My soup's appeal

just fell a couple of notches.  Next time, I had better make an "organ sachet".  I can't bring myself to eat them, and I'm feeling nauseous from fishing them out.  Oh my.  SG (7) is not feeling nauseous though.  He is inspecting each and every one of them like it's nobody's business.  Before I had the heart out, he picked up one of the pieces from the counter and said "is this the heart?".  I said "no, I think that might be part of the liver".  He proceeded to take a bite of it.  He didn't even flinch.  I felt a little like vomiting, but I kept it to myself - no reason to squash his inquisitive and adventurous spirit.  

We did find the heart, and he is totally fascinated.  The great big aorta.  Hollow for the blood to flow through.  He pulled it out.  <shaking my head>  He cut the heart apart to carefully examine the chambers.  He sliced it to look at the muscle fibers.  We found the kidneys.  We found what we believe to  be the lungs (all of our favorite, by the way).  He was eager to find the brains.  I was glad they weren't included.  I think the entire neck came apart and is now just part of the soup.  I wish it weren't.  

DH said he thought the boiled skin would be nutritious for me to eat.  I am so not eating it.

In fact, I cannot eat any of the soup tonight.  Hopefully, by tomorrow, this activity will be far enough behind me so that I can.  This is what might save me? 

What did I see? What did I see?

I saw one of most amazing people ever - Lisa - looking at me!

I LOVED my session at the yoga studio this morning!  It was a wonderful hour and a half!  We started with body sensing yoga, which lucky for me is a very low key form of yoga.  I didn't feel out of place or behind at all.  After that, we laid on the floor cocooned in between two warm, heavy wool blankets with a nice pillow under our knees and yoga eye bags on our faces for a deep, long guided meditation.  I was so relaxed that for the entire 40 minutes, I didn't need to shift or move my body one single millimeter.  I could have stayed like that all day!!

My sanctuary:

Immediately my mind went to camping on the shore of Lake Champlain.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  My toes were sinking in the nice warm sand, and I was watching my children play in the water.

My serious:

When Benny was a newborn and the doctor incorrectly read his blood test results, telling us that he definitely had Cystic Fibrosis.  Fortunately, he doesn't (he's a carrier), but until we realized she was mistaken, things around here were awfully serious.  Thank goodness it was only a couple of days. 

My funny:

Laughing hysterically with Lisa.  Thinking about the night we climbed onto the roof of Clarkson's gymnasium.  We were having such a good time right up until we heard the police calling to us through their megaphone to "come off the roof now".  We ran and ran across the roof and jumped off the other side, but we got caught anyway.  We didn't get into trouble because we were students there, but her brother and his friend got brought to the police station.  We went down to get them, but they were already gone.  We looked all over town and ended up finding them in a bar!  Ugh.  At the time, it most certainly was NOT funny.  But oh, how funny does it seem now.

I dumped in the organs. And the blood.

No chicken feet today, but Chris said she can bring some for me next week. 

 

I did get a freshly butchered free-range, organic chicken in a big ziploc bag though. The broth/soup/stock is simmering as I type. I have never used organs in my life, but I thought "what the heck? they're full of nutrients" and dumped them in too. And then I saw all of the blood left over in the bag, shrugged, and poured that into the pot too. 

Five huge cloves of diced garlic, 6 tablespoons of coconut oil, 4 inches of grated ginger, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and a whole bunch of carrots, celery, zucchini, and onions. Most of it's pretty typical stuff. I hope the chicken feet aren't supposed to make all of the difference! Ha ha ha! The directions say to let it simmer for 12 -24 hours, but there's no way I'm going to leave the stove on all night when we sleep, so that direction definitely will not be followed. Looking forward to trying it though and hoping my body is happy with it.  The book says if the body can't handle the whole veggies and chicken pieces to puree it, so I guess that's what I'll do if need be.

You realize this is coming from someone who is an "almost vegetarian", right?

Inner peace and relaxation, here I come!

 

www.orendayoga.org

For years. I've said that someday - you know, when the kids are older and when I have  more free time - I'm going to sign up for yoga classes.  Well, the kids aren't really all that much older and I don't really have any more free time, but I'm going to go for it anyway.  So tomorrow morning, I will be in the studio wearing my favorite pair of glorious Lucy yoga pants and my almost equally glorious Lucy yoga top.  (Yep, Lucy yoga clothes are the very best!)

I'll be partaking in the Body Sensing with Yoga Nidra class.  I don't actually know what that means, but it sounds pretty good.  Here's the description:

Today's yoga is often associated with physical fitness yet the practice and philosophy are centuries old.  Body Sensing with Yoga Nidra is based on a mind/body practice and is designed to create balance and well-being.  The blend of Qi Gong movements and postures or Asanas are designed to either stimulate or calm the body and mind, thus preparing oneself for deep self inquiry through Yoga Nidra.

Yoga Nidra is a deep relaxation and guided meditation that one can practice comfortably, either lying down as in savasana, or sitting up supported by a chair or wall.  Yoga Nidra means conscious and aware sleep, similar to when you are just about to fall asleep.

The practice was developed thousands years ago as a means to achieve the deepest states of inner peace and relaxation.  It is a way to positively recondition your mind's subconscious layers.  Yoga Nidra can help with problem solving as well as enhance both intuition and creativity.  The practice rejuvenates the body and mind.  Studies show that 30 minutes of Yoga Nidra can have the equivalent effect of 3 hours of deep sleep.

". . . a means to achieve the deepest states of inner peace and relaxation."  Yes, that sounds especially good.

After an hour and a half of that, I'll be heading over to GreenMarket to stock up on delicious food for the kids for the week.  Hopefully, I'll be able to find some raw-milk hard cheese for me too.  (Sometimes the cheese man is there, and sometimes he isn't.)  My new book wants me to make some special broth soup, which is likely going to be a big part of my (hopeful) diet for the next week or two, so I'll also need to pick up a free-range chicken.  And, ahem, some chicken feet.  That's right - chicken feet.  What is in chicken feet that is so important, I have no idea.  But what the hell?  I just hope the market has them.  Last week, they had pig tails and pig hooves, so anything is possible.

After conferring with Nancy. . .

who I like to refer to as my security blanket, I think I've made a decision about my current medical issue.  Unless something crazy happens today and/or tomorrow, I am planning to cancel my CAT scan appointment that is scheduled for Monday morning.  Besides being freaked out about what's been happening with my poor intestines, I've been becoming increasingly freaked out about the medications that I've been on, the medications I might end up on, and the invasiveness that comes with the tests.  I feel like my system has been ridiculously stressed for the past couple of months, and given that I'm not literally dying right now, I'm questioning the benefit of giving it even more to deal with at the moment.  

Part of this decision has stemmed from my telephone call to the specialist's office this past Thursday.  I called upset and looking for guidance.  I was struggling with the difficulty I was having with not being able to eat.  I told them that I wasn't on vitamins, that I never worried about it since I had a well-rounded, healthy diet.  Without being able to eat properly, I was starting to worry I wasn't getting the nutrition I needed.  How concerned should I be?  Did they have any suggestions?  Should I start taking a vitamin?  Were there any specific foods they thought I should try to eat?  After the nurse talked to the doctor, she called back to simply tell me that if things got too bad, I should go to the emergency room.  Nothing else.  Nada.  I've been puzzling ever since.  I don't want to go to the hospital.  I'm actively trying as hard as I can to avoid a trip to the emergency room.  That's precisely a big part of the reason I called, to help prevent that from happening.  <sigh>

If you know me at all, you know I am quite leery of typical modern-day medical practices and very suspicious of the slew of medications being prescribed for seemingly everything.  That exchange with the doctor's office really got me to rethinking things.  I've been desperate for someone to do something for me, but the truth is that most of these "someones" have more interest in treating symptoms than preventing them and fixing things once they become "too bad".  I have absolutely no idea what caused this to happen.  My GP suspects, since the C Diff test came back negative, that the introduction of the amoxicillin into my body must have sent my immune system into such a frenzy that it triggered colitis, and he might well be right.  I don't know, and I'm not sure how much it matters at this point.  I am where I am.  I'm not feeling confident that I can depend on traditional medical doctors to help me try to address this in as gentle of a way for my body as I can, which is always the path I prefer.  I hate the side effects of the antispasmodic / anti-ulcer medicine, and I can't even say they're worth it because they're allowing me to eat.  Because they're not.  I have severe dry mouth, congestion, a thick mucous lining in my throat, and blurred vision, and I still haven't been able to eat properly.  

My friend Jinrong has been encouraging me for a while to read the support group forum posts by people who have had similar experiences.  For a while, I didn't because I was clinging to hope that the problem would magically disappear.  I finally starting looking at them, though, and not surprisingly I have found them to be very helpful.  A couple of books in particular have received a lot of praise - Restoring Your Digestive Health and Breaking the Vicious Cycle.  I've purchased both of them, and I'm starting with the former.  I've also read a lot of other reviews of the book and I've been struck by how many people claimed that it, in many cases after years and years of suffering, changed their lives much more than any of the doctors and standard treatments were ever able to do.

So. . . I started thinking that I'd feel more comfortable if I gave myself an earnest shot at a more natural approach to healing my body before continuing down this traditional Western medicine route of pumping me full of drugs, feeding dye through my veins, etc.  I'm up to the challenge to at least try.  I've finished the second round of antibiotics, and I'm going to try weaning myself off of the anti-spasmodic medicine to see what happens.  For now, I'm going to keep my February 14 appointment for the colonscopy and biopsy.  If I haven't seen clear improvement by then, I'll still go.  If I have seen clear improvement, I might cancel.

And Nancy thinks that's all okay.  ;-)   LOL

Exciting day!

So much excitement today!  Julian got an e-mail from Goucher College saying he has been admitted, he got a mailing from Bennington College saying he has been admitted and awarded a nice merit scholarship, and he's been invited to go down to NYC for an interview as part of the next stage of the admissions process to Macaulay Honors College.  We're going down on Monday.  I really hope we don't make the trip only to have him end up not being admitted, but we'll see.  A day in NYC will be a nice day regardless.  I love visiting the city!

This college "stuff" is stressful!  He has several acceptances into colleges we're sure would be wonderful for him, but whether or not we can afford them is another issue.  I've quickly realized that waiting for the financial aid offers is just as stressful as the application process, maybe even more so!  I'm just hoping that at least one of the colleges is going to take a real interest in him and offer him a great deal.  We have four kids.  We need to be able to keep feeding the other three, and we can't get so drained by sending the first one(s) to college that the younger ones have no choice but to stay at home and commute to the local community college.

Bennington College

So far, he's been admitted to University of Vermont Honors College (will probably be too expensive to even seriously consider), Bard, New College of Florida (with a nice merit scholarship), New Paltz (our financial safety), Goucher, and Bennington.  Next up for notification is Hampshire College in mid-February and then Macaulay in mid-March.  Then we have the regular admits to hear back from in late March.  Boy, I hope the next couple of months don't go by too slowly.  New Paltz is a state school, and I truly wanted us to love it.  His stats are quite a bit higher than their averages, and with his background and interests, I think he'd be exactly the kind of kid they would be trying hard to recruit, but they have shown us no love at all. 

Miracle In the Andes

by Nando Parrado is the book I'm reading right now.  Oh my goodness - it is amazing.  It's the story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes mountains in 1972.  You've likely seen (or at least heard of) the movie "Alive"??  I am at the point where Nando and Roberto have ventured out on the final quest that will lead to their rescue, and it's nearly impossible to put the book down.

   

I love reading books for "armchair adventurers" about real adventurers, and though not one iota of their experience was by choice, they did indeed become adventurers.  What they were forced to experience and endure is heart-wrenching, but how they handled the situation is beyond inspirational.  The human spirit truly is spectacular.  

My husband teases me about reading all of these books, but I really do believe they makes me a better person.  The stories help me to not take life - or comfort - for granted, and thinking about the strength and endurance all of these various folks were able to find within themselves when they were facing unimaginable circumstances helps me to draw out more of my own strength and endurance.  And that HAS to be a good thing.