Pertussis and Vitamin C

Well, this week I'm a-dither again over pertussis.  Omaha has a high incidence at the current time, including cases at schools within a mile of our home.  Our family has been blessed, yet a third time, with exceptional health care providers who are interested and open to alternatives to allopathic (standard Western pharmeceutical) treatment of health issues. 

I was freaking out this week because my kids all contracted some really nasty virus involving spiking fevers and a whooping  cough.  But not whooping cough.  Thank the Lord.

Anyhoo, I came across this article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC536087/pdf/canmedaj00183-0060.pdf

Naturally, this article will be received by many with great skepticism.  However, I am very interested in medical journals from about 1880 through about 1940 because they represent the end of the accumulation of alternative medical wisdom in Western medicine.  At the time, of course, it wasn't alternative, and most medicines were made in-house by 'chemists', aka pharmacists.  Most medicines were made from natural substances, aka plants.  While ascorbic acid is not (the subject of the article), neither is ascorbic acid a pharmeceutical.

Unfortunately, in the thirties and forties, medicine became big business, homeopathic information was yanked from medical textbooks, and pharmacists became pill dispensers instead of pill MAKERs.  In the 1970s, Adelle Davis (nutritionist, writer and medical researcher), tried to find out why a reputable study on vitamion C for the common cold was refused publication, she was told by the editor of a big-time medical journal that he'd be run out of business if he dared print information on a cheap, readily available treatment for the common cold.

Personally, I have used the technique described in the article (I thought I made up the term "Vitamin C loading", but maybe not?).  It's a fascinating phenomenon.  On a regular day my body only absorbs about 3 grams of Vitamin C, but as soon as I'm ill I can take 10-12 grams before reaching tolerance.  (As described in the article, you find out how much your body can absorb by noting when your bowels get loose, then you back off a gram or two the next day.)

Once, when I was pregnant with Rosie, I had a terrible virus and my temperature kept creeping up till it was hanging out around 104- not a pretty picture with a 20 week old baby in utero.  Under my doctor and midwife's directions, I took 25 grams of Vitamin C per day for 5 days straight to fight the infection.  It also kept that fever down in a safer range.  If you think this all sounds like nonsense, go ahead, take 12 grams of Vitamin C and see what happens!  Then take 12 grams of Vitamin C when you have a cold and see what heppens.  (Actually, don't do that.  You need to have a small amount of Vitamin C supplemented every day when you feel fine for it to work well without messing up your system when you are sick.)

If this still all sounds ridiculous to you, consider that many mammals, rats for one, make their own Vitamin C.  They don't need to get it from thier diet.  When rats are stressed or sick, they make about 20 times more Vitamin C as usual.  Don't take my word for any of this, though.  By all means, find somewhere to read about it for yourself.

And ya, google is fine.  I recently had a doctor friend confide in me that he uses google about equally as he uses the books lining his office wall.  Go figure.

Ok, that was longer than intended.  I'm off to bottle a fresh quart of elderberry syrup for my scratchy little throats upstairs.


Half the modern drugs could well be thrown out the window except that the birds might eat them.  ~Martin H. Fischer, Fischerisms

In the 1960s, people took acid to make the world weird.  Now the world is weird, and people take Prozac to make it normal.  ~Author Unknown

I don't like people who take drugs.  Customs agents, for example.  ~Author Unknown

Hey, Where'd That Blog Go???

Sorry.

It's been wild around here.

I took a bunch of "before" pictures of our 'new' (40-year-old) home, and I thought I'd start posting when I had some "after" pics.

Snort.

Ya, right!  I still have boxes in corners, and moderate chaos still reigns.

So here's a little update:

I am, indeed, still pregnant.  38 weeks and 1 day, to be exact.  I got severely dehydrated and didn't realize it a little over a week ago and actually went in to the hospital to get a fetal monitor strip because baby stopped moving.  (If you knew me IRL, you would know Id have tro be awfully concerned to do that!)  Baby was fine. 

Last week I had 2 different days of unexplained bleeding and had another NST and sonogram, which determined that the placenta is fine, but I was still dehydrated.  I managed to get my fluid back up and the bleeding, which was not to extreme, stopped.  So we assume it was just a weird cervix thing.

Over the weekend I started bleeding again but I was sure it was just a repeat of the cervix thing.  I started having really regular contractions, bleeding stopped, contractions picked up, and I thought I was really in labor.  We actually went in, all 5 of us, Sunday morning at 3 am, expecting a baby to accompany us home!  But as soon as I stepped into the birth center, everything stopped dead in its tracks.  Poor midwife!  Poor mama!

Naturally, as soon as I got home yesterday morning, and snuggled back in my own bed, contractions started right back up again.  Thanks, baby.  I explained very camly to my baby that while I, too, wish we could just snuggle in and get 'er done here, that she would have to accept the fact that she IS going to come at that darn birth center, whether either of us like it or not.

(FYI, it is not illegal to homebirth in Nebraska, but it IS illegal for CNM's to attend homebirths, and direct-entry midwives face stiff legal action if they choose to do so.  As of right now, no midwife within 3 hours of Omaha will catch babies at home.)

After a long day of contractions, everything stopped.  Out of curiosity, I checked myself and found a smooth, membrane-covered head pretty much right there.  I'm not very good at determining dilation, but I'd say a 4?  Unfortunately, she is really wedged deeply in there, posterior.  I've been trying to get her to rotate, but no luck so far.

That was probably TMI for many of you- sorry.

Anyhow, that's the news for now. 



"The thing about family disasters is that you never have to wait long before the next one puts the previous one into perspective." 
~Robert Brault

"There is no cure for laziness but a large family helps." 
~Herbert Prochnov

32.5 and counting

 This in not my current belly!  It's Rosie in there, at about 38.5 weeks.  (I'm nowhere near this big yet, at the moment.)

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.  Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice." 
~Indian Saying

I start to focus inwardly at about this time during pregnancy.  Externals fade into the background and what's going on inside seems a lot more real than what's going on outside of me.  (You know, homes being bought and sold, landlords trying to screw us, 3,000 square feet of packing, trading in mountain canyons for tidy square lawns....)

 I thought we were nuts just a few months ago, planning a pregnancy that would mean giving birth just weeks after a major move.  Some moments I still do.  But I also realize, as always, life's insane timing is a blessing in disguise. 

"There is no other organ quite like the uterus.  If men had such an organ they would brag about it.  So should we." 
~Ina May Gaskin

My stress tolerance is quite low.  Usually I would be a mess, a total mess, with all the logistical and financial stress we're going through right now.  But instead, I have this perfect, peaceful retreat right under my heart, where I can escape every day.  It seems easier with every pregnancy to feel the baby's... soul? spirit? personality? in utero.  And the last couple of months of pregnancy I feel like I really live in 2 worlds.  The regular day to day world, and the secret, dark world inside, where only myself and my baby exist.

(Doesn't she look big and healthy?  9 lb 6 oz!)

"Babies are bits of star-dust blown from the hand of God.  Lucky the woman who knows the pangs of birth for she has held a star." 
~Larry Barretto

My last birth was nearly perfect.  And, honestly, it was painless.  However, I attribute that equally to mental prepredness, perfect baby positioning, and really, really, REALLY high pain tolerance.  (I can't handle a lot of stress, but I can handle pain.  That's the lasting benefit of surviving a major car crash and extensive bone surgery, I guess.)

"There's time enough, but none to spare." 

~Charles W. Chesnutt

Attended homebirth is illegal in Nebraska.  This means we have to choose between an unattended birth in a hostile environment (i.e. in case of transfer/ emergency/ complication), with a lot of difficulty surrounding aquisition of a birth certificate, blood typing for Rh factor, and so on, and giving birth in a clinical setting.

(My what big hands you have!)

"Women's bodies have near-perfect knowledge of childbirth; it's when their brains get involved that things can go wrong." 
~Peggy Vincent

 I realize that to families who have never experienced homebirth, it can be quite mystifying why it is SO important to some of us.  But all I can say is, once you have experienced a homebirth...

 things will never be the same.

"Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it.  If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information. "

~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Birthing at home is safe.  Statistically, babies fare the same and mothers fare better, both physically and psychologically, compared to hospital births.  (WHO statistics.)

 Luckily, we found the almost brand-new birth center in Omaha to be fantastic.  The midwife is about as excellent as one could hope, and she herself wishes she could attend homebirths, as is passionately pursuing legislature that will allow her to in the future. 

"Birth is not only about making babies.  Birth is about making mothers... strong, competent, capable mothers who trust themselves and know their inner strength." 
~Barbara Katz Rothman

(In fact, her assistant midwife was a homebirth midwife for 20 years before she was threatened out of business.)  In other words, they get it.

 So now it's only a question of whether we can actually make it the 30 minutes there before baby just *pop* arrives. 

"$13 to $20 billion a year could be saved in health care costs by demedicalizing childbirth, developing midwifery, and encouraging breastfeeding." 
~Frank A. Oski

(My recurrent dream is waking up in the middle of the night, realizing I'm in labor, and before I can even get out of bed, FER (fetal ejection reflex) takes over and baby just slides out.  And no kidding, John Paul was almost like that!)

(First nap, 12 hours old.  Isaiah stayed up till 2 am to watch Rosie's birth.)

"I brought children into this dark world because it needed the light that only a child can bring."

  ~Liz Armbruster

Anyway, between packing and laying around with my babies, all 4 of them, blogging isn't really at the top of my to-do list these days!   

(A little bit of heaven.)

"Children make you want to start life over." 
~Muhammad Ali

I've got ice cream, vaccines, birth preparation, unplugged travel, and a number of other ideas on my blogging docket, and we'll see how many of them materialize here over the next few weeks and we head from the mountains of northern New Mexico, to the Sonoran Desert of southern Arizona, through our home on the Kansas range, and on to our new home in Nebraska.

Our Lady of the Way, pray for us.

"There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval." 
~George Santayana, "War Shrines," Soliloquies in England and Later Soliloquies, 1922

The Black Widow Effect

When you've never seen a black widow, sometimes you see a spider and think, "Is that a black widow?"

In which case, I guarantee you, it is not a black widow!

Because once you've seen this:

You never have that thought again.  You just look and know, that is a black widow, or, nope, not even close.

Well, this pregnancy, I keep checking my baby, thinking, "Is she breech?"

And I know if I have to ask is  she breech, that she's not breech.  Till today, when I woke up on my left side, looked down at my belly and went, "Expletive, expletive, THAT is a breech baby."

Sigh.  I knew things were going too well.  I'm also sure the extremely stressful weekend I just had contributed.  First, we sold our house.  Of course, we sold it for a lot, a LOT, A LOT  less than we wanted.  And then we found out we won't get a trip to Omaha (Oh, I can finally tell you now that we are moving to Omaha, because Ed finally signed his contract) to house hunt, (which is fine, I guess, since we wouldn't be able to spend as much on a house as we were expecting, having sold our Kansas house for peanuts,)  then I spent a couple hours looking at rentals on the internet and finding pretty much nada.  Then we hosted a childbirth class, after which I let 2 doulas palpate my belly.  One went really deep causing baby and me to JUMP, and causing a uterine spasm (which I hid because I didn't want her to feel bad).  Then we went swimming and I strained a muscle in my hip.  And the next day, yesterday, I spent 8 hours packing and dragging heavy boxes. 

And I flipped out at my husband over a doughnut fiasco.

So somewhere in there, amidst the stress  and strain, this baby got uncomfortable and turned around.  (Today, baby is hiccuping and moving in a weird way she's never done before.)

Today I have spent the morning doing excercises and greedily (re)reading the Spinning Babies website.  And crying.

And now I think I will resume both activities.


"Life is tough enough without having someone kick you from the inside." 
~Rita Rudner

FFT Friday: Adrenal Fatigue

A friend of mine told me about this book
a year ago and I wish it hadn't taken me so long to read it.

I am always on the look-out for books that I can recommend to people who ask me where to start when they want to implement a whole-foods diet, or embrace a healthier lifestyle. I've always thought it better to help people understand WHY more deeply before sending them to the health food store with a shopping list.

Change, in my experience, is more lasting the more understanding one has of the purpose of it. Which is why I usually recommend Fertility, Cycles, and Nutrition. Marilyn Shannon does a really great job of simplifying nutrition.

Dr. Wilson, in Adrenal Fatigue: The 21st Century Stress Syndrome, does the same, but he goes deeper. He tells you exactly what happens inside your body when you make bad choices- constant sub-optimal diet, inadequate rest, soda pop all day, and so on.

In this book you'll find maybe the best simple, layman's explanation of how stress affects your body. Dr. Wilson does a superb job explaining how all stresses, whether physical, emotional, or nutritional, affect the body in physiologically the same way.

A sick child or parent you care for, an overbearing boss, fast food every day, worrying about bears and mountain lions while your kids play in the back yard. Or whatever it is you worry about. Your adrenal glands respond to all these stresses in exactly the same fashion. And how over time, without proper care, nourishment, and rest, your adrenals get tuckered out. And when that happens, you get sick every time your stress lod increases.

Ever wonder why so many people catch something in January?

Dr. Wilson's writing style is very casual, and he turns very complicated information into easily understandable and useable tidbits. Some of the other topics in the book include:
Why what you eat affects your immune system.
What sugar, caffeine, and chocolate cravings mean and what to do about them.
Plus the finest explanation I've ever read of how circadian rhythms and sleep influence one's health.

Many folks would just skip by this book unless they were, at that moment, feeling very run-down or stressed. It's unfortunate, because so much in this book is so well-expressed that it just might be the ounce of prevention someone with a ho-hum attitude needs to make some baby steps towards a healthy lifestyle.

Of course, it's just human nature that most folks prefer sail along
until the body gets way out of whack. The primary sign that your adrenals are not functioning well is fatigue. But fatigue is common in other conditions as well, which is a major reason why adrenal fatigue is often misdiagnosed or ignored.

Most amusing is the list of individuals at increased risk for adrenal fatigue:
University student
Mother with two or more children
Single parent
Relocation
Loss of a stable job
Stressful work conditions

Or in other words, everyone I know.

In any case, if you don't have the energy you wish you did or you feel mildly to extremely depressed much of the time, I hope you will read, and heed this book.


"Youth is like spring, an over praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits."
~Samuel Butler

Rest, Rest, Rest

My brain and my body recently figured out that the move is, in fact, over. Everyone they are resposible for has settled and adjusted. All our stuff (except my favorite mixing bowl) has found a home in our new home, and there's just no reason to be rushing about all the time.

And Monday morning, making that connection, both my brain and my body just sorta went caput. I realized that I was exhausted. So I slept. All day. (Thanks goodness for Playmobil and CCC videos- blush.) I'm spending the rest of this week on vacation. Or something akin to that, as mothers pretty much have to cook, clean, and bandage boo-boos even on 'vacation.' And I don't mind a bit. It's more of a mental vacation, I guess.

Anyway, here are some really great things to google in the meantime. (Yes, my links are still down, and yes, it is pathetic that I still haven't figured out how to fix that.)

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures (DO NOT SKIP THIS CHANCE TO LAUGH UNTIL YOU CRY AND FEEL REALLY GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF. This blog is hilarious.)

Just Add Light and Stir- Blog (Don't miss the chance to be inspired by the everyday living and loving that happens all around you.)

"Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care
The death of each day's life, sore labour's bath
Balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast."
~William Shakespeare, Macbeth