My Journey Towards Better Health and Where I'm at Now

A picture my daughter took of me at the nature preserve. Isn't she a great photographer!


I have been asked by several people over the years what led me down this different path. Well, here goes. This is nothing at all against the way I was raised - this is simply my story.

As a child I developed hay fever around age 5. You can see in all my school pictures that my eyes are squinted and weepy for the first day of school. My first day of school was always taking mini kleenex packages with me and having semi-swollen and weeping eyes.

As I got a bit older I started getting throat, tonsil and ear infections. It got to the point where I would have at least 2-3 cases of each every year. By the time I turned 17 I was calling in my doctor's office telling him what ailment I had and could he please get me an antibiotic. At age 21 as a single mom I had become anti-biotic resistant to everything but the $100 antibiotic. That was something I just could not afford. It was then that I asked a fellow co-worker (and now dear friend) what I could use that was natural. As a child/teen I had bought into the myth that healthy living people were whacky. I was nervous about this change but knew something had to change. My friend told me that for a throat/tonsil situation to use Echinacea and Myrrh. I did as she said. As time went on, my infections got further and further apart.

A couple years later I married my perfect match, Matthew. I at that time became a stay at home mom. This freed up time for me to do research. Every time our family would have an ailment, I would research and see how the body worked and see what I could do about it in a natural way. A couple months after my husband and I had gotten married, I started getting sick every couple weeks. This landed me in the ER a couple times as well. It wasn't till awhile later that I learned not only the ducts in the apartment we were living in were harboring all kinds of nasties and causing all kinds of health issues with me and my daughter, but I was using very toxic cleaners very regular that I had not before been using.

It was March of 2004 where I went to my first homeschooling convention. At the convention there was a booth where they had cleaning supplies on the table. I thought that was kind of odd. Regardless, I picked up a brochure. It basically said I was poisoning my child. I at first was very upset. I would NEVER willing poison my child. The more I read the brochure and researched information after I left the convention, the more I began to understand what the brochure was talking about. I learned that everything that is around us, that we clean with, put on and into our bodies will either do good for us or will do damage. The damage we do leads to allergies, skin diseases, other diseases, etc...

As time went on, I changed our cleaners, body care products, food, etc... Little things here and there. My health got to a place that I could only dream of. In the meantime because of damage I had already done to my body, I was suffering several miscarriages. To date I have had either 4 or 5 losses. One of them we were not sure about. That too has an adverse affect on the body. After my 2nd living child was born (Jon), I started getting back into healthy living big again. My health was amazing! I never got sick, I haven't had a throat/tonsil infection in over 6 years and neither have I had an ear infection since then. I never get flus where I throw up and neither does the rest of my family. My husband was at this time still getting sick quite a bit which I'll let him share later. Through better diet and supplements, he is doing MUCH better now. Praise God!

Well, after my 3rd living child was born (Joshua), I started having issues again. My birth experience was very tramatic. I had an induction with high levels of pitocin and back labor (if you'd never experienced this, you have no clue how horrible it is) with no drugs. It wasn't to be a "tough woman", it was for the safety of my labor and baby. Needless to say, it was so traumatic, I pushed out my son very fast and forceful. I was so distraught about the labor I had. To this day it's even hard to talk about. About a week after my son was born I had some major burning and pain but I thought it was from the labor. Little did I know, I had a uti that was getting very bad. A few weeks into this and I had to go to the ER. My kidneys hurt so bad. It was while I was at the ER where I picked up West Nile Virus. I didn't know that's what it was for a couple months later. All I knew at the time was I was so tired, I had internal tremors, a weird rash that came on my arms and more. I ended up in Urgent CAre a couple times because of major heart palpitations and other issues. All this sickness and trauma caused my adrenal glands to stop working the way they should. I pushed too hard after the birth trying to get things done. My body no longer realized when it was tired and I went way over the point where I should have.

Why am I going into all the above? Family members lately have commented on different occasions "you're always sick". Not wanting to delve into the whole story I just say "no I'm not sick, I have a condition". It's like telling someone with fibromialgia that they are always sick because they get very tired and sore. Where am I at now? I feel things are looking up. With taking a nap in mid day, going to bed earlier and sleeping later (if the baby/kids allow), my adrenals are able to better heal. It's possible this could take a year long or more. I don't really know. All I do know is that I serve an amazing God who has put people in my life to help me figure out what's going on. And for the record, I've only been sick twice since my delivery of my son. Once with the West Nile the hospital so kindly shared with me and the second time was the swine flu. However, I was in bed 1 day and not feeling well the next. NO vomiting and no major symptoms thank the Lord because of all the wonderful things he's put on this earth to help us get better more quickly.

I've found those that don't live more "naturally" are the ones that watch closely to see if anyone in our family is "ill" and then strike out saying natural living does no good. It makes my heart sad. Since when is using the plants and herbs God has given us been a bad thing? God gave us all these wonderful things to help our bodies. Look at what we have done to the so called food most of us eat. Is it something God gave us for our bodies nourishment? That's for you to pray about and decide. I'm not at all knocking all Drs. out there. What I am saying is emergency rooms are for just that and I'm so thankful they are there. It would however do us all a great deal of good if we used a bit of prevention and found out exactly how our body works.

So the purpose of this post? To let you know where I'm at with my health (which I know I was a bit vague at points) and to let you know why I started down this path. One thing I failed to mention is that I in the past was told I had a heart valve issue. By using the heart herb that God has given us, that healed and cured my heart issue. Yes I could have taken medications but that would have left me reliant on those instead of actually healing the problem. I've seen many other miraculous things happen in my life, my families and other's. Please don't discount what God has given us for our food and medicine. I am so thankful for the healing that GOd has given me and what I know he'll do for me now and in the future.