Baby Bennett...

Our sweet pastor friends Ben and Megan Coleman have fought a very courageous battle with their precious son Bennett for the last four months. 

Sunday night at 1:15am little Bennett went to see his Jesus.

Ben and Megan have shown tremendous strength and faith in their Lord Jesus Christ during the entire battle. You can read more about them here on their blog: 

#Pray4BabyBennett

Their blog will bless you and inspire you because of their amazing faith.

You should read it.

Their eloquence with words alone should get you reading their blog.

What will keep you reading it is their absolute resolve in clinging to the Lord even through the most painful moments of their lives. Their faith is blessing me as I read their blog, and it is causing me to dig deeper in my own walk. I want to have the kind of faith that Megan and Ben have. What a beautiful witness.

Bennett was a St. Jude patient. I have never been a St. Jude donor before, but after watching how much they fought for that sweet baby boy, I will be a lifelong contributor now. 

YOU CAN DONATE HERE!!

Our friend Bruce Mickells at 97.3 The Dawg is very involved with St. Jude and had the privilege of interviewing Ben about their journey. Read more about that here:

The Dawg interview with Ben

KATC also ran a story on Bennett. You can see this child touched more lives in 21 months than many people do in an entire lifetime.

KATC

Wonder why this is making such big news?

Because God is getting all the glory through ALL of this. 

Because GOD is being glorified in the midst of human suffering.

Because GOD is being given all the honor in tragedy.

And He is using this precious family to bring many people to the foot of the cross.

God is bigger than cancer.

And that stupid cancer is dead.

But that sweet baby boy is in the arms of his Savior today. 

Alive.

Healed. Whole. Healthy.

AMEN!!!!

The victory over death has been won!

"But thanks to God He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ..."

1 Corinthians 15:57

And the joy is made complete when we know that we will see him again.

1 Thessalonians 4:13 tells us that we do not have to grieve like those who have no hope.

Our hope is in Jesus Christ.

And therefore, while we are saddened for the Colemans, we KNOW that they will all be united again one day in paradise.

Do you have that hope?

The Coconut Oil Miracle

Coconuts are miraculous!

And coconut oil is SO good for us. Sadly, political propaganda from the American Soybean Association campaigned to replace tropical oils with polyunsaturated (your DANGER antennae should go up at that word) soybean oil. Because of this campaign, everyone from local restaurants to nationwide theater chains switched from the "scary" saturated coconut oil to these more "healthy" polyunsaturated (danger danger!) oils.

For over 3 decades we've been indoctrinated into believing that saturated fats equal "bad" fats, leading to high cholesterol, heart disease, and obesity. What they failed to mention is that a certain subgroup of saturated fats have many health benefits, including weight LOSS (yes, you read that right). A fat that claims to help you lose weight.

Now they have my attention.

In Bruce Fife's book The Coconut Oil Miracle, he explains the myriad health benefits of this delicious oil. 

Coconut Oil can:

• get rid of chronic psoriasis 
• eliminate dandruff
• remove precancerous skin lesions
• speed up recovery from the flu
• stop bladder infections
• help you overcome chronic fatigue
• treat dental cavities
• heal peptic ulcers
• heal prostate issues
• stop hepatitis-C
• prevent heart disease
• strengthen the immune system
• promote weight loss

Wait. OIL can do that??  Yes.  Read on.

Coconuts and coconut oil has been used as a major source of food and medicine for thousands of years for millions of people in Asia and the Pacific Islands, where there is virtually NO heart disease, hypertension, cancer, arthritis or any other modern degenerative diseases.

So if you're still not convinced, as you hold your canola oil and margarine in a vice grip, let me talk to you a second about free radicals.

Free radicals can attack our cells, literally ripping their protective membranes apart. The more free radicals attack our cells, the greater the damage and potential for serious destruction to vital organs, joints, and bodily systems. Research has linked free-radical damage to major diseases including cancer, heart disease, atherosclerosis, stroke, varicose veins, hemorrhoids, high blood pressure, arthritis, digestive problems, allergies, diabetes, cataracts, and memory loss/dementia.

The type of oil you use has a profound effect on your health because many oils promote free radicals!! And polyunsaturated oils all cause free radicals to form. So any oil that's made of soybeans is bad for you. Vegetable oils cause free radicals to form as well. Canola oil is rancid. But the FDA would never tell us this. 

Olive oil is great for you but it should only be used cold. It should not be heated up. Use olive oil for salad dressings and on pasta. And make sure you get your olive oil from a reputable source- somewhere you know they process the olives correctly and that they store the oil in the proper container. 

I encourage you to read this book so you can learn more about the amazing health benefits of coconut oil. 

Personal Testimony

Personally, I know it works. I have lost weight and I no longer have high blood pressure since I began using coconut oil. My blood pressure used to be 150/100 and I was on two different blood pressure prescription medications. Now, I put a teaspoon of it in my coffee each morning, and I use it to cook my eggs in the morning. I put it in my hair and on my dry skin. I also have a weird looking corn or planter's wart on my pinkie toe that is healing thanks to coconut oil. I kid you not. This stuff is magic. God knew what he was doing when he made this wonderful oil.

Brands I use:

Links are connected if you want to check out the websites

Tropical Traditions

Dr. Bronner's

Nutiva

Reading Labels

I've read labels.

EVERY body has read labels, right?

I mean, I look at the calories and stuff. 

Fat, sugar, carbs. Check.

Sometimes, depending on the diet du jour, I might look at the amount of carbs, or the sugar content, or the fats in a food. But that's where my reading labels ended. 

Oh yeah one time I read calories. And tried to count them in a day. 

Yeah that lasted until about noon.

It has never dawned on me that I should read all those ingredients. When I was on the Sugar Busters diet, I would scan the ingredients list to be sure that sugar wasn't one of the first five ingredients. But all that red dye no. 9, sodium phosphate and partially hydrogenated soybean oil didn't matter to me. 

I didn't know what it meant, so why bother reading it?

Take a closer look at Cheetos:

Ingredients and what it REALLY means:

Enriched corn meal = GMO corn lacking any nutritional value

Vegetable oil = rancid, soy-filled

Cheese seasoning= what tha...., and more soy

Partially hydrogenated soybean oil = MORE soy

Canola oil = READ more HERE: Con-ola 

Sour Cream= skim milk, no nutrients

Salt

Whey protein concentrate= in my chips? Why??

Monosodium Glutamate = MSG (to make it tastier and addictive) which causes side effects in many people

Natural and Artificial flavors = vague labeling to cover many sins

Lactic Acid  and Citric Acid= preservatives

Artificial colors= vague labeling to cover many sins

Salt = listed twice??

SIGH.....Just thinking about eating all those chemicals makes me gag. Dang.

 Ignorance WAS bliss.

I LOVE Cheetos! 

I just won't be caught dead eating them now. 

Unless I'm on vacation. Then all rules are on hiatus. ;)

When I started analyzing labels, this whole approach to eating started to come into focus. 

The more chemicals and preservatives, the junkier the food. 

So the question now is, where do you start?  We have to eat. It's not realistic to think we'll just eat fruits and vegetables for the rest of our lives. That would be great (not really, I'd miss chocolate) but it's just not realistic. 

So where do you start?

So this is how I started. First thing we got rid of in our diet was gluten. We literally went through all our cabinets and the fridge and tossed out anything with gluten. That took about two weeks. 

Then over time, we took out sugar. 

Then I ruled out products with junky oils for several weeks. 

This is how I cut out all junk oils. If it has any hydrogenated oils, canola oil,  or soybean oil, I stopped buying it.
And in it's place, I find something similar that's more healthy.
Take for example, my beloved Jif peanut butter. Man I grew up on this stuff.
Jif can't be bad, right?
Read the ingredients:

I ate this stuff for 30+ years and never read the ingredients.

I assumed it was just peanuts.

But do you see it? Hydrogenated vegetable oils- rapeseed and soybean oil.

Hydrogenated oils cause free radicals which cause a ton of problems in our body.
Over time, free radicals can lead to many different diseases. We don't want that.
I'm not saying Jif it toxic. I'm saying that OVER TIME, consuming these kinds of foods will cause you to be ill. And you'll never know it's your unsuspecting jar of Jif. Or cheetos. 

So instead of buying Jif, I searched out a product that my family could live with (ie, TASTE good) but didn't have any of the rancid oils. I started buying organic Maranatha brand peanut butter.

Ingredients: organic peanuts, sea salts.

This works for us.
We still get to eat peanut butter. YAY!! We win.
This peanut butter is soft, doesn't need to be stirred constantly, and tastes fantastic.

I think that's the key- SUBSTITUTE things you like to eat with healthier versions!
And don't feel like you have to toss everything out of your pantry and start fresh.
Just start becoming aware of what's in your food. And then over time, make better choices.

Then as I got the hang of that, I moved on to other chemicals. We just took it slow. 

And at our house, we are still very much a work in progress.

And on any given day I might have a binge on Godiva chocolate bunnies.

That I bought for Easter.
For "Hannah."

And I didn't read any labels (except the word Godiva... and I was sold.)

Dang Easter bunny... 

My friend Cheri told me a great nugget of truth that has helped me along this whole
revamping-my-entire-diet process. 

She said,
"Do you know how to eat an elephant? 
One bite at a time."

You don't have to be perfect. I'm sure not. I keep making mistakes.

And it's usually about chocolate....

But, I'm doing better than I was a few months ago.
And I'll take that.

Hub City Farmer's Market

I love going to the farmer's markets on Saturday mornings. In Lafayette, there are two places I frequent: Hub City Farmer's Market and the Horse Farm. I'm posting this today just in case you might want to go check them out tomorrow!!

Hub City Farmer's market is in the Oil Center across the street from Champagne's grocery store and Koi. Click the link to go straight to their website.

Hub City Farmer's Market

Here are some of the farms that have their produce and meat at the Hub City farmer's market:

Gotreaux Farms

Gotreaux farms has fresh chicken, eggs, and produce every week on sale. Their eggs are THE BEST EGGS that I've ever eaten in my life. The yolks are dark and rich with nutrients. When I cracked the shell on these eggs for the first time, I immediately recalled cooking with my grandmother when I was very little. You really had to hit the shell hard in order for it to crack. The shell is thick, not flimsy and thin like those tacky ones at Walmart. Eww.

All their chickens are free range, organic, and never given hormones or antibiotics. Their meats are nutrient dense and SO healthy. They sell whole chickens as well as packaged breasts, legs, etc. They also sell stock bones and feet to make bone broth!

All of their produce is gorgeous too! We've gotten kale, broccoli, lettuce, and many other veggies here. Delicious!!

Hannah with her little BFF Brielle enjoying the farmers market!

FRESH from the farm to the table.

Brookshire Farms

Brookshire farms is where I get all my beef. Their cattle feed on grass exclusively using a process called rotational grazing, which keeps the ground from becoming overgrazed or undergrazed. In other words, they move the cattle to allow them to feed where there's the most grass available. I have made AMAZING fajitas, stew, and roast using their meat. And the price you pay is worth it's weight in gold when you consider the QUALITY you're getting.

Market Basket

This farm grows organic heirloom vegetables, eggs, and juices wheat grass shots!

HillCrest Creamery

Hill Crest Creamery is where I get all my cream for my coffee. This mama don't like black coffee and I surely don't put "creamer" in my coffee anymore after doing my research and reading the label and seeing what is in the ingredients!! 

So this place is my hookup for weekly FRESH cream!

Next time I'll tell you about the horse farm on Johnston Street!
Happy shopping!

HOORAY! It's sprained!!

My baby has a sprained ankle. HOORAY!!

Huh? Why on earth would a mama cheer for a sprained ankle?  She must be clearly deranged.

I never thought I would be RELIEVED to hear a doctor say that my kid has a sprained ankle.
My initial fear was that the streptococcal bacterial infection decided to stick around and lodge in her ankle. Cellulitis and sprains have the same symptoms: swollen, red, and hot to the touch.
Strep is always on my mind... Isn't that a song?

So I called a pediatrician friend and had her go in immediately for a check up. Dr. Huval did what I assumed she'd do- labs and X-rays. But what I was shocked to find out was that her little ankle was sprained. Sprains are when the ligaments in the ankle are either stretched or torn. So luckily the bone is not broken, but my suspicion is that her rollerblades are to blame.

Rollerblades are an abomination. :)

So now she's trying out her new crutches. Well, they're new for her. They were actually her step gramma's. Emma broke her leg 20 years ago and had these crutches ever since. So Pop Pop fixed them up for Hannah and now she has a new "toy!"

Hannah with Bella, the photo bomber

Healing Rollercoaster

There are days I think I'm losing my mind.

James would tell you that I've ABSOLUTELY lost my mind and there's not chance of recovering it. 

Because some days, I think that I have it figured out (well not all, but the few things I do well), and then there are days that I think I am totally wrong about EVERYTHING and I need to go crawl under a rock. Or hide under the covers for a year or so until Hannah is fully recovered.

The ink hadn't dried on the blog post that I wrote (ha, ink. That's funny.) and Hannah was sick again. SERIOUSLY???  You can't get sick! I just wrote that you were a new kid! All healed and stuff!

Dang it.

This is reason number 3,582 why I probably need to be committed. But I hear Pineville is closed these days. Or not taking new patients. 

Hannah woke up on Wednesday morning around 1am screaming and crying in pain saying her feet were killing her. She was freaking out because she fears the strep infection is coming back. 

I don't blame her.

I was freaking out too. As was my hysterical I mean worried family.

So I called my friend Claire who "gets" this process. She understands that natural healing takes time. That there is a place for western medicine and prescription drugs when they're needed. And that they aren't poison but can help. But she also realizes, like I do, that the pharmaceutical industry has these doctors pumping out WAY more meds than are necessary, and that there are natural methods to healing that are so much better for our bodies. If there is a natural option for us, that's the route we will go. If she is not healing, then we will supplement with prescription Rx meds so that she can get over this.

This is called integrative medicine. And Lafayette DESPERATELY needs an integrative or functional medicine doctor who understands the benefits of supplements, herbs, and homeopathic treatment as well as being able to give us the best possible option on western medicine if her case warranted it. 

We are dealing with a beast of a bacteria. Streptococcal-A bacteria is a monster. And I wish I didn't know it so intimately that I don't even have to look it up to spell it. It's definitely not my friend. It's a punk that's invaded my kid and I want it out of her.  If I was diagnosing her, I think she has cellulitis in her left ankle. She had it when she was 10 months old so I'm familiar with this illness. It's the same strep bacteria that causes the skin to be red, swollen and tender. Her ankle has all these symptoms. It makes sense that as the medicine has pulled the strep out of her body that it would lodge in her feet on its way out of her body. 

My job as Hannah's mama is to make the absolute BEST decisions possible for her. 

I just have to remind myself that if she takes a (yucky nasty horrible no good) antibiotic, that it doesn't mean I'm a bad mom. It means that she needed the (yucky nasty horrible no good) antibiotic.

I'm tired and weary from this fight.

I need a break.

And I'm still holding out for that Xanax.

Please pray for us.

"Come unto me, all ye that labor, and I will give you rest. 

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lonely at heart.

 And you shall find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." 

~ Matthew 11:28-30

Food as Medicine, part one: Get rid of the Gluten

Okay. This is news to me.

I don't know if it's because I grew up in the 80s, or if it's because we lived through the oil field crash, or whatever, but growing up I believed that if it was in the grocery store, it must be good for you. And if you bought it, you better eat it.

I never questioned it.

Maybe I'm just uninformed. Blissfully ignorant. But I lived 38 years (haha that's a good one. Don't do the math...) and I just assumed that all grocery store items were safe for human consumption. Now, don't get me wrong. And while I knew Cheetoes and Pop Tarts aren't a healthy choice,  the question of the safety of their ingredients NEVER dawned on me.

Until Hannah got sick.  And then my whole world stopped.

Dee (our naturopath) told me to get Hannah off of gluten and dairy right away. What the heck is a gluten? I'm pretty sure we don't cook that.

So off I went to learn about what gluten is and what Hannah can't have anymore.

Was I SHOCKED.

Here's a list of gluten. Oh yeah. The food industry knows that many people are "in the know" about the toxic effects of gluten on the body, so they don't come out and say I CONTAIN GLUTEN!! Instead they have about 3 dozen names for this trash. See below:

Names of GLUTEN:

Barley: (in many types of alcohol and instant coffees)

Barley grass

Barley malt

Barley groats

Bran

Bulgar (used in tabouli)

Couscous

Durum flour 

Eincorn

Emmer

Farina

Flour:

Bleached flour

Bleached flour

Self-rising flour

Unbleached flour 

Whole-grain flour

Graham 

Kamut

Malt:

Malt flavoring

Malt syrup

Malt vinegar

Matzo (used in Jewish food)

Modified food starch

Orzo (used in Italian food)

Panko (used in Japanese food)

Rye

Seitan (in tofu)

Semolina (pasta)

Spelt

Udon (Japanese noodles)

Vodka (uses rye)

Wheat:

Wheat bran

Wheat fiber (used in GUM!)

Wheat germ

Cracked wheat

Wheat starch

You've got to be kidding me.

So now what? No pasta, no bread, no carbs, no life!
At least that's what I thought.

Come to find out, there is a huge gluten-free wave in the food industry. I thought I was saved. We started searching out all products that had the label:

 I made lists and charts and checklists of what stores had what gluten free options. We found bread, pasta, cookies, crackers, and all of our favorite JUNK FOODS. We thought we were eating so doggone healthy. I was thrilled.

Take THAT gluten-hiding food industry! We got our junk back. BOO-YAH.

And so we ate like that for several weeks. But as I continued on this health journey, I realized that even though food might be labeled as "gluten-free," it doesn't mean it's necessarily HEALTHY. 

I have several friends that are gluten intolerant and some that have Celiac disease, a condition that causes an immune response in the small intestine. Over time, this reaction produces inflammation that damages the small intestine's lining and prevents absorption of vital nutrients.  So for these friends, having gluten-free options like cookies and brownies are amazing because if they were not available, they would never get to have a nice treat once in a while.  

But for a person like me who is new to all this food-is-medicine, I just replaced all my gluten-filled JUNK with gluten-FREE junk, and thought we had arrived. HEALTHY!!!!!!

Now I know better.

As we travel this road to health, my eyes are continually opened to the ingredients list on food. I used to think I read labels. I did not.  Next time we meet, I'll go over how I changed the way I read labels. 

Until then, have a great week!

We have a diagnosis!

We have a diagnosis! 

(or, we could just call this post "The reason I haven't had a stroke yet")


On the suggestion of my friend Claire, we went to see a naturopath- Dee Baudoin, a Certified Natural Health Practitioner and Master Herbalist who holds a Doctorate of Naturopathy. She works at Health Matters on Kaliste Saloom Road in Lafayette as well as at an office in Birmingham, Alabama. I can't say enough about her. She's been wonderful to us and I highly recommend her to EVERYONE!!!!

http://www.healthmattersus.com/

She performed a biofeedback assessment scan that evaluates the body for physiological stressors. In this scan, Dee discovered that Hannah had a dangerous strain of Strep in her body. This kind of Strep is called "Group-A Streptococcal infection" and it all started as your run-of-the-mill strep throat back in October. Unfortunately, the antibiotic  that the walk-in clinic doctor prescribed didn't work (cue scary music), and the strep manifested in her organs. It traveled throughout her body and landed in her bladder. The bacterial overgrowth also spread into her ureter tubes, kidneys, colon, and gall bladder. It then colonized in her joints, causing the massive joint pain and inflammation. She was in excruciating pain!  Her kidneys were not functioning properly and Dee said if not corrected, she could have gone into kidney failure. 

Kidney failure!

And FIVE medical professionals with all their x-rays, blood work, bone marrow aspiration, AND two urinalysis, they couldn't find this? I'm baffled.

Even with this grim finding, Dee was confident that with her regimen that's she prescribed for Hannah, she would be healed of this bacteria within two months. 

My sick girl. Fever 103.7

We praised God for this report because everyone we came in contact with in the medical field could not find out what was wrong with her. But in one scan, Dee realized Hannah was on her way to full blown kidney failure!! And the bacteria had colonized first in her feet, then in her knees which caused her to have intense pain and misery, and then into her elbows, and the week we went to see Dee, her pain was in her neck. I shudder at the thought that it could have gone into her brain. 

When we got home and had this diagnosis, I got online and googled strep throat plus kidneys and found this interesting article. Hannah's name could have been inserted throughout this article.

http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/communications/familymedicine/archives/2006/2948(FM).htm

And now, the treatment:

Dee prescribed four homeopathic medications (the drops in front). She also put Hannah on three homeopathic series (the ones in the boxes)- which are intense on her little system, and challenging to give to an eight year old because they're taken under the tongue (sublingually). She was also put on many different herbal supplements for her immune system, one was an anti-fungal, one was for muscle pain, and several others. 

Overnight Hannah went from never taking a single pill in her life to swallowing eighteen pills a DAY. It was extremely intense. And she was a champ.

But let me show you the difference 24 hours makes.... 

Today (4/15/14) marks the last day of treatment. She finished all her homeopathic series, and she's nearly done all her drops and herbs. She is so happy to have completed her treatment. And she wants to throw a "no more meds" party.

Ha. My girl. The party animal. Any excuse.

In addition to the natural herbs and supplements, we also started healing her little body with food. This sent me on a three month intense study of all things food and the fact that food is medicinal or destructive. I never knew.

MIND. BLOWN.

Dee instructed us to change our diet. And it was in this decision that I started pursuing healing Hannah through food. But I'll save that for another post. :)  Gotta keep you reading!

We continue to trust the Lord as He leads us in this process of getting Hannah healed and whole again. We believe that the prayers of so many people are the reason we were able to find out the answers as to why she's had fever for so long. 
Now this isn't saying that I didn't FREAK OUT last week when she started running fever.... we all thought "OH MY GOODNESS IT'S BACK!!!!!!"  But after I had a complete fit, I realized that although she's healed, she isn't immune to infection!! She will still get things that kids get. Eww.

And of course, as I am writing this entry, she woke up last night with both feet hurting at 1am, and immediately I lost several years off my life because sheer panic and terror kick in with thoughts of strep creeping back into her joints. Yeah, I didn't get much sleep. But we are praying it is just growing pains. If you know my kid, you know how extremely tall she is, and growing pains could explain the pain. But there is no pain as sad and heartbreaking as hearing your child crying in the middle of the night and there's nothing you can do to console her. I'm tired.

Pass the Xanax. 

In pursuit of healing Hannah

I have one child.

Six years and thousands of prayers later, we had a baby. It was not easy. We went through many many tears of sadness and desperation to have a child, all while subconsciously hearing the tick-tick-ticking of my biological clock.

After checking my temp, family planning, rhythm method, and fertility treatments- all to no avail- my wonderful doc discovered that I have PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) and those pesky cysts get in the way of the egg that I was needing to make a sweet baby.

After only two weeks on Metformin (a common drug used for PCOS), I was pregnant. It was so shocking that I called my OB friend Mika because I didn't believe that the pregnancy test was accurate. So I did five. She said, "You can have false negatives, Caryn. But very rarely do you EVER have a false positive. Go call Fuse."  So I called Dr. Fuselier and he called me back- and it was on a SATURDAY and he wasn't on call. He told me that he could not believe it!! Metformin patients usually take a year to get their hormones regulated enough to have a baby.

Whoot whoot!! Our God is good.

We had Hannah in 2005 and she has brought more delight to our lives than anything I can think of. She is the only grand baby on my side of the family (I'm an only child now, but that's a story for another blog entry). Being the only grand child, she is incredibly loved and cherished by my family.

She was a VERY healthy child. She never had one ear ache, never had surgery. We were just blessed.
So in October 2013 when she got strep throat, we thought nothing of it. We went to a walk-in clinic and the doc gave her a Rx for an antibiotic. We came home and gave it to her. And when she got better she was back at school, like normal. Over thanksgiving we even took her to Disney World.

On December 20th, Hannah had a school play where she was a backup singer in "Elfis and the Sleigh Riders."  She had a blast being on stage (wonder where she gets THAT from?!) but that day was the last day she would ever go back to public school.

That night she started running fever of 103. She continued to run fever for almost TWO STRAIGHT MONTHS.

Two months!!

She was sick all through Christmas Eve, Christmas day, the entire Christmas break, New Years, and almost all of January and February.

Many many MANY doctor visits came with this fever. She was swabbed four different times for flu AND for strep. We practically have our own chairs in the waiting room at the Children's Specialty Hospital.  They took so much blood that my aunt swore she would run out. And they did so many X-rays on her that she actually had a high level of radiation in her body. Not kidding.

Her pediatricians couldn't find the root cause of her fever so they sent her to a hematology oncologist. That's not a good feeling to be told you're being sent to a cancer doctor.

Enter mama's ulcer.

The oncologist ordered a bone marrow extraction and biopsy.

This was getting way more serious than my nerve could handle.

Hannah and her Sissy- Bone Marrow procedure

This highly invasive and painful procedure turned up NOTHING.

So off we went to specialists at Tulane in New Orleans. 

The first specialist that reviewed Hannah's case is a specialist in immunology, rheumatology, and allergies. She said that based on Hannah's case, did not need to be seen by her. She needed to see an Infectious Disease specialist. So James, my mom, my aunt, and I all took off work and drove to New Orleans to Tulane Medical Center to meet with this Infectious Disease specialist. It was a big day for us and we thought that we might hear really bad news, so we braved the horrible weather and the fears of the unknown and went in to the office. 

And then he said it.  

He said that Hannah was "the PILLAR of health."  WHAT??????

What he said sent me on a downward spiral into the abyss of anger, frustration, and fear that we will never find out what's making my only daughter so sick.  I don't remember talking or breathing or anything on that long drive home. But it was in that moment that I decided to take her health into my own hands and away from western medicine. 

Next blog post I'll go into detail about what I found that healed Hannah of her ailments. 

And it's SHOCKING what was wrong.

Stay tuned!  :)