bye bye 2011

dear life,

i expect wonderful things from you this year, so please be better. be good.

thank you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

how are we? we’re ok. and we’re going to continue being ‘more and more ok’ as time goes by.

we’ve sorta halted our gupta program, because it takes some serious commitment, and that brings about some serious stress. and the whole point of it and healing from this shit, is to avoid stress.  kind of a catch 22.

but we’re still doing the stopstopstop, the soften and flow and realizing how detached WE are from our brain, when it believes something is going wrong and it really isn’t. and that helps. however, the meditations, the nose breathing and the negative pattern stuff will have to come when it feels right.
we’re in a pretty stressful place right now, with the need to move AGAIN. and then AGAIN in 6 months after that.
i don’t even want to think about it.

OCTOBER:

* i drank coffee for the first time in 9 months. coffee is VERY acidic and inflammatory, and NOT good for a suppressed system like mine, but i was feeling pretty good so i tried it. weak organic breakfast blend with coconut milk and stevia… aaaaaand got my period the very next day, 8 days early. it was worth it.
is there a connection? absolutely. i did a three month experiment and yes, coffee brings my period early. so i only drink it during my period.

* we got a table!! a glass and metal patio table from good will for $40! we had no chairs, but we now have a table.

kitchen table

* on halloween, the boys carved a pumpkin at my moms house next door, and we watched a movie at home. there was no getting dressed and going anywhere, which makes it the second halloween we’ve missed.

halloween 2011

do you HAVE to do that?

* the twins only friend moved away.

* we started seeing my ak chiro again. she trades for yummy gluten-free baked goods my mom makes. she’s desensitizing us. such a sweet lady. unfortunately it’s only once every 3 weeks and that doesn’t do very much.

NOVEMBER:

* my eye decided to swell up as if there was a pellet jammed under my lid, for no reason whatsoever. not sure if i should blame mcs or true allergies. i researched the shit out of it, and chocked it up to a ‘chalazion‘. it got really bad there for a week, super swollen all around my eye, and then went away. it comes back every so often, same eye. the same side that was infected when my root canal tooth broke in half, back in the summer. It kind of puffed up the other eye, as well, before it went down. and i got it (plus another small one) back again last week. hot wet washclothes and gentle massing seem to help.

chalazion

swollen chalazion eye

* i made myself a friend, who i met at the healers office. she’s got lyme and cfs and is an artist who’s life has crumbled because of a moldy house (and a tick), and now, at the age of 42, is living on her mom’s couch. the similarities between us are great, but so are are most mcs, cfs, lyme, ei patients.

* t-day presented us with prime photo op with me and my cubs. this is our living room. we almost look normal. it only took about 15 takes to get one that looked that way.

t-day 2011

DECEMBER:

i accidentally killed my beautiful fish, due to some stupid mcs brain fog. i felt SO bad, so the twins pulled their money together and got me darrin for an x-mas gift. how sweet was that??? they’re amazing and beautiful kids. and darrin is simply awesome.

darrin

* x-mas stuff. our tree was blue lights wrapped onto nails on the wall (with a pineapple plant base), surrounded by origami frogs made by the twins.

our mcs safe x-mas tree

* we discovered chipoltle!  http://www.chipotle.com/en-US/fwi/fwi_facts/fwi_facts.aspx

* we got free metal chairs!! 7 of them!! and they’re pretty comfy. from a restaurant that went out of business. i’ll take a pic soon. now we have a table AND chairs, and something to sit on in our living room. even though they’re cold and hard, we can actually SIT with our legs at 90 degrees. after 10 months of the floor. wow.

* i got my drivers license… finally! after 4 times to the dmv, i now have a pic that looks like i’m an alien on my plastic that allows me to drive in this screwed up state.

* i ALMOST had a lawyer who wanted to take my case and get my deposits and last month rent (plus moving fees and everything else) back from my meth-lab landlord, who rented out the shithole the very same day i moved out.
but they changed their mind. it was an injury lawyer and they mostly deal with car insurance for accidents. ah well.

* i found out why there are SO MANY shitty doctors in texas. it’s ridiculous!!
trust yelp, people! trust the yelp reviews, for they are correct!!
So what’s the deal?? it’s because they passed a medical tort reform that limits the money anyone can receive from medical malpractice. even if the doc mames you for life, you can only get $250K, and that’s IF you can even sue him at all. so with this wonderful law, all the shitty doctors come from all over the nation to practice here. because they can do so without fear of being sued. and it shows.

and that was the rest of our 2011.  a year we’d like to forget.

2011

2012 is here now, and i can only see better things ahead. i’m tired. and for a bit, i almost gave up again. if it’s not one thing, it’s another. but i believe it’s because i could not go on unless i fixed EVERYTHING. maybe a midlife tune-up… overhaul kind of thing??? i dont know. i just know it sucks hard, and i wish i could get some justice around it.

someone once told me, if you have nothing, then you have nothing to lose… and everything to gain.

better

how much do i love ashok gupta? a lot, i say.
a lot.

now, i can only imagine how miraculous our healing would be if we did what we are supposed to be doing, every day. or even once a week.
but we don’t. we don’t do the meditations yet, we don’t do the nostril breathing yet, and we haven’t watched all the dvds yet.

however… what we’ve learned is enough to ‘see’ what’s happening, and we use a couple of the techniques every day to ourselves. and i think once we have a deeper understanding of what is related to what… how A is connected to B… and then what ‘happened’ when everything else was ‘happening’…  it allows us to have far more control over our person, alleviate many symptoms and expand our tolerances. like these cool new things …

1. we now sleep with our own cheap, polyester filled pillow, that i bought 8 months ago and have been off-gassing since. i covered them with 600 count cotton pillowcases and wrap them in a piece of cotton blanket.

2. we now include organic frozen corn and organic red potatoes (our only white starch) in our diet. and we’re fine.

3. i never wear a mask anymore. anywhere. not that i’m symptom-free everywhere i go or every time i’m exposed to things… i just acknowledge it, do my little technique, and go on with my stuff. the point is: i know i’m NOT dying, i’m NOT getting worse, and i’m NOT being contaminated. knowing that changes everything.

4. i don’t freak out about much. it’s hard for me to even curse when i drop a glass dish on our tile floor and it shatters 50 feet in all directions. why? because ‘i’m breaking my adrenaline cycle’. and it’s working.

the past few weeks have had some weird things, but i’ve resolved not to really worry about them until they last for 10 days or more.

enough for now. more about my weird eye allergy, make-up, food and other stuff soon.

1 year since our poisoning

wow. a year ago this week we moved into a shithole duplex with a natural gas leak, mold and meth lab residue.
does time fly?
no.

we have yet to find out how our new city is. have yet to have a normal home, furniture or beds. but we are now starting to expand our diet and just started the gupta amygdala program this past week. forward and back, forward then back, it seems to be the way things work. 3 steps forward then 2 steps back.
but i hope that shitty pattern is over. i intend it to be 4 steps forward, 1 step back (if there HAS to be a ‘back’ at all).

i know were getting better, we HAVE to be… but then we react to things out of the blue as if were dying.  kind of fucked up. hell, it’s ALL kind of fucked up.
but it may also have a lot to do with the energy of things and people around us. we’re all empaths on multiple levels, and it often screws up any kind of normalcy, even if we were healthy.

many weeks ago, we went to see francis the very day before he went on vacation. the minute we walked into the office, the twins were struck with a overwhelming sickly feeling. we went back into the meditation room to wait, where the boys became nauseous, lightheaded with burnt throats and needed to go outside or they would have thrown up from the sour taste in their mouth, of what they describe as ‘sickness’. it was so putrid to them that i didn’t know what to do. i didn’t taste it, but i felt the heaviness of the place and the usual headache i get from being there.

we were called in when it was our turn and told francis about it. he said that healers like ourselves can often feel things like that, and it was because there were many terminally ill people in the office that day, because he was going on vacation the day after.
we’ve also felt when the room was full of angels, so much it was vibrating and you couldn’t helop but be teary and happy.

but then, we’ve had several ‘not-of-this plane’ activity in our home that was NOT happy. not gonna share to much about that, but just enough for me to remember it on a time-line. hopefully that shit is now under control.

5 days ago i drank coffee for the first time in almost a year. it was weak, organic breakfast blend with coconut milk and stevia and it was AMAZING! i had been doing the first techniques in the gupta program for a couple for days and felt an immediate sense of hope. i took that and got myself a tiny pack of coffee, blessed it and made it.
and i was fine.

last night the boys and i ate WHITE organic red potatoes for the first time as well.
and we were fine.

i bought some dark organic chocolate chips without milk.
and we’re fine.

i have been sleeping withOUT a mask for 4 days and i do NOT have burning sinuses or swollen ears and throat.

i have insomnia. bad. however, for a while there, i made 4am my new bedtime, thus eliminating my insomnia.
but since all our most recent paranormal activity, i now go to bed when the twins go to bed, (around 10:30) and am forced to lay there in pain (from my back injury) for hours until i do fall asleep… IF i ever fall asleep.
some nights i actually fall asleep and get up at 4am, and other nights i’ll go back to my puter in the other room til i get sleepy. which is when the sun is up.
whatever.

homeschooling has been put a bit to the side, as we wait to air out the twins workbooks, which they are extremely sensitive to. it’s ok. we do what we can, without stress, since we have to keep our lives as stress free as possible.

ha to that, since we may be living with my mother and grandmother soon, if out financial situation remains as it is. i have no idea how that will happen, with my moms dog, all their ‘stuff’ and chemicals abound. dont want to hink about it, but may have to shortly.

but not right now.

oh, and lastly, the boys have begun selling their clay creations at the marketplace on weekends, and on etsy. http://theclaycanary.etsy.com

ok. enough for now.

i’m gonna faint

well, i guess it was bound to happen, but i never expected it. i often do well enough in public places to actually GO into them as needed (groceries, post office, etc), and i know how long i can last when inside.

and i also know the places where i can’t even step foot and avoid them like the  plague.
i know my symptoms and how long they last. the migraines, swollen and burn-y throat and sinuses, the confusion and loss of vocabulary for hours afterwards, and sometimes even incontinence if the exposure was bad. but ive never felt i was gonna pass out.

but yet, there we were, looking at the ornamental gourds in a generally tolerable and ‘natural’ grocery store, in which i’d been many times before… and then the world started to close in, and i knew i was about to faint. the ‘oh how cool’, became, ‘we have to go NOW, we have to move, i’m gonna pass out, let’s go!’

i bent over to get blood to my head (what else are you supposed to do?), and squat in the middle of the aisle, as if i’m about to take a dump in the woods.and it helped for about 30 seconds.

so we moved, and im determined to get through this and i refuse to faint. i made it to the checkout line, sprayed god-knows-how-much B12 under my tongue and didnt talk to the cashier. i squatted again in the line, head down, trying not to bring attention to myself and silently yelling at myself, ‘dont you DARE do this!’

i stood up, paid, walked outside, feeling like someone shot me up with something, breathing in the fresh air. i wasnt sure if i was gonna make it to the car, so i booked it as fast as i could and let the boys transfer the few bags and bring the cart back, while i sat in the drivers seat trying to focus my eyes. i drank water, made myself eat a plum i just bought, and made sure i wasnt overbreathing. i had to eat, drink and sit there for a while, before i could feel safe enough to go. i was messed up for hours afterwards. it was weird. and most unwelcomed. and i realize things could be so much worse. (and i told myself this shit better not happen again!)

i got home and drank one alkaseltzer gold tablet and tried to get it together. and after some thought, i realize why this was, since i do not pass out from exposures (so far).
i had not eaten any protein that morning, in fact, i only had a banana shake, so no solid food at all, nevermind protein. plus i didnt have my magnesium in days because i had run out, and that’s a big deal. the store was no more stinky/odorous/chemicaly-laden than usual, i was just more at risk this day. it was stupid, but i LITERALLY had no food, and i had to go buy some.

so now, i know.

school

at home has begun. and it’s good.
i can’t imagine them being in this poor, sad school system. ever. i plan on homeschooling them for the next two years, then them being healthy enough to go to a small high school. we have a great performing arts high school here, which is really the only choice. we’ll see.

the twins were starving for brain-food so they are really good with everything we’ve done so far. but, we’re forced to see  how limited we are with school tools, as most books, almost all school supplies and basic art supplies (even new pencils) are toxic to us. field trips are generally out. no table or chairs, so we sit and lay on the floor, which makes organizing things a bit rough. i tried to buy folders, but they were ALL colored or glossy chromecoat, and created ‘insta-headaches’. we’ll figure it out.

as far as health, things get rough, and then they get better. then they get rough again, then better. 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. we’ve come to accept this.

cub on computer ~ 9-11

but we’ve begun a new chapter with school, and it makes their isolated life far more bearable.
and this is good.

15 weeks

life in the past few weeks…

first, the crappy stuff:

• 3 weeks ago, i drove on a major highway in my moldy van with the windows half down, in 109 degrees, for 40 minutes… then sat in an unventilated office after someone wearing toxic perfume had been… then drove back home the same route. it severely fucked me up. in every way. for three whole weeks. since then it’s hard to drive anywhere, when i was doing so well (before the trip) with gas fumes/exhaust and my van stink. now, i get in the van and my neck, shoulders and jaw freezes up, i have instant headache and i cant handle the a/c on or the exhaust outside. theres no happy place driving. and i was DOING SO FUCKING WELL!!!! i MUST stop ‘trying’ shit when my gut tells me NO!!
• i’m now down to 111lbs. i was 126 in may. i’m 5’7″. this is NOT good.
• have frequent nosebleeds again and not sure why.
• my insomnia can win the olympics, oftentimes going to sleep after 4am, and my sleep is interrupted almost EVERY HOUR by physical back/limb/joint pain and/or ALL of my limbs going numb from the rock hard floor and my anorexic-like physique. then i have to get up at 9-ish to take care of the boys, which is ok, because sleeping hurts.
• my pupils refuse to stay constricted, and i need to wear my grandmas cataract sunglasses whenever i’m outside. there’s a look for ya. i’ll try to rememeber to take a pic of this fashionable look when i can. bright lights inside (including my puter) require dimming as much as possible. again, this is new.
• my reactions have mutated from sharp headaches and nausea from certain exposures, into slurred speech, confusion, forgetfulness and exhaustion. it’s like i’m drunk with brain damage. wtf?? new, new and new.
• i’ve resorted to boiling the ‘clean’ water from the kangen machine, so i can drink it without the insane reaction of my throat swelling and burning, sinuses and ears filling with fluid, and post nasal drip. i assume all those reactions are from the plastic and electricity that the water must pass through on it’s way out. it IS electrified water, and i dont think one needs to be a genius to think it’ll be fine if i can’t even handle emfs. plus, kangen water STILL makes us all really DEhydrated with dry mouths and general feeling-like-shit. the boiled water hydrates us well. i boil it, cool it and then pour it into a glass gallon jug. we now all use glass jars to drink from. ANY kind of plastic bottle cause reactions. (this is new, too)
• i’m acidic as all hell and have no idea why, when i eat an alkaline diet and do what i’m supposed to be doing. i’ve thought of doing the baking soda regime, but then realized i should force myself to drink the kangen water on highest alkaline setting a few times a day, despite the reactions. so i do. about 2 ounces three times a day. i deal with the reaction, but have no idea if it helps cuz my urine is still acidic unless i eat an entire watermelon the day before.
• havent seen my doc since early june, because i ran out of money. we’re physically missing the regular chiropractic adjustments, naet, and muscle testing to see where we’re at. bah
• the boys have gut problems again, anxiety attacks again, severe insomnia, exhaustion and goat poop again. double bah
• some days are good, some days suck ass. when i have to go someplace, the next day(s) usually suck ass, so i’ve learned to pace myself and allow us to not go anywhere without guilt. it seems to work.
• francis says our adrenals are shot, that one of the twins (the one with the worst ptsd and panick attacks and allergies) is in the worst shape of all three of us. says what we’ve been through has caused severe trauma to our bodies, which is why we can’t handle doing more (like acupuncture), or moving through this faster. detoxing from the inside out (via the liver) is NOT a good idea, but rather through the skin. he recommended making turmeric paste to be left on our bodies till it dries, then washed off. supposed to leave our skin yellow for a few days. i bought turmeric, but havent done the paste thing yet, but have put it in our rice and chicken stew. (not a fan of the taste… gah)
• i want more bloodwork. the boys have medicaid so their tests SHOULD be covered, but probably not the ones that they need. and they are also forced to see a medicaid doc-in-the-box in order to stay on medicaid. this is bad.
• i wish to hell i could work. as soon as i get a lawyer and everything squared away with the twins and their schooling, i may get skype and do numerology via the web, and ad design again. i wish i could do bodywork, but my body is not doing what i need it to do. i still need to address my spine when this mcs is over. or perhaps at the same time. a compromised spine leads to all kinds of hell in its own right. triple bah.

now the good stuff:

• i’m homeschooling the boys and im way excited. so are they. the thought of going back to school, where all they experienced was pain and fevers and migraines, and allergies and arrhythmias is put to rest. i homeschooled my older kid for a few years and am now in the process of getting the twins curriculum together, waldorf/mama style. it’ll be good.
• i’ve also started to ‘exercise’ this cambodian body of mine. and make it a point to do yoga-like stretching along with some light resistance training with the twins a couple times a week. since i’ve lost ALL my fat, along with my ass, my boobs and any stomach area so much that you can count my ribs… i’ve decided it’s a way to start from scratch and build/tone my little bit of muscle that remains. i have no cellulite whatsoever, and an incredible cell memory from when i was a gymnast, both allowing me to transform my body in a very short while. which is good, since my energy is next to none. but i KNOW we MUST move our bodies.
• i’ve also gave the boys a massage the other day, with coconut oil, where they actually fell asleep. it was AWESOME. they have some moderate functional conditions which can be corrected through massage (supinated foot, lateral hip rotation, anterior pelvic tilt, kyphosis, crazy tight hamstrings, etc). it felt really good to massage again, since i had to stop last year (before the meth/CO poisoning), due to cervical bulging discs, bone spurs, foraminal stenosis and radiculopathy of my arms and hands. i managed to work on them, then was reminded of my stupid spine problems the next day. this is when i decided to start working out again. i NEED my arms and hands, dammit.
• watermelon=food of gods. we eat one a day. is that normal?
• we’re able to eat corn flour in chips and white potato in certain gluten-free foods, without reaction or inflammation.
• b vitamins=the shit! b-right by jarrow is saving our lives. didnt want the boys to take it every day, but we can all tell when we don’t. our adrenals love the stuff.
• i’ve found a great way to test if foods or supplements are ‘safe’ or good for me. by pendulum. i hold the thing in question in my left hand palm up, and hold pendulum over my left wrist pulse point. if it swings parallel to my arm it’s good, if it swigs perpendicular to my wrist, it’s bad. i found it through a video, which i’ll have to look for and upload a a later time.
• francis says ‘ask and you shall receive’, so i finally asked my holistic doc if she would see me and the boy for free because we’ve gone backwards, hurting, and broke and i fear there may be more than what we’re just dealing with (lyme, cfs, etc). and she said yes.  wow, huh? hopefully we’ll see her next week.

so even thought this has be a seriously fucked up few weeks, i THINK it might still be the transition of our bodies moving into a higher vibration… because logically, we CANNOT be as sick as we were when we first got this, and logically, we CANNOT be going backwards. our diets have changed too radically, i am too conscious of what we eat and take and are doing everything as i feel i should.

so i’ll simply roll with it. and when i’m exhausted, i’ll accept it. i’ll continue to take our supplements (whos list i MUST update) and trust that my intuition is not retarded… and KNOW that every day IS better than the day before, even though we don’t FEEL it to be so at the time.
i also have to take heed in how it’s been told to us by several people that we must go SLOW, because our livers cannot handle going faster, as much as i want to force that to happen. i’ll just keep stretching, doing a modified (as much as my body allows) massaging or doing shiatsu on my kids (wishing i could do it on myself) and doing my little exercises. eating tons of good stuff and using my pendulum to test if things are ok for me or not.

and now i need to sleep. it’s 4:1o.  what did i tell ya?

bah

nightmare of reality and knowing

what do you do when your 12 year old comes to you, 1/2 hour after going to ‘bed’, red-eyed, sweaty and shaking, knowing it’s the beginning of an anxiety attack/breakdown, asking why his body won’t let him cry so he could get it over with and get some sleep. because he hasn’t really slept in a long time.

it’s been a REALLY rough month, all of us feeling as if we went backwards, no docs, hyper-sensitive to all kinds of things, stomach issues, panic attacks, money fears, etc. it was bound to happen soon. none of us are sleeping well. and tonight he’s still up at midnight.

because his mind won’t shut off and it just keeps repeating how awful our life is, how alone and isolated he is… how much his body and his soul hurt all the time, and how he just wants this nightmare to be over and be normal and forget every single thing about this. how he knows a good cry will stop a panic attack and get rid of some of the stress that’s swallowing him.

what about when he actually begins to cry, because he wants to cry… he needs to cry because he has so much built up inside that has to come out… and is trying to cry, but his body says no. his beet-red eyes just well up with tears that roll down his cheeks onto my arms and chest as i hug him… his whine, turning into a forced sob that takes his breath away, gasping for air, even though they’re not ‘real’, because he’s well past the point of crying and is just going through the motions by now.

how about when he tells you that he’s fighting a war within his head… of good and bad. but the bad has more power and pulls him down into hell with its incessant repetition of ‘reality’.
how he goes to bed with lots of good and positive thoughts of us all being healthy and happy (as our bedtime prayer and intention goes)… how he sees himself being normal and playing, going anywhere, being exposed to anything, being able to eat anything and do anything he wants… and it makes him happy.

but then the bad thoughts… the thoughts of now… of ‘reality’… come in and blast out the good thoughts like a grenade. how he struggles to think the good thoughts again, but the bad ones keep sneaking back, stronger each time, as if they have a collective life of their own. he rethinks the good again, more determined each time to keep them there, but can’t compete with the dark thoughts that fill his head. a darkness already placed there by his sociopathic father.

the nightmare of reality with a life of its own. think about that.

and so the war begins, as he lay in bed quietly trying to control what he knows to be truth, from being smothered by his nightly reminder of his own life. trying hard not to think. trying hard to make his mind blank, to push out of the demon of reality. trying to be still, to be tired enough to sleep. trying not to cry, but wanting to cry at the same time. trying to still his racing heart, trying to calm his stomach as it coils itself into a ball gnawing at his gut, trying to stop the sweat and the hyperventilation and the muscles in his neck from freezing up. and this in itself causes more stress, it’s own vicious cycle, adding to the gigantic mountain of stress making things ugly enough to sometimes consider leaving this place for a peaceful one. where he can at some point start over with good karma in tow. (we’ve all had those fleeting thoughts over the past 7 months.)

the problem : his reality is killing the fantasy of his truth.

his truth is KNOWING we will heal. he KNOWS we will be happy. he KNOWS this fucked up mcs/adrenal/liver/leakygut/candida/blood sugar bullshit is temporary, and this will one day be a memory. he goes to bed with that ‘fantasy/truth’ every night. he believes it as much as anyone can believe anything.
he has plans for when we get better. there is no other option than to be well… healthier than we ever were. we all hold this as truth. we will be healthy, end of story.

but his mind refuses to allow him to hold it, to feel it, to think it for more than a few seconds… like its challenging him. who’s really in control here?

so what do you do when this beautiful sweet soul, who’s been through hell and back, who’s had no normal life so far, and is exhausted, frazzled and at his wits end comes to you because he can’t cry? because he can’t stop, or even slow down his mind and he has no control over it.

well… i hold him. i let him talk, and i listen. and i rock him and empathize with the ‘slide show on fast forward’. the hundreds of thoughts that won’t stop, even if your body is exhausted… your mind refuses to slow down, as if its on overdrive and out of control.

and then i explain there is nothing to fear within those thoughts because once you KNOW something… when you really know it… there is no need to ever dwell on it. no need to feel it or to keep it. the thought of it is no longer even needed again.
because the knowing that something IS, is basic magik. it’s what makes things so.

so even though those thoughts make him happy that he wants to go to sleep with them and ‘be’ in that world for a long time… he doesn’t NEED them like that to make it so. he doesn’t need to worry that he isn’t thinking them enough for them to come true. because knowing is the most powerful tool anyone can own.

and i tell him when those bad thoughts come in and smother the good ones, he has to tell them (the bad thoughts) to fuck off, and understand it’s simply his own logic that is challenging him. his ptsd from his shithead has taken on such a solid form, we’ve decided to name it tonight. rob. because it robs him of peace and happiness.

i tell my child to tell ‘rob’ to piss off when he comes and stomps on the happy thoughts, but to expect rob to react like a bully. if you give a bully attention, you’ll only fuel him on and there WILL be a fight.
but if you KNOW he’s just a pathetic coward who needs attention, then you are automatically more powerful and in control. just by him knowing what is happening, changes the power.

and i remind him of one of his first full-on panic attacks, where he thought he was dying. i, fortunately knew better, and had to explain exactly what was happening to him by searching it online and letting him read it. once he read all the symptoms, half of them immediately disappeared. the attack lessened and he KNEW he wasn’t dying or having a heart attack or kidney failure, etc. or even something silly like the panic and fear first time he ate fresh beets and peed bright red. when we googled that oprah peed red from beets too, the fear stopped on a dime.
and this is kinda like that.

so, after an hour of sitting with him on the floor, being mama, he was calm enough to go to sleep.
we had talked about the ‘reality’ of our shitty situation, about money-driven and incompetent doctors, about meth slumlords and psycho dads. about chemicals and stupid people and our bodies and rob.

and then he went to sleep immediately. and i went to my computer room and cried.

it’s time to start shaking things up.

4:41am. time for me to sleep.

friends

been a long time since i’ve updated. just too tired… too much on my mind… and not feeling well. i can’t explain it.

however…

my amazing, beautiful best friend came out to visit me for 4 days, a few weeks ago. it was absolutely wonderful having him here, having all the time in the world to talk and just ‘be’, without rush or purpose. he was totally up for just staying home, and not going anywhere, (even in this fantastic, tons-of-shit-to-do, weird, live music capital of the world)… because i can’t. he simply became part of our indoor existence, and daily food buying and cooking. he came just to visit me. and i can’t thank him enough.

he lives his life in a consciously aware state… sustainable, chemical-free and healthy. there was NOTHING he had to change to be ‘safe’ around us, even down to his baking soda deodorant, scent-free and natural detergent, and gluten-free diet. no furniture, rock-hard tile floor, no problem. it was a visit with no fear, as easy as it had always been, and it felt like home.

soul siblings…

me and j ~ 7-11

me and j ~ 7-11

he helped move out a shitload of things from a closet to my front carport, so i can go through them and get rid, put into storage, etc. i had to wear my respirator for a couple of hours, which was a first. it helped a lot. i’ve not been able to get NEAR that stuff since we moved into this house in january, and now it’s outside to air out. i have to wear the respirator every time i go through it, but it’s an entire closet of stuff that’s finally out of the house. a big deal.

we talked and talked and talked. i miss them… our 5 hour talks. what would have been accompanied with a hike, or walk or sunsoaking on a blanket in a park, was limited to the walls of my home. his bed was a soft/polyester comforter borrowed from my mom, which is rolled up and kept in our second bedroom for my older son (whenever he sleeps over). it makes us sick when it’s sprawled out, but fine when rolled up in the corner. i wish to god i could sleep on it.

he visited with my big kid and my mom and grandma… played video games with the twins and just hung out with me.
and though it was a fleeting 3.5 days… this tiny bit of true and unconditional friend love, reminded me of who i am. it made me feel real, when i always feel i’m in some fucked-up nightmare.
it was just lovely. and with the exception of my mom, he’s the only non-canary who might now understand our situation.

i cried when he left.

and so… my life continued on as before.

i love you, j. thank you.
♥

update on alkaline water and arm rash

so, i’ve decided i need to follow up on a couple things.

the alkaline water filter, which i’ve had for 2 weeks, and my weird rash that came on 7 days ago.

our kangen alkaline water

well, we drank the alkaline water, alternating between the lowest alkaline setting and clean for about 4 days, and we all continued to feel like shit so i stopped about 7 days into it and drank only the machine’s clean water and our old purified water from the culligan refill dispensers at the grocery store for the following 3 days, (which we were drinking before the machine was givin to us).

now, i dont know if i’m having a reaction to the actual machine itself… the plastic tubing, the electronic plates that the water must run over, etc. but the whole thing is plastic sitting on my counter and when i drink from it, i get a swollen throat and have SOME reaction, immediately. plus it makes us thirsty as hell and feel super DEhydrated.

so, when seeing francis for the third time last friday, i mentioned how i haven’t bumped it up to the next alkaline level because it makes us so feel bad. i KNOW i’m detoxing, but still, there’s something else ‘not right’ about drinking from it. he told me we are definitely detoxing, and that we have A LOT more detoxing ahead of us, and to try to bump the alkaline level up.

now, i know he (or any non-canary) doesn’t fully understand the frustration of chemically sensitive people and every little detail about their environment, because even the ionizer/air cleaner in his healing rooms gives us headaches, despite how it cleans/electrifies the air. the dark oil-based stain on his (and anyone’s) furniture and the vinyl on chairs creates a trigger, even though the windows are open and the air is being cleaned. all our docs offices feel the same way. the formaldehyde from their lobby furniture, couches or bookcases, etc. no one thinks about that.

so unless a person actually HAS mcs, they truly whole-heartedly, think their space is ‘clean and safe’, because it really is as clean as a non-mcs person is ABLE to believe it’s clean and safe. it’s NOT normal to think about those unseen details, but we canaries HAVE to, because we’re hit with it EVERYWHERE we go.

he wants us to try to bump up the alkaline because it will be only of benefit. i said i’ll try. i wasn’t going to try to explain how sensitive i am to the machine itself.
and i did try. i really did, because i want to drink it so badly. but i can’t. so i’m still alternating between clean and low alkaline, and that’s where we have to stay. i only have the machine for another 2 weeks, so hopefully it would have helped IN SOME WAY, to speed along our recovery. then i guess it’s back to our grocery store refil water.

my rash

it’s been a week since that weird rash appeared on my arm. and it was the worst on day 3 and faded 80% by day 5.
it got itchy and then it felt better, got redder and bumpier, then got less. it seemed scrubbing the area while in my epsom salt baths relieved it for several hours, then it came back. it’s now 7 days later and it’s the first day i can’t see it. it’s a little itchy for a few minutes every few hours, but not visually noticeable. so, i chock it up to detoxing in some way.

i KNOW coconut oil kills candida, so i’m hoping it’s doing it’s job, since it was the one thing we added a couple days before the rash showed up. i put two or three tablespoons in our morning smoothie, and sometimes just eat a spoonful later in the day, when i think about it. i also saute our chicken with it and put it into our rice cooker. good god, that stuff is delicious. i wonder if i can just whip it with stevia and make a topping for fruit.

anyhooze… i don’t think the rash was from the corn in the quinoi, because i ate it again, (we don’t have the biggest vault of diet options when the cupboards are bare) and either each box is different, or I am different each time i eat it, because my reaction after eating it was just very slight post nasal drip and congestion.
i can handle that reaction from corn, but rashes are not ok, unless it’s a detox rash. then it kind of makes me happy.

10 weeks

it’s been 10 weeks since we began our detox aka ‘starvation diet’ and ‘isolation therapy’. (he he… isolation therapy… good one mama)
and we’re much better than we were when we first began this drama, and getting better every day.

here are some pics of me yesterday, july 17, 2011. thought i need to document how i look now. which is like hell.

7-11 (1) 10 weeks into detox

7-11 (2) 10 weeks into detox

7-11 gray hair

i’ve lost 13 pounds, which puts me at 113lbs, and 5’7″. losing weight is BAD. i was finally at a perfect 126 lbs, and i tell ya, it took a lot of work eating lots of carbs ALL THE TIME to gain those few pounds. it’s always been SO hard for me to gain weight… all my life. and my thyroid always tested fine. still does.

i was 126 lbs when i moved in november 20 10, just 8.5 months ago, and loved it. i finally had some ‘meat’ on my bones, a curvy ass, some boobs, and a tiny little pooch round my belly button. my face was full, and i loved being that weight. i blamed my happy little padding on my age, and i finally felt female. my gray roots covered by clairol, to keep my natural black crazy locks something i was proud of.

10-10 right before we moved into sick house

in the past ten weeks, i’ve lost it all, and then some. and i honestly have NO idea how to gain the weight back. or how to have my growing 12 year old boys get their calories and carbs so they can grow properly, when we are on such a strict diet that is necessary right now. my tailbone is permanently bruised because my ass is GONE, and the blankets on the floor (our beds) are hard. my hair is… well.. always in a bun, so it doesn’t really matter.

* now, i WANT to type in detail about how shitty we feel most of the time, and how shitty our lives seem to be, and how god-awful shitty it is to see my babies hurt, and minds go down the drain… and and and and and…
how guilty i feel about everything, and how i dont have any fucking money or food now (cuz i have to redo my food stamp application) or clothes or how much i miss EVERYTHING.

but i won’t. (see how clever that was? damn, i’m on a roll)

because we ARE better, and we ARE getting better every day. i had no idea how fucked up we were, and how much true detoxing we have to go through, until last friday when we saw francis for the third time. so i MUST constantly remind myself that i need to take BABY STEPS. and that it’s ok to do that.
b a b y  s t e p s
now, if everyone else can understand that, life would be stress-free.

on a really positive note, something internally has shifted. i’ve gotten a sense of peace i didn’t have before, and i believe this is due to francis’ help. that and the fact that i don’t give a shit about forcing things that just can’t be forced… like the boys not going back to school.

example: i had a full jar of sunflower butter ($6) smash on the tile floor yesterday, shattering glass EVERYWHERE, which made me stop in my tracks to spend a half hour picking it up. two weeks ago, i would have cried. i would have sat on the floor and bawled. it was our only jar of nut butter, i’m completely out of food stamps and i have literally $2 to my name. LITERALLY. we are out of food and we need to have protein (SOMEthing) every few hours. i was about to try to concoct something to eat when this happened, (about 8 at night) the worst time.
but i didn’t cry. i didn’t do anything but curse a little, bitch in two sentences out loud, and peacefully clean it up. “oh well, there goes our only food/protein we have left, and now i have to work more. meh”

that was huge. because it was no big deal. i’m done with big deals. in fact, i’m not sure if i can even cry anymore.
no, no… yes i can. but not about that shit anymore.

and the boys school… no, they’re not going back to school in a month. so, i’ll either homeschool them, or do what i can do to get a SCENT-FREE teacher from the district come to the house again. pressure to recover from this, is not healthy. not having the twins go back to school sucks, but there’s no way that was gonna happen. and the stress on them even thinking about going back, was overwhelming.

i wish to god that they could attend a waldorf or montessori school for FREE. those schools are where they have always belonged, and a place i think they MIGHT be able to handle (chemically) by the end of the year. maybe?
one can daydream, right. (at $11k a year for ONE KID, it really is a fantasy.) those schools are more than college. oh, i wish they could go.
bah

~

on more health related updates…
our poop is better all the way around. tmi, i know… but anyone in the same boat will tell you that your poop is the most important key to determining how your progress is moving along. big huzzah for our crap. (for the boys, it’s a HUGE deal.)

i haven’t had a nosebleed in over a month. woot!

we can handle driving windows down, better down than with the a/c on.

all of our food sensitivities seem to have grown, but i anticipate those to die down eventually.

anyway…. there ya go. 10 weeks.