Anyway, these leggings are paisley with an array of colors including a dark blue. I wear a lot of dark blue so these can brighten up my yoga attire while coordinating with my dark blue shirt collection.

My grandpa has lung cancer and has been going though chemotherapy. We haven’t seen him in over a year because we missed last year’s Christmas party due to colds. This year’s party was canceled due to his health. We now have colds. I just want to get to see him a few more times and enjoy his company. I don’t want him to suffer so much; he has had such a long  and difficult life.

I rejoined a few dating sites. It is irritating that they do not have an option for genders outside the binary and sexualities. So many straight couples looking for a third. How is a person to tell what someone’s preference is? All the filters are ridiculous and I don’t think I have ever swiped right on someone who has used them in their pictures. Can’t I just meet someone at the grocery store by the vegan yogurt, at the library story time, or in a yoga class? That would at least mean they live relatively close to me!

I figured out what I was going to write about. Next time!