Jed's GI appointment, and other happenings

It has been a very, very busy few days. It started out on Monday with Jed's GI appointment. I would tell you all the little things that happened before we even got there to help with the "feel" of the day, but that may take forever. Suffice it to say we had a hard time getting out of the grocery store, and the parking garage was full at the hospital. Yeah, no fun. BUT the kids were really being great. They saved being "bad" for when the doctor/resident came in :-P But of course! For any of you who have read here long enough you know that I have not been too happy with Jed's GI doctor. I have held off going elsewhere only because all of his "stuff" is at Duke. I hated the thought of starting over with someone new. But I must say, with a recommendation from Jed's speech therapist today, I plan on looking elsewhere. I expected his visit to go like all the rest have, hearing, "He looks good, everything is good, good, good..." All the while I sit there telling them, no, things are not good, he still has a tube and we are not getting any closer to getting him off of it. This time things were different. The resident who came in was one of the residents that had Jed's case when we spent two weeks at Duke two years ago (I can't believe it's been that long!). I got the uneasy feeling that she was not pleased with how things were going. That would be a good thing IF it was directed at the fact that I have been trying everything I can think of and nothing is working (save the homeopathy at this point). However I got the feeling that her thoughts were that it is "I" that is not working. When the GI doctor came in, instead of his usual all is good routine he told me that he wanted me to talk to the nutritionist (about his homemade formula, which I already told him about 6 months ago and he had no problem with it) and he wanted to do blood work to see how his vitamin and mineral levels were, and he was going to use some silver nitrate to take care of the granuloma (stomach tissue that grows on the outside of the body) he has only had for the past YEAR. Hmmmmm, and who put you up to all of this Mr. GI doctor? Now on the outside this may look like a good thing. And in the end it may, I am more upset by how it was all handled. It wasn't in the spirit of: [Wow, you are really doing a lot to help Jedidiah out, it is really great to hear that he isn't throwing up now that he has been on the homemade formula. We just want to make sure that he's getting all the correct nutrition from it. Would you mind if we took a blood sample to see where his vitamin levels are?] Maybe that is their intent and they just came off in the wrong spirit, but I didn't get a good feeling from it. Plus there was NO mention of ANY steps I should be taking to work towards getting him off the tube. Just, see ya in six months! Roll eyes....

To top things off I got a juror summons the following day. Ummmmm, yeah, like that is going to work! Do you know how upset I was to find out that breastfeeding is NOT an exemption? Hello????? My child has never had a bottle, nor is there plans to introduce one, and I don't plan on him weaning early due to jury duty. Not to mention Jedidiah's care. I asked my doctor for a letter to hand to the judge when I have to come in person to get an exemption. Since I am the full time caregiver of Jedidiah (feeding tube) I should be exempt. Please pray that I am. Jedidiah's chealating process is stirring up old symptoms like I was told it would. He has thrown up three times this week. Me being gone for a possible week will NOT settle well with his overall care. In the past emotional upset, physical upset or the like lead to Jedidiah throwing up. We have been very careful in the past to make sure not to make a deal out of it when it happens, lest Jedidiah use it to his advantage. But the reality is that he is still medically fragile. He has made HUGE improvements from where he was, but he has a long way to go. Being away for a week will not help at all. Please pray that there is no questioning from the judge on this and that I am granted an exemption without any further problems.

On a good note we will be buying a bunch of milk today. Like gallons and gallons. It won't be kept in a freezer. It will come in cute little packages. You'll have to check back here to see what I am talking about, I'll make sure to take pictures :-)

I remembered the other benefit from our diet. The two younger girls have been complaining of stomach pain almost daily. It isn't something that prevents them from doing their daily things, they just complain about it. Well all the first week (until we ate "forbidden" food) they were pain free. And that is nothing small! So onto some food pictures. I haven't been too good with the camera lately. Too much going on. So no kiddos in these ones. I have a feeling we will have a lot of new pics with kiddos and our gallons of milk :-)

Here is a breakfast smoothie. Not exactly green as I put a lot of blueberries in it. I have been making smoothies with juiced carrots, romaine lettuce and a couple of apples. I take that juice and poor it into the blender. I add some ground nuts and seeds and give it a whirl. Then I add in the frozen fruits (bananas, strawberries, blueberries, maybe some pineapple or cherries) and add a bunch of spinach and a little bit of spirulina. Making it this way gets some more veggies in. Jedidiah doesn't care too much for the smoothies, but will guzzle the juice. So I give him some juice before I pour it into the blender.

Here is a very yummy bowl of oatmeal. I love mine with bananas, walnuts, flax seeds, apples and raisins. I add a bit of vanilla and agave as well. I am drooling just thinking about it. :-)

Here is our beloved flat bread. We all love this! I take a can of tomato sauce and add some spices (onion, garlic, pepper, Italian seasonings, and basil) to dip our bread in. The bread is made from my whole wheat pizza dough. I roll it out thin and rub it with olive oil and sprinkle on some minced garlic, dried onion flakes and some coarse salt. I put it on my preheated hot baking stone to bubble up. YUM! We eat this with a very large salad. When we have a dinner that is simple like this I make our salad with a lot of extras (broccoli, carrots, avocados).

Here is our not so flat bread from a side angle. This is an easy dinner to make, but it takes a bunch of time as I can only cook one flat bread at a time.

Here was our very scrumptious dinner last night, roasted veggies over rice. Oh, it smelled so good cooking. Lots of great color. I flavored the rice with some bullion. I mixed the veggies with some olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them.

Off to start our busy day.