Spinning Around

As part of a yucky bug, I've been suffering from the worst vertigo this week. It's been a bit like living with a permanent case of travel sickness or having a major hangover without any of the fun bits beforehand :-(

So with as little movement in my day as possible, I've been...

~ reading The Storyteller~ listening to quiet, quiet, quiet music
~ making easter goodies to go on Little B's easter tableau
~ watching the boys renovate our "new" secondhand boat after work and school. It's been quite the DIY project.
~ crocheting a new hot water bottle cover for when the cold nights start to bite

Now I'm just hoping to be up and able for the Easter weekend :-)

Home Again

Well we are home again. Little B has spent the last few days in hospital having surgery on his mouth. Last year, he cracked a tooth on a Saturday night, so we saw an emergency dentist. Unbeknownst to us said dentist had very little experience in paediatrics and rather than fixing the tooth, end up damaging the tooth and all its nerves. Recently we discovered his tooth was dead as a result when he started suffering tooth abscesses and massive infections in his mouth (it's been a roundabout 3 weeks in and out of hospitals and on subsequent rounds of antibiotics).

The great news is that it’s all fixed now and oh so lovely to be home.

We are spending our days listening to The Water Horse and Paddington: Here & Now on audiobook, eating lovely fruit jellies, fruit smoothies and heavenly mashed potatoes (with lots of butter, milk and in Little B’s case cheese).

Our experience was a good one, the hospital staff were great and Little B came home with a bravery “award” for just hopping up onto the bed, lying down and breathing in the anaesthetic without any fuss. Helped that it was chocolate “flavour” :-)

But I also want to say a big thank you to friends and family who gave us some wonderful support – we had offers of ipads to watch movies in hospital (Mary Poppins was a great distraction), people come and make up beds so I could sleep with Little B now we are home till he is 100% recovered, offers to do our food shopping, our librarian got us the above said audiobooks at really short notice and kinder has even held off the yearly photos so he can be in the group shot. You are all great and we love you!

Love is...

...staying up all night with a sick child :-)

Well we came home with more than artwork and good stories from preschool yesterday…..a doozey of a cold that has started with the most horrendous cough. Little B has been up all night with a high temperature and this morning coughing till he vomited (not a pretty picture, I know but yay for the vomit bowl we keep under the bed!!).

So I have spent most of today ensconced on the end of Little B’s bed listening to Sparkle Stories, reading him The Wandering Wombles, crocheting squares, and knitting dishcloths.

And when he has slept I’ve done loads of laundry before being called back to his bed, where I have been used as a pillow or a tissue and read books of my own (I'm loving Heidi Swanson's new cookbook).

As for dinner, whenever Little B is sick, I resort to whatever is fastest to cook and eat – so the moment I knew what I was in for, I threw on the slow cooker with a lentil vegie casserole. Just add some rice and it’s all sorted.

On days like these, I just surrender and go with the flow, don’t try to get anything in particular done, and hope that it passes quickly!!

Small Blip

I've been having a short hiatus from blogging..a small blip you might say. Last week I had a laparoscopy for some biopsies (the final left over check from my mold exposure). My recovery has actually taken me quite by surprise. Naively surprisingly it was quite painful and it's been a mini bruised owie road to feeling back to normal. So for the last week I've been:

* reading this

* listening to this

* making an offer on a house - remember how I said we were over renovating. Ahem...we lied ;-)

* drooling over potential kitchen renos

* loving this and this and this

* Inspired by the current copy of Peppermint Magazine - this magazine knows no bounds and just keeps getting better and better with each issue

And today is sunny & warm - what more could a girl want!! So this afternoon is dedicated to the garden and playing with Little B xx

The only way is up...

Well 3 months into this anti-inflammatory diet, I have to say that I’m charging along. I’ve put on 3 kilos (though am still underweight). I feel much better and have lost the numbness in my left arm which has plagued me for a year.  Who would have thought that cutting out so much food, and eating no fat would help me gain weight??

Anyway yesterday was D Day. I got my results from my lumbar puncture. The fantabulous news is that I do not have a progressive nor deteriorating disease!! The damage to my body has stopped progressing and the inflammation is slowly but surely reducing. Even better news if you ask me.

The bad news is the nerve damage to my hands and feet is permanent. I now need to care my feet as if they are diamonds as the blood supply is severely compromised due to the nerve damage. Not exactly what every dancer wants to hear – but since dancing is so important to me, I have put this high on my self care agenda.

They feel though that my leg damage may be able to be improved. Or if not that I can build up all my other muscles to compensate for their limited use. It also helps that we are in a mold free environment which is giving my body a greater chance of detoxing.

But I feel so happy and positive!! I went home from this appointment on cloud nine, because a) it’s so nice for my body to be co-operating for a change and b) that there is light at the end of this mold saga.

Hilarious but true..

 Picture courtesy of www.saidonline.com

I had my first cup of coffee today at the ripe old age of 33 :-) And....it was actually quite nice!!

I've never felt the urge to drink tea or coffee, though prior to going dairy free, I have always been partial to a nice cup of hot chocolate.

But I have to drink coffee prior to a procedure in hospital tomorrow, after it and the day after it. I cant stand soft drink like Diet Coke or Coke anymore, so it was coffee or hiking in to the hospital for a caffeine injection. I dont know about you but I'll take coffee over an injection anyday!!

Plus since it's supposed to stop the bad side effects of said procedure, I'm happy to drink coffee for 3 days, rather than being bed ridden and unable to stand up for 3 days. Viva coffee!!!

Elimination Diet Update

Well the last month has brought more surprises than most. I abandoned my elimination diet with my allergists approval when my weight bottomed out at 45kg (the lightest I've ever been during this illness). I am however still dairy free as I can really feel the benefits.

But my mold battle took a turn for the worse so my neurologist has put me onto an anti-inflammation diet. Quite simply, I am now basically vegan with a certain amount of fish each week. The key thing is to avoid all dairy, meat, saturated fats and eat lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, fish and most of all omega 3's. I'm taking lots of flax seed oil as well as the fish as omega 3's reduce the inflammation response in your body.


I have to count my saturated fat intake each day and cannot exceed 10g. This is surprisingly easy once you take out dairy and meat. Having been vegetarian before Little B was born, it's not such a stretch to return to this way of eating and I've already been off dairy for 6 weeks so that's only annoying in the sense that I need to adapt recipes. I'm only sad that all my gorgeous vegetarian cookbooks had to be thrown out because of the house. Yay for the internet and family have said I can have a veggie cookbook birthday LOL.
 
Now here's the irony. Though it's early days, I'm gaining weight consistently day to day. Which could just be an anomaly or because my weight was so low. I'm keeping positive and think it might on the up and up. Only time will tell if this helps all my other problems but I have all my fingers and toes crossed :-)

Chocolate Cravings

Normally, I'm one of those weird individuals who can take or leave chocolate. In fact, I dont normally crave much of anything (other than my morning smoothie but that's just hunger LOL). So when I started having strong cravings for chocolate 24/7, and a few obligatory morning headaches I knew something was up.

Turns out that something was magnesium deficiency. After a few blood tests, it become abundantly clear that I was magnesium deficient. This can come from a combination of things but for me most likely from malabsorption issues due to my mold exposure and potential food allergies (more to come on this one later). So I'm on supplements until I come back to a base line, and then I will maintain my levels through food.

Best magnesium sources are:

* Pumpkin seeds

* Spinach

* Almonds (not an option for me at the moment)

* Oats

- and it's helped most by having a calcium source at the same time.

So I'm alternating my favourite breakfast smoothie (now a green smoothie with baby spinach) with a warming bowl of porridge. I've also started including a daily handful of pumpkin seeds to my snack regime.

There's a lot of information out there on the web about chocolate cravings and magnesium deficiency as well. So if chocolate is ruling your world, this might be something to investigate.

Sheer heaven...

Picture courtesy of www.lovehabibi.com

...is a 3 hour belly dance workshop :-)

I had the best time today at a 3 hour belly dance workshop. I was hoping that my body was ready for this and in the most part it was. I hit the wall in the last 30 minutes, so sat that out and watched everybody else.

Some advice from my rehab guru Paul helped as well. I ate like an athlete yesterday and this morning (lots of carbs & vegies), drank HEAPS of water (an un-airconditioned factorette on a 33 degree day) and in the first 10 minutes after exercising inhaled 2 cups of diced watermelon and some chocolate milk.

Interesting fact, chocolate milk is a better recovery drink than most sports drinks.

A useful giggle...

The weather in Melbourne has been very hot, humid and full of thunderstorms. To me it feels really tropical (and not in the best sense). This means the mosquito juggernaut has descended.

Little B experiences the worst munching from the mozzies so we’ve gotten a little bit creative.

We’ve installed a mosquito net over his sandpit. He happily plays in his new “tent” and isn’t over run my mozzies. I have to say it’s quite pleasant sitting in there with him. Good company, nice breeze, no mozzies…what more could a girl want ;-)

Healing my body with my mind

The hardest thing about being sick and physically weak is the way it has prevented me from doing normal everyday things. I hate being limited in my gardening, prevented from my dancing (which is like telling me to stop breathing) and the way it has inhibited my day to day relationship with Little B.

I hate not being able to play soccer with him, or pick him up, or even having to lie down because I literally cant physically stand anymore that day. But I refuse to be defeated or brow beaten by this.

So how do I keep my spirits up? With friendship, love and positivity.

Friends have been amazingly supportive. One friend gave me all of her boy’s old size 3 & 4 clothes. Another lent me her small sized clothing till I could get a few things together. My closest friend has just let me talk and talk until I felt calm again as our boys played together.

Granny B has been a dream – letting us move in, being a sounding board and an amazing emotional support. Mr B has been my rock - he has loved, supported and cared for me through the start of getting sick until this diagnosis. Then when we moved house, he did all the back breaking physical labour so I could still have a vegie garden to tend.

I am surrounded by love, friendship and support. This allows me to charge on and stay positive. To fight the good fight even when I’d rather scream than see another doctor or have another blood test.

I focus on and enjoy the little things everyday – being out in the sunshine, reading a good book, learning to sew, cuddles with Little B, chatting with friends and listening to great tunes. I will get better. I simply refuse to contemplate any other option!!

Healing my body with exercise

Picture courtesy of http://www.pilatesforum.org

Exercise was always going to be part of the healing process after my mold exposure. Mainly because all the weight loss has caused massive muscle wastage and made me weak.

I am lucky though that I continued with my belly dancing for as long as I could. When I could no longer do the cardio, I still went along and did the warm up, cool down and focussed on technique. It has left me with a great core of abdominal muscles to work with as well as some upper body strength. Mind you, I think lifting a 16.5 kg 3.5 year old was the main contributor there :-)

My rehab guru, Dr Paul created an exercise program for me to halt the muscle wastage without burning calories. I do this religiously to keep my body awake and also to try and fix the holes that have been left behind. The majority of my muscle wastage has been in my legs, hips and buttocks.

I’ve also taken up Pilates again. It is great at stabilizing your core and strengthening your muscles. This builds on the muscles I still have from dancing, stops any further degeneration of other muscles and rebuilds the others. Interspersed with gentle water exercise, I hope that I will be fit enough to get back to dancing early next year.

And with consistent work, I should hopefully mend a lot of damage by Christmas time next year!!

Healing my body with food

Picture courtesy of http://mediocredeli.com

The last few weeks have been full of whirlwind visits to neurologists, dieticians and rehab specialists. The consensus is the mold has primarily damaged my central nervous system – I have mycotoxin poisoning. The best visual description I was given is that my body is like a moth eaten dress. Great in some bits and missing chunks in others (For example, TMI I have muscles in one bum cheek but absolutely none in the other).

Food has been an eye opener also. I now need to avoid foods that are made of mold or prone to mold. This means no cheese, mushroom, dried fruit or strawberries to name a few. I also can no longer eat organic bread flour – it just has a greater propensity for mold spores, even if you cant see them.

Just removing these foods has seen a big improvement in my health. I’m also OD’ing on green vegetables. Green vegies bind to and remove the mycotoxins (caused by mold) from your body. The more you eat the better. I’ve always been a big vegie eater but I have increased this three fold. Broccoli, asparagus, zucchini, asian vegetables, beans…you name it, it finds it’s way into every meal. I’ve also become a big fan of Green Smoothies.

I’m eating more berries due to their abundant antioxidants. I’m lucky my local biodynamic grocer carries frozen organic blueberries and raspberries. I’m also glad we are heading into summer as fresh berries are even yummier addition to porridge or yoghurt for breakfast. Berry Radical is another addition to my diet. Full of 10 super foods it is bursting with antioxidants which are again great for getting rid of mycotoxins.

But the best news is very slowly, I am on the improve. It’s only the start of my journey back to health but it is motivating to get the even smallest of improvements :-)

Moldy House Update

Well bad news was always in the offing. I’ve been told that I will never be able to live in our little house again. The type of mold there is so endemic and deep rooted, that while it can be mainly removed, it will probably return due to the nature of the block (it’s an aquifer). I also had such a massive exposure to toxic black mold, and such a bad reaction, that I will continue to react in the same way.

Unfortunately, I have had to throw all my clothes away as well as they cannot be cleaned. The type of mold, Stachybotrys, binds to the fibres and is unable to be washed out.

So we look forward. We will fix the house but look for a new House of B in the next 12 months. The Mold may reign supreme, but then again so do we. I now need to focus on getting healthy. They say my physical rehabilitation will take about 12 months and my health will take just as long to recover if not more, so it’s all good timing really.

When you think things are bad,

when you feel sour and blue,

when you start to get mad…

you should do what I do!

Just tell yourself, Duckie,

you’re really quite lucky!

some people are much more…

oh, every so much more…

oh, muchly much-much more

unlucky than you!

- Dr Suess, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are

There will be more challenges as we get through this. We’ve been told that when we move we have to treat our belongings as if the house burned down. All the furniture will need to be disposed of, plus our clothes and books. If we take it with us, we run the risk of contaminating a new house.

We’ve had time over the last few weeks to reflect on this change, and we are completely at peace with the situation. Can we financially afford to do this? The answer is a big fat resounding NO! Ultimately though the health and survival of our family is more important than any old house. And as the Dr Suess story says, there are worse things that could have happened to us and we are lucky we caught it in time :-)

Like Family

Picture courtesy of http://blog.timesunion.com

Today I realised that going to a hairdresser is a bit like meeting up with an old extended family member.

I’ve been feeling quite blah and yuck at the moment – have just gotten over a nasty cold and just the day to day side effects of my mould exposure. To top it off, my last hair cut was done by a new local hairdresser who butchered my hair. No other word for it – just hacked it off all over the place and it looked a mess. It was long and then it was horribly short and long – it looked like I had a haircut over a mullet.

I’ve been trying to grow it out, and the longer it gets the worse it looks. So what to do? We’ve been invited to a wedding on the weekend and I accepted that for peace of mind a hair cut was in order.

So yesterday I drove a million miles from where I currently live, back to my old hairdresser. Amongst other things she works with the Ovarian Cancer Foundation and the Breast Cancer Network, cutting hair of women who either have cancer or are recovering from cancer.

It was the best 1.5 hours of my life. They had toys for Little B and made him super welcome. They washed my hair with my own shampoo and conditioner as I don’t want to be exposed to any more poisons as I get better. But it was like being with family. I had known her for 8 years before we moved house, and she also used to cut my mum’s and my brother’s hair.

So we had history and being at similar-ish stages in our lives (her little boy is 2 years older than Little B), we had a great time catching up on the last 3 years. But she made me feel special, beautiful and cared for. I also got a great hair cut.

Interestingly she said that when you are sick, you come to a stage where you want to cling to your identity as the rest of you doesn’t currently match how you are used to viewing yourself. Having the same hairstyle or getting a good cut does that for you. And I have to say she is right – I was super exhausted after the long trip but I feel better when I look in the mirror. I wont be stressing that people are “looking at” the sick person when we go out to kindy or the library.

Hairdressers are like family. And I feel nourished and connected by this visit with an old friend.

Moldy House Update

So what to do with our moldy house? We have been told what we do depends on the type of mold we have. Some samples have been taken but it will take a while to tell us exactly what kind of mold is the cause of my health problems.

It may require mass amounts of fungicide (toxic poisons) under the house, removing all the floorboards, removing all the topsoil under the house, and finally removal and replacement of the bearers. But we have also been told that there is one kind of mold that even burning down the house would not fix.

As for my health, I can happily say there has been a slight improvement at Granny B’s house, which has been a cause for much joy. I gained half a kilo people and felt like shouting it from the roof tops :-) The bad news is the mold has damaged my central nervous system. The extent of which is not quite clear just yet. But it is fairly extensive.

So for now I’m cooking nourishing soups, making gorgeous whole food muffins and meals and enjoying planning my spring veggie garden (which has been relocated to Granny B’s house). I also start a physical rehabilitation and hydrotherapy program in the next few weeks to build up my frail little body. Kiss that muscle wastage goodbye xxx

Happy Dance – I’m now Losec free!!

I’m proud to say that I’ve now been medication free for 2 weeks :-). After years of reflux (while still on heavy GERD drugs, namely Losec), it’s really weird to be reflux free. I still have to follow a diet that avoids reflux triggers (like citrus, tomatoes, spicy foods) but I figure that’s a small price to pay for being medication free.

Using probiotics and deglycyrrhizinated licorice worked really well as I weaned down the dosage. I did find when I stopped completely that I had a little bit of reflux at night (which left me with a sore throat in the morning).

The answer to this has been to stop oats / porridge after dinner, as oats require large amounts of natural stomach acid to break down, and I have started taking enzymes as well as probiotics. Literally after two enzyme tablets all my residual reflux stopped.

As for the side effects of Losec, I am sleeping better and am much less fatigued as my blood counts have come back to normal. I have to wait to have a bone densitometry to check for osteoporosis as this is one of the biggest side effects of Losec (which of course your docs don’t tell you unless grilled specifically).

But voila – I am no longer reliant on the pharmaceutical machine!!

Love is....

...staying up all night with a sick child :-)

Well we came home with more than a few books from library story-time yesterday…..the dreaded gastro. Little B has been up all night vomiting (not a pretty picture, I know).

So I have spent most of today ensconced in the rocking chair in Little B’s room with a mohair blanket, reading him Winnie the Pooh, knitting and listening to audiobooks.

And when he has slept I’ve done loads of laundry before being called back to his bed, where I have been used as a pillow and read books of my own.

As for dinner, whenever Little B is sick, I resort to whatever is fastest to cook and eat – so tonight is spelt pasta with goat’s cheese and the obligatory few veg thrown in.

On days like these, I just surrender and go with the flow, don’t try to get anything in particular done, and hope that it passes quickly!!

Flu fighting kit

With flu season upon us I thought I would write about our flu fighting strategies. This works really well here at the House of B. We are on the whole very healthy year round, rarely sick (no mean feat since Little B started preschool this year and most parents send sick kids along), and if we do get sick, this keeps the worst of it at bay.

As soon as we are sick we start taking olive leaf extract, Sambucol (elderberry extract) and Flustop. If the Flustop doesn’t stop it in its tracks, then the olive leaf and elderberry extract either stop the bug or minimise its symptoms.

I also brew a big batch of chicken soup, full of lovely organic vegies, garlic and ginger, home-made chicken stock and of course organic chicken J and we all indulge heavily. I immediately change the bed linen on all our beds and start airing our house (even if its cold). These last two steps were recommended to me by a homeopath and I think they actually make a difference.

As an everyday preventative, we all take Vitamin D. But not the run of the mill tablets you can buy at the chemist. After much reading and discussions with Little B’s paed gastro, I discovered that normal Vitamin D tablets are only aimed at basic bone health. It’s not high enough to assist in immune health in any way. So Mr B and I take 6000mg a day and Little B takes 1600mg a day.

When sick, we increase this dose to between 8,000 and 10,000mg for the adults only. Olive leaf extract is the key thing that works for Little B, along with the elderberry extract, which also has Echinacea in it.

To overdose on Vitamin D, adults would need to consume close to 50,000 units. I get my levels tested every year and in March had great levels as if “I lived in Queensland and worked outside all day”. To give this perspective prior to taking 6000mg, I took normal tablets and my levels were 20 – the minimum amount for bone health alone should be 80. I’m now 176 and to overdose your levels would have to be over 300. My gp says it’s almost impossible to get to 50,000 iu, so I am comfortable with the amounts we are taking. For children, you should not exceed 2,000mg a day.

Our other preventative is to take one dose of Flustop a week during flu season. Though I have used it successfully with Little B since he started preschool and I noticed all the kids dropping off like flies week in, week out with the dreaded lurgies. Since doing so, he has only been sick once (and of course that was the week I forgot to give it to him – most probably a coincidence).

Go slower!! And that's an order ;-)

I broke my nose this morning. I wish I could say that I was doing something hardcore like rock climbing, or something environmental like saving trees. Or finally something noteworthy like saving children in a single bound. 

Instead I leapt out of bed to go to Little B when he was screaming in his sleep, and disoriented I ran (and the emphasis here is on ran) straight into a wooden hallway architrave.

At 6am, Voila – broken nose and two split lips. Such a pretty girl ;-) Note to self – take your time chickadee!!