Happy to be home

There is something that compels me to share this journey with you. The highs and lows. The ups and downs. It helps me to document Moses’ healing journey, unburden my heart during the difficult times and hopefully share some inspiration with you from time to time.

Yesterday, Moses had a third abscess this month drained under local anesthesia. This time his right armpit. The surgeon put in a drain that required one stitch so that it could continue to drain.

Unfortunately, there was a complication, and two hours after it was drained, we needed to bring him back to the ER because it was draining, not pus, but blood.

By the time we got to the ER, half of his sweatshirt was soaked through with blood, all the day down to his pants. And thankfully, the site that was bleeding didn’t cause him pain (or any fear).

Since he was bleeding, they needed to insert an IV since they were concerned that if he lost too much blood and needed a blood transfusion, they wanted to be prepared. Moses was very upset / terrified about this development since back in November, they had a very, very difficult time accessing his veins for IV insertion. Thankfully, the nurse was able to insert the IV on the first attempt. Thank God.

His surgeon soon arrived (since this was the evening and after hours, he had to return to the hospital), and assessed the situation. He essentially used strong compression to stop the bleeding and they taped the site in place. Thankfully, this procedure wasn’t painful, and it really helps that we all like and trust Moses’ surgeon.

Moses was admitted to the hospital so that he could be monitored overnight. The nurses were instructed to take Moses’ blood pressure every hour to make sure that all was well. We are at the hospital so often that we know many of the nurses both in the ER and on the surgery floor. In fact, one of his triage nurses was my sister-in-law’s cousin, and Moses’ first nurse on the floor was actually an old friend of my MIL’s. So nice to be surrounded by so many familiar faces. We now also know the chaplain who visited Moses and we gladly welcomed her prayers.

We were free to go today, after two painful dressing changes. The tape that they used bound strongly to his skin and was excruciating for them to remove. My poor boy’s sensitive skin.

We were thankful that Moses’ surgeon discharged Moses and didn’t insist on starting him on IV antibiotics.

The blessings

One positive development during these recent hospital experiences is that I’m really trying to make friends and make peace with the medical system, and as a result, our experiences with the medical system have been more positive.

During the days before this hospital visit, I had been trying to find balance for myself and had been doing a lot of nurturing things for me:

• a get together with some dear friends for a group energy healing;
• a walk by the ocean with some friends;
• Yin Yoga taught by one of my dearest friends; and
• received an amazing essential oil raindrop therapy from a dear friend.

Thankfully, I was feeling balanced, replenished and full before the hospital visit. It helped to carry me through this ordeal.

Since I carry 8 essential oils with me at all times in a small key chain holder, I always have my “oil friends” with me for support. I smelled Balance, Deep Blue and OnGuard quite frequently, and wore Balance on my terra-cotta pendant. I really felt that it made a difference to have their energetic support and nurturing reassurance in the hospital setting. Balance is good for grounding and comfort, Deep Blue is good for physical and emotional pain, and OnGuard is an antimicrobial and also provides energetic protection.  I put Balance , OnGuard, melaleuca (antimicrobial), lemon (antimicrobial), lavender (calming) and peppermint (supports respiratory system) on his Moses’ feet.

An everyday miracle was that after the hospital, we stopped off at the toy store where we coincidentally bumped into one of our dear friends, who had a visit with us over lunch and then came over and played with Moses while DH and I napped. I napped for the entire afternoon. She was a God send.

Robin and Moses hanging out

We are very, very, very thankful to be home. Please pray for continued healing for Moses and for our whole family.

Reflections on Reflexology

I’m sad to report that we’ve had a rough week.

Moses had three reflexology appointments within 15 days (you can read the details about each appointment here). Who knew that something seemingly as benign as reflexology could result in such dramatic healing reactions???

As I mentioned, a day after the first appointment, Moses developed a huge groin abscess. I felt strongly at the time that we should stop the reflexology appointment to give Moses’ body a break while he was still processing the abscess, and even cancelled the second appointment. But…. DH didn’t believe that the reflexology and abscess could be linked and thought that the reflexology would help support Moses’ body.

And, I wanted to believe that reflexology was a gentle treatment, so I kept the second appointment. The morning of the second appointment, it looked as though the abscess was starting to get smaller, but by the evening after the second appointment, it was bigger. Five days later,  DH brought Moses to the ER to get it drained. It took three adults to hold him down. Moses assures me that even though they use a local anesthetic, it is still a painful procedure. Not fun at all.

We really should have stopped there, but I optimistically hoped that would be the end of it (and didn’t stop to check in to my intuition), and so he had his third reflexology appointment the day after the abscess was drained. I was still feeling optimistic and was happy that Moses’ lungs were clearing so I felt that we were on to something…..

But by the next day, my poor boy had developed five abscesses under his armpit: two under his right and three under his left. And the ones under his left armpit were painful.

It’s been a heartbreakingly difficult week. Typically Moses’ pain threshold is high and the abscesses aren’t painful and he doesn’t complain — even when he’s had abscesses the size of golf balls under his armpits. These ones have been brutal and he’s been crying and in pain for a lot of the week. We brought him to the ER on Wednesday, but the abscesses weren’t ready to be drained (i.e., weren’t soft enough). We brought him back in on Thursday  (last night), and they were ready to be drained, but Moses was hysterical at the thoughts of having more of them drained (especially in a terribly sensitive spot and vulnerable spot).

The surgeon suggested that administering warm compresses for an hour at a time four times a day could help the abscesses to burst on their own. The surgeon seemed to prefer the idea to give it some more time, and Moses also preferred that option, so we went home. Once home, DH and I regretted this decision because Moses again complained of terrible pain and then we had to go through with administering the warm compresses (which truthfully, is a huge inconvenience). We all had a terrible sleep.

The plan is that if the abscesses don’t burst on their own, the surgeon is going to drain them tomorrow. We need to fast him for the morning, and then go through the ordeal. Not fun at all.

So… it feels like a HUGE lesson for me to LISTEN TO MY INTUITION. It’s been a not fun lesson to learn and, unfortunately, resulted in much suffering for Moses, missed school, missed work, and lots of stress, anxiety and crankiness at our house.

And the blessings?  I do feel that there are always blessings in every situation, even during trying times (often especially during trying times).

I hope that whatever his body has processed and brought to the surface will result in deep, long-lasting healing for Moses. Perhaps this stuff needed to come up to help his lungs to heal.

Nonetheless, we are going to take a long, long, long, long, long, long break from reflexology. And when / if we try it again, they will be shorter session and not as frequent. Another reflexologist suggested that she would only do a 20 minute session with a child, especially a sensitive child.

What about the essential oils?

Of course, I’m still continuing to use the essential oils, but Moses isn’t keen on me putting them directly on the abscesses (which I can understand), so I’ve been putting them on his feet instead. With something like an abscess and the fact that his body is likely fighting a difficult to treat infection such as MRSA, the best place for the oils would be on the abscess itself and with frequent application (e.g., every 2 hours), but given that Moses isn’t supportive of that idea, I’m just doing the best that I can.

This difficult week also has made me so APPRECIATIVE of the three months break that we experienced from January to March. Really, a miracle. I am very, very, very hopeful that once these abscesses have resolved themselves, we can go back to smooth sailing and enjoying life and each other. I’m thankful for the hope that I have, and do feel that the essential oils have given me a lot of reasons to feel hopeful.

As a friend said to me today,

Maybe his body is just saying ‘leave me to it – I know what I’m doing’ and mama’s awesome essential oils are all I need.

So be it, and it is so, and so it is.

Thanks for sending some healing thoughts and well wishes our way.

Updates

April 13, 2013 - God’s healing power

April 14, 2013 - Some gifts that have resulted from reflexology…

Healthy and strong

I have more good news to share. We saw our  naturopath this week. I love seeing our naturopath because she can see the long-view with Moses. We generally only see her every 6 months to a year, so she can see the big picture.

She reminded us how far Moses has come. How healthy and strong he looks. How his body isn’t showing signs of being stressed with allergies, as it once did. How his skin looks so healthy. We’ve been seeing this naturopath since Moses was three years old, and she reminded us how his skin once looked. Inflamed. Infected and weeping in places. Raw. Sore-looking.   And it covered much of his body – his scalp, his neck, his ears, parts of his face, his entire back, groin, arms and legs. (As an aside, when Moses was two years old, we saw a cranialsacral therapist who tried to bring attention to the part of his body that wasn’t covered in rashes. She told me, “Look at how clear his feet are”. God love her. Reminds me of our angel at A&W).

I explained our current protocol (which is generally using essential oils and probiotics — we’ve really simplified things), and she was happy with what we’re doing. I wanted her thoughts on us taking a break from homeopathy. I’m still concerned with some things — he had gone through a period of time when he was still needing his ventolin puffer quite regularly (but now that I reflect on it, in the last couple of weeks, Moses hasn’t really been needing his ventolin puffer very regularly at all), he’s been having night terrors again from time to time, and something else had recently popped up (which is a whole other story, which I’ll fill you in on soon).

She reminded us that we have worked so hard over the last few years healing him (really his whole life – almost 7 years), and Moses has gone through a lot during that time. She liked what we were doing — taking a break from homeopathy so that we can see how his body can do on its own. She thought some of the “flare ups” may be Moses’ body pushing stuff out on its own. And regarding his lungs, she thought that with time as his body strengthens, his lungs will strengthen too. She sees Moses’ body just getting stronger and stronger, with fewer and fewer flare ups, and with the flare ups becoming less and less of an issue. Interestingly, her vision is very similar to the message that our shamanic healer recently shared. A vision that mirrors my own feelings and inner truth.

She did have a couple of suggestions:

• She suggested that we start him back on Vitamin B12 (she thought it would help the corner of his lips, which are still cracked), so we’ll make more of an effort to bring that back into our routine. We got out of the routine when Genestra changed the formulation of their Multi-B complex, which Moses didn’t like the taste of. He didn’t even like the taste of their Bio-Vitamin B12 plus Folic Acid chewable tablets, which taste like a chalky candy (I think they taste good), but we’ll be more consistent with it since it’s important.
• She asked if we were still making sure that he was getting sources of dietary omega 3s, like flax seed oil and hemp seeds (which he is), but it’s so good for the reminder.
• She suggested the following lung tonic: Pulmogen by Genestra (which truthfully, we likely won’t doing since it’s very, very challenging to get supplements into Moses, especially ones that have a strong taste). But it’s good to know that we have some options to explore in the future.

After the session, she sent me an email that said, “It is so good to see Moses so strong and healthy.”

Again, it’s more and more confirmation that we are on the right path. More confirmation that my boy is healing. He’s really really healing. He is healthy and strong. Healthy and strong. Healthy and strong. A dream come true.

“One of my healthy students”

During a recent meeting with Moses’ grade 1 teacher, she told us that she considers Moses to be one of her “healthy students”.  It’s been a difficult year healthwise for the grade 1s in Moses’ class this year. Many coming down with pneumonia (a third of the class!). Strep throat. Flus. Stomach bugs. Several hospitalizations. For several weeks at a time during the winter, she often had 1/3 of the class home sick. I think it’s time to revisit this post.

And guess whose body has been strong enough to fight off infection? That’s right. Moses’s body has been strong enough to fight infection. The boy with a diagnosed primary immuno-deficiency has a strong immune system.

I feel that it’s a strong, strong, strong sign that Moses is definitely healing, and we are definitely on the right course. I have no doubt that the 2.5 years of Heilkunst homeopathy played a big role in his healing. And I feel that the essential oils are currently helping to bring his body ease, strength  and comfort.

In addition to physical health, he’s also been doing well emotionally, mentally, socially, academically, and behaviourally. We are very, very pleased. He’s still not that keen on being in school, but he’s adjusted very well. Has a few good friends. It’s no longer a struggle to get him to school. He no longer tells me that he hates school in the morning. I feel that the oils are helping to bring his body ease and comfort. Balance.

I typically walk him all the way to the school door (and sometimes, I walk him into the school), but a couple of weeks ago, he left me at the entrance to the parking lot of the school. He ran to the school door, met a friend at the door and they walked in together. I was an emotionally full / heart-full mama in that moment. My boy is growing up. My healthy and strong boy is growing up.

A few successes to share

I was reading some of my old blog posts today, and it occurred to me that I have a few successes to share…

• Moses’ back is completely cleared of rashes. This is amazing since his back is the favourite place for rashes to appear on his body. We can’t really remember the last time it was clear, so it’s been a long,  long time. His elbow creases are clear as well. Yay! He still has a rash on his groin and in the backs of his knees, but we are definitely seeing improvement. (And according to homeopathy, the direction of cure is down the body, therefore, the fact that the rashes that are “higher on the body” are healing first are a good sign that things are progressing in the right way).
• He hasn’t had a night terror for a long time. In addition, the nightmares seem to have subsided. He’s still waking up in the middle of the night, but now it’s not because of a night terror or nightmares — it’s just interrupted sleep, and hopefully he’ll start sleeping through the night again soon.
• Moses hasn’t needed Diflucan (an antifungal for thrush) for awhile.
• As mentioned, his state of mind (which is the best indicator of health) has been really good lately.
• It also just occurred to me that the fact that abscesses are Moses’ biggest health issue at the moment (and that all three of his current ones are low on the body), this is also a very good sign according to the direction of cure (i.e., the direction of cure is from within to outside).

All things to celebrate and signs of healing. It’s good for me to reflect on how far Moses has come and celebrate all of the successes along the way.

Updates

January 3, 2013:  More good news. We brought Moses in for a consultation with his surgeon, and his surgeon wants to minimize the amount of interventions on Moses, therefore, he’s going to wait for another week before he makes a decision on how to proceed. He wants to minimize the amount of incisions, therefore, if he does anything, he will drain it under local anesthesia with a syringe (i.e., aspirate it) rather than with a scalpel under general anesthesia.

January 4, 2013: Well, Moses called me from school today,  complaining that his bumps were hurting him. Soo…. back to this hospital we went. Long story, short…  two of the three abscesses were aspirated. Lots of crying and tears. It took five adults to hold him down. We’re glad that it’s over and we hope that the last abscess will resolve on its own and that his body can have a break…  That brings us to five abscesses drained by local anesthesia and two drained under general anesthesia in the last six months. Ack!

January 5, 2013: Good news — the third abscess burst on its own today. Thank God!!!

January 8, 2012: OMG — more good news — the abscess that has been under his left armpit since November is now completely gone!!!!!!!! Yesterday, I switched from putting a drop of doTERRA oregano essential oils on his feet to a drop of melaleuca essential oils on his feet. Did that make the difference???

So…  all that is left is a residual abscess in his groin (the abscess sometimes does not resolve fully when aspirated, since the abscess does not continue to drain after the procedure; whereas the abscess does continue to drain when it is lanced with a scalpel). Pray with me that this one eventually resolves on its own as well.

January 9, 2012: The good news just keeps on coming and coming. At the moment, it appears that all of the abscesses have completely resolved!

12 days

12 days.

That’s how many days Moses was in the hospital. He went in as a happy, energetic and relatively healthy boy (with three MRSA-infected abscesses) and during his time in the hospital became a sick, disagreeable and angry boy with stomach pains, trouble breathing, pains in his chest, pain in his arms and legs (from the multiple IV sites they tried on multiple occasions — Moses veins are not IV-friendly — it took a lot of tries from multiple nurses and even one doctor, an anesthesiologist, before they were successful), intermittent pain in the arm at the IV site while the medicine flowed, diarrhea, headaches, fevers,  loss of appetite and energy. He received blood work just about every day he was there (because one of the side effects of Vancomycin is that it can negatively affect kidney function if the dose is too high), and during the last week, he received blood work each time he spiked a fever. He got very little sleep with his IV beeping throughout the night. Oh, yes, and he also developed pneumonia after 8 days of being in the hospital. Ack!

It was a tiring, stressful and challenging time for us all.

To focus on the blessings…

We had a lot of support:

• we received visitors every single day that we were in the hospital;
• my MIL (Grammie Millie) was stayed at the hospital every second night, which gave us much needed rest and respite;
• we received many phone calls and emails of support and love, including people who heard from the grapevine;
• many of my healer friends sent healing energy and Reiki;
• a dear friend offered body work to both DH and me;
• friends and family brought over meals;
• both DH and my employers were extremely understanding, so we were able to focus our attention on Moses, without worrying about work.

I learnt some new things:

• a friend mentioned that doTERRA essential oils (such as OnGuard, Oregano, Frankincense, Melaleuca) can be effective against MRSA, and that they can just be put on Moses’ feet (and he doesn’t need to ingest them). I spent some time researching these essential oils, have some on order and can’t wait to try them to help prevent future MRSA infections, help his asthma (Breathe essential oil) and many other things. Stay tuned!!!!!!
• another friend lent me her Purple Tesla Energy Plate, and I found that it helped to increase my energies and cleared my energetic system. I liked it so much that I ordered one for myself.

Yesterday, we could see that Moses was getting better and the doctors weren’t quite ready to discharge Moses from their care. DH adamantly told the doctor that today would be Moses’ last day in the hospital, and so it was. We suspect that had DH not made his opinion known that Moses would have spent an extra 3 days in the hospital (since they were waiting for him to be 48 hours fever-free), which would have taken us to Saturday, and they likely would have waited to discharge him until Monday. That would have been 3 extra days of misery, sleepless nights, Moses being poked and prodded, potential blood work, and more time for Moses to brew another bug.

I am so happy that he is home, sleeping in his own bed tonight!!! He is in good spirits today, and he seems more like his typical self.

We’ll spend the weekend grounding, getting back to normal, play dates with his favourite cousin, and going to the Christmas parade. Yay, yay, yay.

Praying for healing

Well, dear friends, we are digging deep over in our house. My mom (Grammie Rosie) is back on a plane across the country. We will miss her so.

I had so much planned for my week off with my mom. I had plans for  relaxation, healing sessions, yoga, body work for me and my mom because we both work so hard and give so much. I’ve been getting the message to slow down. Enjoy life. Relax. It’s time for me.

We did have some relaxation time (and according to my mom, she left more refreshed than when she arrived), but we also spent way more time at the hospital than I would have liked. In addition to the daily nurse visits, visits to the ER, consultations with the surgeon, draining of yet another abscess, we also had consultations with his chiropractor, his naturopath, his pediatrician and an eye check up.

A quick recap:

• his chiropractor said that Moses’ body and immune system has been working hard, so he helped to reset his body and strengthened his immune system.
• his naturopath suggested starting Moses on a Vitamin B12-Folic Acid (Genestra) vitamin. He was on a multi liquid B vitamin, but Genestra recently changed the formula and the new formula tastes gross. We’re hoping that the corners of Moses’ mouth may start to heal on this new vitamin. Otherwise, she is happy with the current supplements, which is pretty straightforward: a liquid multivitamin, probiotics, omega 3 (Nutrevege) and 2,000 IU of Vitamin D drops. More details on Moses’ current treatment plan is here. His naturopath thought that Moses’ tongue was looking very good (in the distant past, it looked like “raw meat” and was an indication of low vitamin B). His recent blood work showed that his vitamin B levels are normal, which is good news. She also had some thoughts about speeding up (rather than spacing out, as I’ve been doing) his homeopathic clearings.
• he recently got a complete blood work up by his pediatrician, and on the good side of things, most of his blood work is in the normal range. However, his IgE levels are now greater than 20,000 (we’re not sure how much over 20,000 it is), but it’s greater than it was when it was measured a year ago (16,000), so I’m a bit down about that. I’m not that surprised though. He’s still allergic to five foods: tree nuts, eggs, dairy, fish and wheat (which is still better than the 40+ foods that he was allergic / sensitive to in the past).
• his eye sight in his injured eye has plateaued at 20/40 with his glasses. We are going to start being more consistent with patching that eye, so that we can get that eye to 20/20 with his glasses.
• the abscess that they drained under local anesthetic on Friday didn’t really go down in size, so I suspect that it may need another draining in the future. Also the groin abscess that they drained 10 days ago has started a secondary abscess, which looks like will also need to be eventually drained. My poor baby isn’t getting a break.

The truth is that rather than feeling relaxed, I felt a bit beat up this week. Gosh, I’m so tired of dealing with these abscesses. I’ve been trying to see the bright side of things, but sometimes, it gets very tiresome.

We played a lot of Wish Games this week. Me and Moses’ two grandmas. Talk about intergenerational healing. The three of us did deep, deep healing work for ourselves and for the whole family. It’s no wonder that things are shaking up in Moses’ body because Moses is so sensitive and his body tends to physically detox when any of us in the family do any energetic healing.

I was gearing up for a fresh start this week. Life was going back to “normal”. Then we got a call from the hospital that Moses’ last few abscesses have been MRSA-positive and they want to start him on IV antibiotics. Ack! Are you kidding me?!?

My heart broke thinking of how much Moses’ body has been through and will continue to go through.

So that’s our update at the moment.

I’m still holding that vision of deep healing for Moses in my heart, and I still feel that all of these abscesses are signs of healing. I still have a vision of health and healing for Moses. I still have that vision of him as an adult. I can see him clearly.

He is strong, healthy, charismatic, grounded, fully present. Inspiring others. Fully engaged with life and living his life purpose.

I know in my heart of hearts that Moses is healing. This is certainly not an easy journey that we are on, but I still hold tight to my vision.

Please continue to pray for us and join me in my vision of healing and health for Moses. Pray that we’ll soon all be home together.

Update:

December 30, 2012 – 12 days later, Moses is now home. Thanks so much for your concern and prayers, everyone.

Looking at the bright side of things – Part 2

Well, Moses isn’t getting much of a break. The last abscess is still healing (and getting packed with a wick everyday by the community nurse), and he has another one that will need attention very soon. We brought him back to the ER today, and the surgeon wants to give it a couple of extra days before they decide what to do. He said that if it was anyone else, they would have drained it today, but given that Moses isn’t typical, he wants to wait and see (i.e., to potentially minimize the amount of interventions / anesthesia that Moses receives). I appreciate his  conservative approach.

Last night, I emailed Moses’ teacher to let her know that he was going to be missing some more school today, and she responded:

Poor guy, he just can’t catch a break at all. Overall he has been really healthy when many, many others have been plagued by colds, pneumonia, etc. etc. If only he could get a break from the abscesses for a while!

I was really heartened to read her message because it was yet another reminder that although Moses’ body has been created a lot of abscesses (which, according to homeopathy, is his body’s way of getting rid of stuff that his body no longer needs), he hasn’t been catching all of the colds and flus that have been making their way around the school. Even I have a cold at the moment, and Moses’ body is staying strong.

Moses’ state of mind and emotional health has also been good, which is always a good sign. Stay tuned and keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

Update:

November 16, 2012 – The abscess was drained under local anesthetic, thankfully. Happy that Moses didn’t need to be admitted to the hospital. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

November 18, 2012 – Moses has been re-admitted to the hospital b/c the last two infections have been MRSA-positive and they are starting him back on IV antibiotics. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers that this be resolved with ease and grace  for us all.

Looking at the bright side of things

Well, Moses had yet another abscess (a huge one, measuring 7 cm x 4 cm) drained under general anaesthetic yesterday, but on the good side of things, it was Moses’ quickest hospital stay ever.

These were the blessings associated with this visit:

• I stayed in my heart the entire time, and didn’t get angry at the medical system at all (like I normally do). In fact, I was grateful that they could efficiently deal with his abscess. We really liked his surgeon.
• Moses was the most calm he’s ever been in the hospital (maybe it helped that I was so centred?). He fasted for 9.5 hours before the procedure and by the time that he was out of the recovery room, it was 11 hours before he was able to eat anything, and 13 hours before he was able to eat to his heart’s content, and he did amazingly well. (I think this is a sign that something deep has shifted for him because he normally eats for comfort and is very distressed when he can’t eat, which, of course, is understandable).
• We were happy that they didn’t start any IV antibiotics before the drainage (which didn’t really seem to help last time anyway). In fact, they didn’t insert an IV until he was under the effects of the anaesthesia; therefore, Moses didn’t need to experience any pain.
• Normally my MIL /Grammie Millie becomes sick when Moses in the hospital, and therefore isn’t able to visit. For the first time, Grammie Millie wasn’t sick and she was able to visit. Not only that, she offered to stay the night, which meant that DH and I were able to get some rest and reprieve.
• I held strong to the vision of Archangel Raphael healing Moses, and remembered that Moses has so much spiritual support.
• Two of my friends recently received their Reiki II attunements, which gives them the ability to send Reiki energy through distance, so Moses received extra healing support during the procedure, in addition to all of the prayers that all of our family and friends were saying on his behalf.
• We received lots of emails and calls, so we felt supported and loved by many during this time.
• I played three Wish Games during our time in the hospital, including a wish for Moses’ deep and continued healing and that his healing journey will be full of ease and grace.
• Through the entire experience, Moses was grounded and calm. He even stayed grounded and calm when they removed the 3 feet of wick from the open wound and inserted 1 foot into it. He did so good that they released us earlier than they would have otherwise, and we only had to stay one night at the hospital. Woo hoo! As before, he will continue to be visited by a community health nurse to change the wick and the dressing until it’s completely healed (will likely take 2-3 weeks).

So, all in all, it was the best hospital experience that we could possibly have. We all stayed soft and in our hearts, and Moses was in and out of the hospital. Now that he’s out of the hospital, we’ll clear the effects of the hospital stay using homeopathic remedies, and we’ll also see his chiropractor and naturopath next week.

We hope that that will be his last abscess for a long time (we all need a break from abscesses), but again, I remind myself that according to our Heilkunstler, abscesses are a sign that “things are coming to the surface to be healed”, and if that’s the case, then I’m grateful for Moses’ continued healing.

Moses was discharged one day before my mom’s (Grammie Rosie’s) annual visit. We are so looking forward to Grammie Rosie’s visit, and are happy that things will be back to “normal” by the time she gets here. Plus, Grammie Rosie is a nurse, so we’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of her expertise / knowledge while she is here.

Update:

Dec 3, 2012 – Today was the first day that this wound didn’t need to be packed with a wick and was not dressed by the community nurse. I suspect it will be closed within the next week. This means that it took an entire month to heal (which means no swimming lessons and Taekwondo for an entire month.

Clearing Carcinosin (Update)

It’s been awhile since I’ve given you an update on Moses’ Heilkunst homeopathic healing journey.

Moses had a very difficult time clearing Carcinosin (Cancer chronic miasm). Emotionally. Behaviourally. And physically.

Typically, it takes 6 weeks for one to clear one of the chronic miasms to 10 M, and it took Moses 6 months to clear Carcinosin to 1 M because I spaced out the powders since his reactions were so big. (We didn’t even get to clearing 10M).

DH has dubbed this summer “the summer of abscesses”, and that it was. Moses had yet another abscess drained in the hospital on Thursday (it was his left armpit this time). Thankfully, they drained it under local anesthetic, which although was traumatizing for him in the short-term, meant that we didn’t need to stay in the hospital. Yay, yay, yay, yay, yay!

My Heilkunstler always reminds me that abscesses mean that things are coming to the surface to be resolved (which is a good thing), but it’s still not fun for Moses or the family.

We recently started clearing Syphilinum (Syphilis), but given Moses’ huge reactions, his Heilkunstler chose to dose Syphilinum using the Fibonacci method of dosing, which is supposed to result in more gentler healing reactions. I hope that she’s right…

[According to Arcanum Wholistic Clinic, the Fibonacci series is "...based on a mathematical sequence which defines a perfect spiral motion, as is found through many processes in nature. A spiral is formed from a kind of dance between a radial and spherical force which creates a continuous expansive motion"; therefore, it sounds like a combination of the traditional radial centisimal (C) scale and the spherical LM scale that is typically used.  The Fibonacci series are particularly useful for deep and old diseases].  Check out this visual representation of the  Fibonacci sequence here.

Fibonacci sequence in nature…

Earlier this week, I was starting to feel down about Moses’ state of health because his symptoms were up (i.e., increase of rashes; increase of wheeziness — he’s been needing his Ventolin puffer several times a day at school and at home;  the corners of his lips are cracked — they look so sore; he’s been complaining of intense abdominal pains; he’s continuing to have nightmares every night; and, of course, the abscess). I’m so tired of healing reactions, ER visits and doctor’s appointments. It’s hard to stay optimistic and centred of the time, especially when DH and his doctors just see the increase in symptoms as an increase in illness and disease. As a result of all of the abscesses, he has an appointment to see yet another doctor — an infectious diseases specialist. I’m also concerned that they will likely increase his preventative puffer medication due to his increase in wheeziness. Ack. More medication means more stuff that Moses’ body needs to detox (which then causes a healing reaction). Such a vicious cycle.

But then yesterday, Moses and I had an appointment with our chiropractor, who also does cranialsacral therapy and total body modification. We have faithfully been seeing our chiropractor every 4-6 weeks. I *love* our chiropractor because he understands homeopathy and energy healing, and is very intuitive. I always find visits to our chiropractor so confirming because he can read the body so well, and he can often pick up on the effects of the homeopathy and the energy work that we’ve been doing. (I’ve been keeping a record of all of our chiropractic visits here, so that I can keep track of how we’ve been progressing over time).

I told his chiropractor about current Moses’ symptoms and recent abscess drainage. In particular, I was concerned about the intense abdominal pains that he’s been having (which are not typical for him), and had been going on for a week. He missed two days of school as a result of these pains. His chiropractor released his neck and the base of his skull, which can be related to stomach upsets. According to his chiropractor, Moses’ body is doing well. Moses only needed some minor body point corrections, and not major work on any of his organs (this is great news). His chiropractor felt that his body was detoxing energetically, which is likely related to the fact that he recently started detoxing Syphilinum. His spine is good and his body is generally clear. He reminded me how far Moses’ body has come from when he first started treating him last year. In the beginning, he needed to do a lot of work on clearing his organs, and currently, his organs are actually doing really well. To me, this is a sign that even though all of the outer symptoms have (temporarily) increased, his internal system is actually doing well (i.e., it confirms what his Heilkunstler has been saying all along — abscesses are a sign of healing as it means that toxins and disease are on their way out and away from the organs). His chiropractor assessed that on a scale from illness to healthy, Moses is actually on the side of health. He is healthy (despite the outer symptoms). It made me feel that we are definitely on the right track, and I just need to have trust and be patient with the process. Yay, yay, yay, yay, and yay!

So, in any case, we will continue on this course of healing, and I will (try to) be patient with the process.

Hanging out on Torbay Point

As for me, it shouldn’t surprise me that Carcinosin was such a major chronic miasm for Moses to clear because it’s been a major one for me. I had to clear it for a second time to 50M a few weeks ago. I had flu-like symptoms that were quite intense during the first day of my trip to Phoenix, but thankfully my nose stopped running on the day that I gave a presentation at a conference. My Heilkunstler also gave me a dropper to help with my nerves related to the presentation, and my presentation was a big success! And, of course, DH and I had a great vacation in Phoenix and Sedona!

On the positive side of the things, Moses did really, really, really, really well when we were away for a week. His Grammie remarked several times how well Moses did, how much fun they had together and how different Moses is now compared to when he was three and a half. Three years ago was shortly after his MMR vaccination and we were wondering at the time whether he might be on the autistic spectrum. The fact that Moses did so well when we were gone is another sign of how far Moses has come emotionally.

Update:

October 14, 2012 – Moses hasn’t complained of stomach pains since Thursday. Seems like something has helped (maybe the chiropractic treatment, maybe the homeopathic remedy that his Heilkunstler prepared for his stomach pains). In any case, I’m glad that his tummy is feeling better.

We started using a Nyaderm (an antifungal cream) on the corners of his lips, and I’m hoping that will help bring relief to his lips soon.

The angel at A&W

I was reminded of this story when a friend and I were talking about human angels in unexpected places…

When Moses was one year old, the eczema / rash on his face was so bad that strangers would often gasp in surprise when they saw Moses’ face. They felt compelled to ask us, “What’s wrong with your baby’s face?”

I remember one morning when I brought Moses to a community centre play hour, one woman remarked that she hoped that we weren’t taking any pictures of our child because she said that he wouldn’t want to see them when he grew up.

We now know that the severe rash was due to the fact that he had Hyper IgE syndrome or Job’s syndrome (so named for the rash and skin afflictions typically associated with this diagnosis), but it took four years to get this diagnosis, so at the time, we didn’t know why we couldn’t easily heal Moses’ skin condition.

I felt that Moses’ rashes were a sign that I was a failure as a mother. As a healer, I felt even worse. I felt terrible that I couldn’t do anything to help him (at this point, we had already exhausted everything that we felt that we could to help our son — doctors, medications, creams, healers, naturopathy, limited diet, supplements, herbal medications, homeopathy, etc.).

On this one day in particular, Moses had yet another allergic reaction to something and we had an appointment with his pediatrician. We were living in a city of a million people, and Moses’ doctor was a well known and well respected pediatrician. I liked this doctor because he was quite progressive in his thinking. We were hoping for some answers. Both DH and I were there for this appointment. We explained what we had been going through, and the doctor told us, “I’m afraid that I can’t do anything for you.”

We left the appointment feeling hopeless and in despair. We felt all alone in this journey. DH drove to a nearby A&W (something that we generally didn’t do, but I think we were looking for comfort food). When he drove into the parking lot, he was so distraught, he drove the car partially up the curb, which shook us into reality.

We placed our order, both of us  fighting back tears. The cashier looked at Moses, and I braced myself for the insensitive comment that was sure to come. I knew that I didn’t have it in me today to face another insensitive comment.

She looked at Moses, and she looked up at us and told us, “Your son has such beautiful eyes”.

****

Even now, five years later, when I write these words, tears stream down my face as I remember that difficult time, and also the gratitude that I felt when that angel in A&W spoke those words. Our spirits were immediately lifted by her simple words. She had the rare ability to see what most people did not. The truth is that Moses had the most amazing eyes.  Eyes that penetrated you. Eyes that saw and understood so much. Eyes of an old wise soul.

DH and I often speak about that angel in A&W. How she reminded us of Moses’ true beauty.

Remembering this story also reminds me of how far we  have come in Moses’ healing, and reminds me to see with the eyes of an angel.

Making Peace

I feel that the theme of the last 10 days for our family was making peace.

Moses needed IV antibiotics based on the fact that he had an infection (the results of a culture taken from his swollen lymph node / abscess taken during an ER visit four days earlier had come back positive for MRSA). Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)  is a bacteria that is resistant to many antibiotics (which actually developed as a result of the over-use of antibiotics), and as a result, is difficult to treat. It can result in painful skin infections and abscesses and other infections. There are only two antibiotics that can be used to treat MRSA: a sulfa drug that can be taken orally and Vancomycin by IV. The problem is that Moses has glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, which makes his blood susceptible to hemolysis with certain drugs, including the sulfa drug; therefore, the only course of action left for us (according to the doctors) was IV antibiotics.

Ack!

I was angry for all sorts of reasons — the fact that MRSA was a superbug that was the result of the over-use of antibiotics, and we were left with no choice but a powerful, “big guns” broad spectrum IV antibiotic (which would undoubtedly wreck more havoc on Moses gut flora), likely resulting in even more powerful bacteria. It’s an arms race that in the long run, the medical system is not going to win. I was worried because the last time Moses was in the hospital on IV antibiotics related to a dental abscess, he wound up with pneumonia, became terribly ill and needed a blood transfusion.

Immediately after Moses’ first IV treatment, I went to visit my friend, who gave me a tarot reading. One of the cards that I chose was “peace offering”.  My friend reminded me that DH and I have a common goal: Moses healing, and since we were choosing to go down this road (i.e., starting IV antibiotics), she asked if I could align with this decision, and to visualize complete healing for Moses through this modality. Pray that his body will take what it needs from the antibiotics and release what it doesn’t need. She reminded me that Moses’ healing was more important than me being right.

So that became my intention. I aligned with the IV antibiotic treatment to the extent that I could. I also continued with Moses’ homeopathic remedies and his Heilkunstler suggested a paper remedy to help minimize the negative impacts of the IV antibiotics. I used a lot of Donna Eden’s energy medicine techniques on both Moses and me, and felt that they really helped us to stay strong, keep our energy up and stay grounded. I called on my friends and family for emotional support and prayers. I played a lot of Wish Games. Moses saw his chiropractor who also does cranialsacral therapy and total body modification (TBM) on the third day of IV antibiotics. His chiropractor used some TBM vials to help his immune system, adjusted his cervical spine, released some pressure in his head and focused on draining his axillary area (where he had the swollen lymph node / abscess). He mentioned that his energy wasn’t typical of someone who was sick, but his energy was running high and pushing out. I took this as being a good sign, that Moses’ body is fighting hard against this infection.

I learned that MMS is known to be effective for MRSA infections, and I started him on MMS baths at home and continued with 3 drops of MMS in pineapple juice (I didn’t up the dosage because he doesn’t drink the juice when I increase the dosage). If the infection had taken longer to clear, I would have started to spray MMS on the wound itself, but was waiting on this because I didn’t think that DH would be a fan of this idea.

Seven days into the treatment, I was starting to worry about how long it was going to take to clear up the infection. To my dismay, I learned that sometimes it takes weeks of IV antibiotics to clear the infection. Ack – I didn’t have enough energy in me to continue what we were doing for weeks. I talked to my mom about my concerns and she reminded me to take my concerns to God. She was praying to God. I was praying too, of course, and I knew that so many others were as well and was reminded that the highest intervention that we could take is prayer. A friend of mine told me that she had a vision of our family healthy and happy, and she started to paint her vision. Oh, I am blessed to have such magical people in my life.

The entire time, Moses remained in a good state of mind (a great sign of health according to Heilkunst). His energy levels were revved way up, despite the fact that he wasn’t getting half the sleep that he typically gets (given that one of the IV treatments was at midnight and for the first four days, we were travelling back and forth from the hospital). He was like an Energizer Bunny. He kept going and going and going. He was funny and full of life. Other than the abscess and the fact that the culture said Moses had an MRSA infection, he had no other symptoms. No fever. Our visitors remarked that Moses didn’t seem sick. He had so much energy that we would climb up three flights of stairs to get to his hospital room (and back down on the way home) twice a day. At midnight during this IV treatment, he coloured tons of pictures. He danced and ran in place in the hospital. We brought him to the park one afternoon and he played chase with other children his age. He also played a lot of Mario Brothers games on his DS (a life-saver!!). So, all in all, Moses did great during the entire time, and was so brave. I was worried that the lack of sleep would catch up with him, but thankfully, it didn’t.

DH and I came together during this time. We took turns with Moses at the hospital (like we always do), but more than that, we put aside our differences in opinions about what’s best for Moses. We made peace.

***

Miscellaneous articles about using Vancomycin to treat MRSA
(mostly for my reference)

Article re: flaws of using Vancomycin to treat MRSA

Vancomycin dosing

Vancomycin: A 50-something-year old antibiotic that we still don’t understand

Clinical Practice Guidelines for the treatment of MRSA in adults and children  – Seven to 14 days of IV Vancomycin therapy is recommended for treatment of an infected abscess but should be individualized on the basis of the patient’s clinical response.

Management of community-associated MRSA skin abscesses in children – most children can be managed initially with drainage alone (i.e., without antibiotics)

Randomized, controlled trail of antibiotics in the management of community-acquired skin abscesses in the pediatric patient  – antibiotics are not required for pediatric skin resolution of abscesses.

A healing card

Well, dear friends, Moses is going through a bit of a rough patch right now and he’s receiving IV antibiotics every 8 hours at the hospital (happily, we are on a day pass, so can go home between treatments).

Thankfully, his state of mind is still well. I wish I could say the same for DH and I. I know that he’ll make it through, but I’m sad that our family is going through this.

One of my friends gifted me a tarot card reading. I chose three cards:

• Peace offering — a message for me to stay in my heart and align with our decision to proceed with the IV antibiotics and continue to visualize complete healing for Moses through this modality. Pray that his body will take what it needs from the antibiotics and release what it doesn’t need.
• Gratitude – stay in my heart and be in gratitude for Moses, DH, my incredible friends, family and Spirit. Know that we are being supported through this. Be grateful since I know that this situation will lead to Moses’ greater health  (remind myself that although this might be a huge snake, it will be followed by a huge ladder).
• Tetrahedron – now is the time for me to be in acceptance / no action is required / it’s my time to simply be.

A dear friend made this beautiful healing card for our family and she lit a candle next to it and is praying for complete healing for Moses and for our whole family. So be it, and it is so and so it is.

Please join us in the prayers.

Updates:

August 19, 2012 – Thank you so much for your prayers.

Moses is still doing well. His state of mind is good (which is a good indicator of health, from a Heilkunst perspective). His lymph nodes, which were very swollen (a sign that he was fighting something), are coming down. One of his doctors said that he’d never seen an armpit lymph node as swollen as Moses’ was. I’ve been using some of Donna Eden’s energy medicine techniques on him and myself, and I feel that it’s helping with our state of mind / energy flow.

August 22, 2012 – Thanks for the continued prayers.

Moses was admitted to the hospital yesterday, and had an abscess removed under general anaesthetic. It was a huge one, so will take a while to heal. The IV antibiotics are continuing. I’m also using homeopathic remedies, and some of Donna Eden’s techniques. Moses’ state of mind is still good, which is a great sign. We hope that everything will be back to normal by the weekend.

August 23, 2012 – Yay –  Moses gets to go home between IV antibiotic treatments.  Please pray that the IV antibiotics will do its job and that we will be able to discontinue treatment very, very, very soon. Happily, Moses is still in good spirits.

August 26 2012- Yay! Moses no longer has an infection. They will continue with IV antibiotic treatment for another 24 hours and then life can go back to normal. Thanks all for the prayers and good intentions and vibes. Love you all!!

Hope for parents of “non-responders”

This is a message for parents of “non-responders”, for those parents whose children do not respond to medical interventions, biomedical treatment or even homeopathy. For those children who are not getting better despite all of the many therapies that your child is undergoing.

I share this message because my son is a former  “non-responder”. He did not respond favourably to many treatments. He was “too sensitive”. His system was so stressed out /over-taxed that even the gentlest therapies would cause his body to detox too strongly. (Now that we have his diagnosis, we know why – because his IgE levels were off the charts).

We tried supplement after supplement.

Treatment after treatment.

Naturopath after naturopath.

Homeopath after homeopath.

Cream after cream.

Physician after physician.

Antihistamine after antihistamine.

Medicine after medicine.

Specialist after specialist.

Healer after healer.

It feels like we had tried them all. We were desperate. We were frustrated. Yet still hopeful. We never did give up hope that something would help him. Every cell in my being knew that we would find something that would help my son.

Then one day, I met a local mother of two sensitive children. I mentioned how Moses was allergic to everything, and she very enthusiastically told me that the Heilkunst homeopaths at the Dynamis Health Centre could help my son. There was something about the way that she shared the information with me. Like she knew / had no doubt that they would be able to help him.

By this time, I was battle-wary and very skeptical. I told her that we had tried homeopathy. In fact, he was  taking two homeopathic remedies at the time. We had consulted with three different classical homeopaths, including a well-recognized one who had authored a book and had specialized in the treatment of childhood eczema.

She told me that this was different. Heilkunst homeopathy was different from classical homeopathy. Truthfully, I was kind of annoyed. I didn’t know that there was different kinds of homeopathy. I was actually tired of trying different things / seeing different specialists. I was annoyed by her optimism.

I tried to convince her – we’ve tried everything. Nothing has worked. Why would this be any different?

She told me her own story. That she had a highly allergic daughter who was no longer allergic to any foods and she had a son who would have been on the autistic spectrum had it not been for this therapy. She told me that their story was the same — she had also tried everything under the sun to help her two children, and nothing else worked.  But this had.

She sent me a link to this video, Heilkunst  and Autism: Removing Cause vs. Managing Symptoms.  The presentation is by Rudi Verspoor, the founder of the Hahnemann Centre and Heilkunst Homeopathy Clinic in Ottawa. She told me that it presented a “grounded way to look at health, treating chronic/complicated illnesses and cure”.

I didn’t watch the video right away. I was so skeptical. There is something about someone being highly enthusiastic about something that makes one put their guard up.

Besides, we were trying a new supplement, and I wanted to give that a go.

The truth is that I wanted his healing to come from a supplement. Supplements make sense. They are easy to understand. There’s an imbalance to something, so you give the body what’s missing. But in Moses’ case, supplements alone were not enough.

It took a crisis for us to consider Heilkunst. I can’t remember what the crisis was in particular. There were so many of them at the time. We were constantly in the ER. Moses was constantly sick. We were at our wit’s end. Moses was particularly in a bad state of health after he received the MMR vaccination. He wasn’t sleeping through the night. He was having deep night terrors on most nights. He was acting out during the day. Behavioural problems. On top of that, we were dealing with his multiple allergies. Asthma. Recurrent pneumonia. Terrible rashes (remember Job’s syndrome is named after Job, the biblical character who had a terrible skin affliction and who suffered greatly).  It would take me two hours to get him ready in the morning. It was a fight just to brush his teeth, his mouth was in so much pain. His whole system (digestive) was in chronic pain. His skin inflamed. We were worried that the MMR vaccination had been the last straw and that he might be on the autistic spectrum. None of the specialists (traditional medicine or alternative practitioners) were able to help us in a meaningful way.

I remember lying in bed with my husband, discussing our hopeless situation, and it was DH (my skeptical husband) who suggested it. “Let’s try it. Let’s give Heilkunst a try. I’m willing to try anything.”

I watched the video and I got excited about it. I blogged about my thoughts at the time here.

Within seven weeks of starting Heilkunst, I was convinced that we were really onto something. You can read about those first weeks here.  By the third round of healing, I was convinced that we were witnessing a miracle.

I kept telling myself that the “proof would be in the pudding” and so far this method of healing is delivering real tangible changes in Moses’ health. His asthma has cleared. He is medicine-free. He is no longer suffering from night terrors. He is generally a happy little boy. We’ve been noticing that he is less set off by things, and much more chatty than he ever was. Although he’s never had any problems verbally, his conversational skills have gone through the roof in the last couple of weeks. He’s been talking our ears off. And this is only month 3. I know that we still have a ways to go, but I look forward to this healing journey that we are now on.

Pure joy (Moses after the third round of healing)

That month, I emailed my Heilkunstler and told her: “Moses  has been doing great this month.  Skin is very broken out, but his lungs have been clear for most of the month.  No more asthma medications too!  Feels like a miracle!”

She responded, “That’s wonderful!  It may feel like a miracle, but the beauty of Heilkunst is that we know why things are changing — principled application of informed medicine, therapeutic education and regimental support, along with lots of love!”

I told her, “I have a copy of the Autism: The Journey Back book that you recommended and I feel that I understand it a lot more now.  It’s hard to believe at first after trying so many other forms of healing.  I’m thrilled that we are on this healing journey.  I still find it remarkable.  Why don’t more people know about it? ”

She responded, “Well, the treatment requires confronting false belief, which not everyone is willing to do because it can be difficult.  For those of us already on that journey, Heilkunst simply provides a more comprehensive road map and the tools (homeopathic medicine, etc.) to move along the path more quickly and with less suffering.  Heilkunst is there for everyone to find, but not everyone will resonate with it.”

***

I’m sharing this because I want to tell you that it wasn’t a fluke that Moses has been healing. He has been healing because he has been undergoing “principled application of informed medicine” (i.e., Heilkunst treatment). If it can help Moses, who was a former “non-responder”, and who has been diagnosed with an extremely serious chronic genetic immune disorder, one that is considered incurable, it can definitely help your child. At the time that we started Heilkunst, Moses didn’t even have a formal diagnosis, and still it helped him. It continues to help him. I feel that without a doubt, it can also help your child. (Read more about how and why Heilkunst works here).

“The physician who can cure one disease by a knowledge of its principles
may by the same means cure all the diseases of the human body; for their causes are the same. ” Dr. Tilden

Still, it’s not an easy journey. If you have read any of my other posts about our Heilkunst journey, every month brings up healing reactions (the first two months actually “brought out pneumonia” in my boy). Even after two years of undergoing this treatment, I still find it difficult to understand my Heilkunstler at times. It’s like she talks a different language. Sometimes, I’m frustrated because I want to share Heilkunst with the world, but it’s so difficult to understand and explain that I don’t think many people resonate with it. But, the thing is, if you are looking for something that heals the root cause of disease, this works!

If you want to read more:

• Watch this video, Heilkunst  and Autism: Removing Cause vs. Managing Symptoms.
• I highly recommend reading Autism: The Journey Back . It is relevant for everyone (not just parents of children with autism), as it discusses how and why Heilkunst works.
• I have chronicled every step of our Heilkunst healing journey here 
• Read about how much Moses healed after one year of Heilkunst healing here.
• Read my latest update post about how Moses is doing (he’s essentially happy, healthy and well between healing reactions and only has 5 allergies/sensitivities [down from 40+]).
• Read about other parents / people who are healing with Heilkunst here (especially read Adam’s journey and Sam’s Story)
• Arcanum Wholistic Clinic has a great blog, written by a Heilkunstler, who tries to explain to the layperson what Heilkunst is and how it works.
• You can find a Heilkunstler in your city here. If you don’t have one in your city, they all do telephone consultations. Many of my appointments with my Heilkunstler have been by telephone. (When we used to live across the city from her office, it was just easier that way). And now, my Heilkunstler is moving to Ontario in the near future, so we’ll continue to have telephone consultations.

Sequential homeopathy

• An aspect of Heilkunst involves sequential homeopathy (treating for traumas one by one in a reverse sequence, with the most recent trauma first. A more clinical description of Sequential Treatment can be found here). I also feel that other treatments that involve sequential homeopathy, combined with tackling the chronic miasms (such as through Homeopathy Center of Houston) can help significantly.
• Drew’s Autism Recovery Diary – Joanna (Drew’s mom) lists sequential homeopathy as one of the most helpful treatments that have contributed to Drew’s recovery. She has great tips on other treatments that help Drew’s recovery here. You can read about their sequential homeopathic experiences here.
• A Ventography! – Sequential homeopathy combined with cranialsacral therapy significantly helped Annie (a five year old girl with autism). Annie’s mom tried sequential homeopathy as a “last ditch effort to recover Annie. I wasn’t expecting it to work. I couldn’t handle getting my hopes up only to be crushed once again. I fully intended to give up on my quest to recover Annie if sequential homeopathy was another giant disappointment”. Read more here. Read about the other treatments that she found helpful here.
• My Child: A Former “Non-Responder” – an amazing story of how Michael, an 11 year old former “non-responder” to biomedical treatments, made remarkable improvements with sequential homeopathy.

No more antifungal medication!

We received some great news today!  My boy no longer needs to take a daily antifungal medication (Diflucan). Woo hoo!

He’s been taking 6 mL daily (50 mg/5 mL) for 15 months, and it’s ridiculously expensive ($81.03 every 11 days) – ack! That means that we’ve spent $3307 of insurance money on this one drug alone over the last 15 months. Thankfully, we have a great health care plan that pays for our prescription medications, but it still bothered me to be spending that much money on prescription drugs every couple of weeks.

He started the antifungal medication after he was diagnosed with hyper IgE syndrome (Job’s syndrome) due to the chronic thrush that he had. He also started a prophylactic antibiotic (Novo-lexin) which is technically supposed to be a lifetime prescription because that’s the best that the medical system can suggest for Job’s syndrome patients (i.e., a prophylactic antibiotic for life). Since antibiotics tend to cause fungal problems, we also thought he would be continuing with the antifungal as long as he was on the antibiotics.

But…

In December, when we had an appointment with our amazing naturopath, and when we reviewed Moses’ current medications and supplements, I voiced that my plan is to eventually get Moses off his prophylactic antibiotic and antifungal. Our naturopath said that she was mostly concerned with the long-term use of Diflucan because it’s really not meant to be a long-term medication and it’s hard on one’s liver. And, interestingly, Moses’ chiropractor says that Moses’ liver often needs clearing. When DH heard that, he too was on board to get Moses off Diflucan.

Moses actually hasn’t had thrush for a long time. Diflucan was successful in getting it cleared up, which allowed his mouth to heal. My long time readers might recall that the corners of Moses’ lips used to the chronically cracked and his mouth sore due to the infection and Nystatin wasn’t strong enough to clear it up. Gentian violet didn’t work either.

So, we brought it up with our pediatrician and she talked to our immunologist and they agreed that Moses can come off of Diflucan!  Yay!  I’m thrilled about it and pleasantly surprised that they agreed. I thought that they might suggest another antifungal like Nystatin to replace it, but they didn’t.

Moses is currently taking 3 drops of miracle mineral solution (MMS) a day, which has antimicrobial properties, and will hopefully keep his system in balance (despite the fact that he is still on a daily antibiotic). (You can read some testimonials about MMS and candida here). He’s also on a daily probiotic as well.

To clear his system homeopathically of the negative effects of having been on Diflucan for 15 months, I’ve started him on a homeopathic paper remedy for Diflucan tonight (basically I wrote Diflucan 30C on a piece of paper and put it in his pillow case). You can read more about homeopathic paper remedies here.  Next time we see Moses’ chiropractor, he will also rebalance Moses’ system using total body modification (TBM).

Woo hoo hoo!! I’m thrilled about this, and I feel like this is another positive step in Moses’ healing journey.

May 19, 2012 – Uh, oh — the oral thrush is back. DH wants to start him back on the Diflucan to get it back until control, and so we will. Hopefully, he won’t be on it for long. Well, on the good side of things, his body has 3.5 months break from Diflucan…

July 24, 2012 – His thrush has been under control since shortly after we started the Diflucan and we have his pediatricians’ blessing to stop Diflucan. Yay!

Listen to Your Gut

My friend shared with me this great resource: Jini Patel Thompson’s Listen to your Gut website.

Jini Patel Thompson feels that there are eight key protocols that nearly everyone needs to implement in order to see their digestive healing progress rapidly:

1. Rest the bowel
2. Eradicate pathogens
3. Re-opulate the gastrointestinal tract with good bacteria
4. Heal inflammation and ulceration
5. Resolve nutrient deficiencies
6. Detox your living environment
7. Heal emotional contributors
8. Balance your endocrine system

Such great information. A lot of information that I’ve seen before, but she has specific supplements that she suggests in Step 5 (click on this link to find out which supplements she suggests), and I also like that she includes step 7 (i.e., heal emotional contributors) and suggests techniques such as emotional freedom technique (EFT), which is a method that I’ve used in the past which I’ve found to be very effective and easy at addressing and healing emotional issues.

Healing the gut is so important for some many ailments, including colitis, Crohn’s, diverticulitis, IBS, auto-immune disorders, MS, allergies and autism.

She also had specific suggestions for my friend’s son, who has Hyper IgE Syndrome (Job’s syndrome), including:

• an elemental diet
• Jini’s Wild Oregano Oil Protocol (cycling on and off as needed, according to his symptoms). See her video with 5 year old Zara for the easy way to take it.
• cod liver oil – 6 capsules per day, or 1.5 tsp.
• Vitamin D (get levels tested, but likely needs at least 3,000 IU per day)
• Vitamin E (mixed tocopherols) – 1 per day
• Bone Support – 1 tbsp per day
• Minerals Of Life Trace Minerals – 1 tbsp per day
• Natren probiotics – high dose
• Cycle on and off (2 weeks on, then 1-2 weeks off) these immune strengtheners: Astragalus, Maitake
• L-glutamine – 1,000 mg per day
• N-Acetyl Glucosamine, or if he has intestinal inflammation or pain issues, then MucosaHeal instead – follow label directions for adults
• B-Complex vitamins – 1 per day
• Houston Enzymes
• MetaCleanse – likely will only need a small amount, or 1 tbsp. chia seeds mixed in liquid

She also suggests a daily green juice (here is a recipe for a green smoothie that we use in our family).

She also suggests watching this”Healing Journey Movie”.

Many of her suggestions are things that we are currently doing for Moses, have considered doing, or have done in the past. It also gives us some ideas for things that we might want to implement at some point.

Camel Milk for Health

Something that I’ve been recently thinking about is camel milk. That’s right, camel milk…

Several months ago, someone on one of the Job’s syndrome FB groups mentioned that camel milk is known to decrease IgE levels. I immediately dismissed it because well, I assumed that it wouldn’t be easy to get camel milk in Canada, and since Moses is allergic to cow’s milk, I didn’t think that it would be something that would be safe for us to try.

Then, out of the blue, a couple of weeks ago, one of my blog friend’s (Tamara) posted a comment about camel’s milk on my blog. Again, I didn’t give it much thought for the same reasons as above and the fact that Moses was in the hospital at the time. But then, Tamara FB’d me about it, asking me if I’ve tried it yet and mentioned that it was good for high IgE levels. And then, one of the blogs that I am now following (You are What you Eat) just posted a video from TEDx NHH about camel milk.

When something is brought to my attention three times, I start to pay attention.

And, in particular, I pay attention when parents of sensitive children say that something is unequivocally helping their children. (And as you know, I pay particular attention when something helps autistic children because I have found again and again that these same treatments also help my son)

I’ve since learned that individuals who are allergic to cow’s milk are, in fact, safely able to drink camel milk (I haven’t found any instances of individuals who don’t do well on camel milk). In fact, camel milk helps to heal the allergies of highly allergic children, including children who are allergic to cow’s milk.

Camel milk is nothing like cow’s milk, they are not even in the same family and camel milk does not contain the beta-casein, which is what causes the opiate-effect with cow’s milk. Allergies to camel milk are very rare.

[Note: Although camel milk still does contain casein, but camel milk does not contain the 2 caseins (including beta-casein) that are allergenic.  Thus people with cow's milk allergies generally have no problem drinking camel milk. In addition the problems with an immune system are healed with camel milk].

Other things that I’ve learned from the Camel Milk website is that:

• Camel milk can be easily digested by lactose-intolerant individuals.
• The lactoferrin in camel’s milk has antibacterial and antiviral properties. It also has anti-tumor properties (Ueda et al., 1957).
• Camel milk has an apparent positive effect on breast cancer (Eiseler et al., 1998).
• Camel milk has three times the amount of vitamin C than cow’s milk.
• Camel milk has been used for centuries to treat liver disease, and studies have been performed for hepatitis and liver cancer with promising results.
• Camel milk is rich in B vitamins and iron.
• The immunoglobulins in camel milk have been shown to protect against types of cancer (Fage et al., 2005).
• Camel milk has been used to cure the following illnesses:
  • Autism (Shabo and Yagil et al., 2005);
  • Milk allergies (Shabo et al., 2005);
  • Tuberculosis (Agarwal et al., 2005); and
  • Crohn’s Disease (Shabo et al., 2005, 2006; Donechenko, 1975).

I’m still reading and learning about camel milk, and deciding whether this is something that I’d like to try with Moses. I know that others in Canada have been able to access it by getting frozen camel milk FedEx’d to your home, but it’s pricey to do.

Nonetheless, I wanted to share some resources about camel milk, in case it’s something that might be of interest to one of my readers. If you do wind up trying it, let me know what you think!!

If you want to learn more:

• Jessica’s  “You are What you Eat” blog posts about camel milk and how it is helping her sensitive (allergic) boys, one of which was once considered on the autistic spectrum – here.
• Drew’s Autism Recovery Diary — Drew just recently started camel milk. Read about that here.
• Alex at Alex’s Journey out of Autism has started camel milk. Read more about that here.
• Camel Milk in the Spotlight – TEDx NHH video about camel milk here.
• Camel Milk for Health  – read about Dina’s son’s remarkable recovery resulting from drinking camel milk (her son’s IgE levels were 6,000 and decreased steadily as he continued to drink camel milk). It only took two days from the time that he started drinking camel milk for her son’s health to start to improve.
• Scientific studies done on camel milk, including:
  • Etiology of autism and camel milk as therapy  
  • Camel milk for food allergies in children – follows 8 highly food allergic children (many of whom were allergic to cow’s milk). All suffered from severe allergic reactions. The most prominent symptom was diarrhea and vomiting after eating. Other accompanying symptoms were skin rashes, lactase deficiency, chemical imbalance, and asthma symptoms.Within 24 hours, all children’s symptoms decreased after having camel milk. Within 4 days, all of the allergic symptoms that the children were experiencing were eliminated. No recurrence of the allergic symptoms were reported.
• Camel Milk: Healing or Hype?  A great article about some of the science (in layman’s terms) for why camel milk is beneficial for the immune system, as well as for autistic children.
• Camel Milk for Health Facebook Group – connect with others who are using camel milk for health and find out where to get it.
• Healing with Camel Milk – connect with others who are using camel milk to heal their children and get your questions answered. It’s a closed group, but you can ask to be added to the group. Take a look at their “Docs” section, which has a lot of useful information.
• Dr. Reuven Yagil’s conference speech on video.  Video #3 is the one with most of the technical information about how the milk heals and why it’s tolerated by those with dairy allergies.  This is a MUST, if you are interested in healing with camel milk. http://www.camelmilkforhealth.com/symposium.php
• Camel milk for children with autism
• A camel milk association in the US, where you can get camel milk (but they don’t ship to Canada) – unfortunately, they are currently (Dec 2011) not accepting any new members
• Oasis Camel Dairy - America’s first camel milking farm – they do not currently sell camel’s milk, but you can contact them for a list of American herd share programs.
• Healthy Self’s son started drinking 150-300 mL of camel milk daily, in addition to megadoses of vitamin C. Her son now has clear sinuses and his other allergy symptoms have dramatically decreased so that he no longer needs two of three medications.

Update:

December 13, 2011 – My friend has ordered camel milk for her son with Job’s syndrome. Can’t wait to hear how it goes!!!

December 20, 2011 – Well, my friend’s son had a strong healing reaction to 1 teaspoon of camel milk (he was having difficulty breathing and his nose became very runny, like he was having an allergic reaction). My friend has decided to wait until she consults with his medical team about continuing with camel milk. Given that he is highly allergic, her fear is that he might be allergic to the camel milk (which is very uncommon, but then again, his condition is very uncommon and he is so highly allergic to everything, it is so hard to tell…).

April 4, 2012 – We haven’t tried camel milk yet. Truthfully, I likely would have tried it if it wasn’t for the fact that my husband is *very* skeptical of trying new things. I decided that since Moses is doing so well on his current treatment that I wouldn’t push trying to convince my husband that it was worth it to try camel milk as well.

Tips from another holistic mom of a child with Job’s syndrome

With her permission, I’ve decided to start a list of tips that my new friend, a holistic mom of a 12 year old child Hyper IgE syndrome, has shared with me. This is so that this information is available for the  Hyper IgE community, and also so that I can easily access all of the good information that she is sharing. This will be a living list, and supplements the information that I’ve been compiling in my “Tips for Living with Job’s Syndrome” post, where I’ve compiled ideas from several different individuals with Job’s syndrome. (You can read about Moses’ current treatment plan here).

Her son’s health team includes an integrated doctor,  integrated pediatricians and an experienced homeopath. Her son’s IgE levels are around 25,000 IU/mL. His mom has tried everything over the last 12 years to help her son. Now that her son has a diagnosis and his physicians and homeopath know what they are dealing with, it will now be easier for them to treat her son.

Homeopathy

• She feels that out of all of the things that she has done for her son (and she has tried a lot), that homeopathy has been the most effective at helping to heal her son.
• His homeopath has him on a specific homeopathic regime, depending on what he needs.
• In addition, he takes two homeopathic remedies, Stapholococcus and Croton Tiglium, (both 3x a day) which are two good remedies to prevent staph infections.
• They use a homeopathic flu remedy each year for the family.

Supplements

• Omega 3 oils are important for the skin of individuals with Job’s syndrome. They haven’t yet found one that their son is not allergic to, so he takes 6,000 mg of virgin organic coconut oil daily from “Now” (i.e., 3 coconut oil pills in the morning and 3 at night), which helps his skin a lot (coconut oil is an omega 6 oil)
• He takes Natren probiotics daily to help heal his gut.
• Her son drinks honeybush (a red tea) or red roobioos tea several times a day with local honey. A good site to order tea is Mountain Rose Herbs.
• He  takes either Thorne Brand HMC Hesperidin 2 or 3 times a day or Quercetin Bromelain (all help with allergies and immune system).
• Host Defense (4 capsules / day), a mushroom supplement
• 200 mg of Zen (GABA combined with L-Theanine) for emotional stability.
• He takes l-triptophan at night because his serotonin level is so low.  It helps with his mood and to sleep.
• He will be starting camel milk soon!

Skin care

• She was told by an integrative pediatrician that another patient with Job’s syndrome has been helped tremendously by taking daily baths in Dead Sea Salt.  The best brand is a company called Ahava (you can order online).  They mix in bleach baths once a week as well, and also add tea tree oil to the salt baths sometimes.
• She  makes calendula oil in big batches for his skin. “We order fresh organic calendula flowers online, mix with organic olive oil, put in glass jars and stir daily for six weeks. Have a dry paper towel or other breathable top during the process. After 6 weeks, pour through strainer and it’s a soft comfy oil that my 12 year old will actually put on himself after years of fighting all else. You can add lavender essential oil, tea tree or other organic essential oils to the calendula.  The calendula is anti inflammatory and helps fight infections. We still use steroid cream for spots that look like they are getting infected, before applying the oil all over. It soaks in nicely. You can order fresh calendula flowers (4 oz makes a ton of oil) from Mountain Rose Herbs online.”

Energy Healing

• He also receives energy healing, guided meditation and hypnosis.

Medication

• Her son is not on prophylactic antibiotics. (He was on prophylactic antibiotics for 6-9 months, and it wrecked havoc with his gut). He has been off of prophylactic antibiotics for 18 months now.
• Ketotifen (an antihistamine)
• Albuteral and Flovent morning and night for his asthma, which is mostly under control. They often use the nebulizer, sometimes the buffer depending on how bad it is.

Mama’s Self Care

• She does yoga and uses homeopathy to help with her own self-care (just like me!)

I know that there’s more, but it’s a good place to start!

Updates:

Feb 1, 2012 – B. is doing really great. We are on a great new remedy carcinosin (plus several others) but the carcinosin helped create a big shift. The ketotifen (antihistamine that also targets the histamines in B.’s gut) is also I think helping his gut to heal and allow for the other things we are doing to work better. We have the ketotifen compounded and mailed to us from a pharmacy near Seattle called Clark’s pharmacy. It’s been so helpful and no side effects other than drowsiness so we give it to B. at night. Eventually, we will taper him off of it.

I’m restarting probiotics with Natren’s Life Start B infantus. We are going to start with 1/8/teaspoon for awhile and slowly build up using the Natren Holy Trinity method. I was starting with the Natren Bifidus and building up with that, and it impacted B.’s lungs. That’s actually a good sign b/c it means the good bacteria is displacing the bad bacteria in his gut which is what you want to have happen according to Dr. Cantwell, our great integrative doctor. But we need to do it very, very slowly so it doesn’t overwhelm B. I’ve given him probiotics in the past and not had problems – so this is new but I actually think this is a good sign. The Listen To Your Gut person explains all of this. I feel so much more hopeful now.

May 3, 2012 – We are seeing a new acupuncturist who was referred to us by our homeopath. She is bringing up and out B.’s stuff. His breathing is great – but he has had severe pain in his skin all week. We are trying Rhus Tox right now for the pain and seeing the acupuncturist every day until this “breaks.” We’ve done acupuncture before but she has a very different approach than we’ve seen before. She is very confident that B. is clearing and healing based on his pulses.

She also told us to go off of wheat which we’ve always thought would be too difficult since B.’s diet is already so restricted – but we are going to give it a try now. In fact we are going to do just chicken and rice (and rice milk) for several days and then slowly start introducing back foods (other than wheat and gluten and his other main allergens) to give his system a break from everything.

June 14, 2012 – B.’s genetic tests came back and does not have the STAT 3 genetic mutation, so he does not have Job’s syndrome, but he does have very, very, very high IgE levels. The doctors aren’t quite sure of his diagnosis yet.

July 8, 2012 – We are changing acupuncturists to a Japanese style that is gentler and hopefully can help with B. ‘s severe pain.  The acupuncturist is very, very experienced and our homeopath recommended him.  He has really helped her very serious chronic pain patients.

We are also going to try making a remedy from B.’s blood.  It is a different style of homeopathy by a German homeopath.  Auto iso nosode therapy.  Here is a little article about it:  http://www.byronbodyandsoul.com/regular-columms/naturopathy-with-sue-kira/auto-iso-nosode-therapy/p/111

December 9, 2012

B.’s skin and lungs are slowly but dramatically improving, as is his emotional state.

It’s really transformative change like they’ve always talked about.

We are praying that it can continue and last.  I’m trying not to attach to much to the outcome but stay present with it – but it is quite a challenge.  We are just enjoying every day that we can!

His new constitutional is murex.

And we are redoing the blood remedy – the auto sanguis.  We are going to take new blood from him to make more of the medicine – which is really just a diluted version of his blood, shaken a certain number of times as it’s continually diluted (like the way they make any remedy I think).

Plus he is getting regular detox massages (lymphatic drainage) and acupuncture.  And he is finally starting to get some exercise now that his pain is getting better.

Connections with a holistic mama of a child with Job’s syndrome

I’ve been thankful that through this blog, I’ve “met” many other like-minded and holistic moms, and am thankful for the support that I’ve received during difficult times, as well as the sharing of information amongst us all.

I’m particularly excited that I have recently connected with a like-minded mom of a 12 year old boy, who was recently diagnosed with Job’s syndrome (Hyper IgE Syndrome). She has an amazing integrated doctor (and integrated pediatricians) who are treating her son, as well as a wonderful homeopath. I’m thrilled, thrilled, thrilled beyond belief to have met her, as prior to this, I haven’t found any other individuals or parents of individuals with this diagnosis who is treating this condition holistically.  Now, I have someone who I can share notes with!  We had a Skype date today, and she shared information about how her integrated doctors and homeopath are treating her son.

I was absolutely thrilled to find out that her son is not on prophylactic antibiotics as I have not found anyone else who has Job’s syndrome who is not on prophylactic antibiotics. I feel less alone (and less crazy) knowing that someone else is approaching Job’s syndrome in a holistic way (and has been finding that the holistic and integrative approach to be an effective one).

Yay, yay, yay!!!!!

I am also happy to know that there are integrated doctors out there in the world (they are not quite yet here in the small city of 200,000 where we live), but it’s great to know that they are out there.

To read about her son’s current treatment plan, click here.

From dental abscess to pneumonia

Here’s the story of how a dental abscess can turn into pneumonia for a sensitive child like my boy. I’m still processing these events on several levels.  During my last post, I focussed on our many blessings. 

Dental Abscess

On the evening of November 9, 2011, Moses complained about a “bump” on his face. Although it wasn’t easy to see, when we palpated it, we realized that the abscess was quite well developed, so we brought him to the ER the next day. (Note that the development of abscesses are typical of individuals with Job’s Syndrome, and Moses has had several in the past). After an ultrasound and x-rays, they discovered that the abscess was the result of an infected tooth, and the infection had migrated up to his cheek. The abscess measured 2.5 cm x 1.5 cm (quite large)!  They started him on an IV antibiotic and we stayed overnight at the hospital. It was a bit of bad timing because this was the Thursday before the Remembrance Day long weekend and the dentist wasn’t going to look at it until Monday. The next day, they put Moses on day passes from the hospital, so that he didn’t need to stay between antibiotic doses. We needed to bring him back at 8 am, 4 pm, and 10:30 pm, for about 45 minutes.

I consulted with Moses’ homeopath and she prepared a new drainage dropper for him, as well as a new Thuj dropper to help resolve the abscess.

During the first two nights at home, Moses’ abscess started draining through his mouth (he had bloody pus on his bedsheets from where it was draining). The good news about this is that they didn’t need to surgically drain the abscess, as they did twice in the past.

During this entire time, Moses remained in a great mood, and so I wasn’t very concerned. My Heilkunstler always reminds me that Moses’ state of mind is a better indicator of overall health than the symptoms (in this case, the abscess).  I knew that the abscess would resolve itself (in the Heilkunst view, an abscess represents underlying issues being brought to the surface, to be resolved). I was making peace with all of the hospital interventions, knowing that they too would pass and his Heilkunstler would be able to prescribe any homeopathic remedies that might be necessary to clear the negative effects of all of the interventions (i.e., IV antibiotics, ultrasound, x-rays, anesthetic).

Four days later (on the Monday following the Remembrance Day weekend), the dentist removed the offending tooth. The sad thing about this was that back in April, Moses’ dentist gave us the choice for one of Moses’ molars to be pulled or for it to receive a root canal. We opted for a root canal (due to my insistence) because one of our natural health practitioners had mentioned the negative impacts of teeth extraction. Well, if I could turn back time, I would have opted for the tooth to be extracted back in April because it would have saved us a lot of time and agony. (See also this article posted on the Heilkunst site re: potential problems with root canals).

Moses remained in a great mood during this entire time, but after the tooth was removed, he started vomiting (likely because of all of the blood and pus he swallowed after the extraction — the abscess was draining into his mouth). He vomited again during the middle of the night twice and couldn’t keep any liquids in his system. He spiked a fever of 39.9. Oh my.

Pneumonia

During the next two days (Day 5 and 6), Moses’ health deteriorated quickly. He couldn’t keep anything down, not even water. He had terrible diarrhea. He complained of a headache. He wasn’t feeling good at all. He ran a continuous fever, despite the fact that the nurses were constantly giving him Tylenol and Advil (something I don’t agree with, but that’s another story). He received more x-rays for his stomach and his lungs and complained “I can’t take this anymore”. My poor baby. I was worried and upset. Livid actually.

His Heilkunstler felt that he was having a hard time after the dental anaesthesia, and his body was also having a hard time with all of the suppression that was going on (IV antibiotics, anti-fever medication, etc). She started him on new homeopathic droppers for the emotional stress that he was under, as well as homeopathic powders to clear the effects of the anaesthesia, ultrasound, x-rays, IV antibiotics, etc.

And then they diagnosed him with pneumonia (on Day 7). Ack!!  A serious pneumonia that affected 2/3 of his lungs, his entire mid and lower lobes of this right lung.

I was comforted by his Heilkunstler’s reminder that pneumonia (in the viewpoint of Heilkunst) is a strong healing reaction (not a bad thing in their opinion) and that given that Moses’ pneumonia was so extensive, it was an indication that his sustentive power (the part of his life force that works to keep him healthy and in balance) was strong. A good sign that his body was working hard to bring itself to balance after all of the destabilizing events that his body was under (related to the aggressive allopathic treatment that he was receiving).

The medical doctors aggressively treated his pneumonia with four antibiotics (three via IV delivered 8 times a day and one oral dose). Moses didn’t have any energy and he couldn’t walk on his own. We had to carry him to the bathroom. He often couldn’t hold his urine or his bowels and soiled the bed several times. My poor boy.

We received some good news on Day 8. Moses’ IgE levels decreased yet again to 16,612 IU/mL (down from 22,311IU/mL just a month ago). I felt that this was a sign that underneath the symptoms, his overall body is getting stronger and more well.

A day after they started him on IV antibiotics, he stopped having fevers, but a couple of days later, he started having fevers again. This puzzled the doctors since this was an atypical response to the IV antibiotics. His state of mind started to improve during this time (which is something that I took strong note of — in the Heilkunst view, the state of mind is the best indicator of health), so I knew that Moses was on the mend (in my mind, the homeopathic remedies helped with this).

Blood Transfusion

A few days later, they noticed that Moses’ hemoglobin levels were dropping (it was 110 g/Lwhen we admitted him to the hospital and it declined to 66 g/L  on Day 11. Normal is 120 g/L or higher). His blood cells were hemolyzing (breaking down) either as an inappropriate response to the infection or as a result of the stress that his body is under, related to the fact that Moses has an enzyme deficiency, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G-6-PD deficiency, which makes his blood susceptible to hemolysis when his body is stressed). We knew about Moses’ G-6-PD deficiencey due to difficulties that ensued shortly after Moses was born.

That’s when they decided that he needed a blood transfusion. Ack! This was just getting worst and worst.

We reluctantly agreed to the blood transfusion after considering the risks associated with doing so. We asked if we could pray over the blood before they started the transfusion, and the nurse respectfully gave us all the time that we needed with Moses’ new blood. I prayed that the blood would help with my son’s healing. DH said his own silent prayers over the new blood. I told everyone to imagine “healthy, new, shiny, dancing, healing blood to help my boy”.

His temperature rose when they started the blood transfusion, and for some reason it was painful when they started the transfusion. We worried that he was having a reaction to it (one of the potential risks is an allergic reaction, even anaphylaxis to the new blood). Twenty minutes later, they tried again, and this time there were no problems. That was the last fever that he had.

Healing

During the next four days, Moses’ energy levels and appetite slowly returned and his hemoglobin levels not only stabilized, but actually increased from 106 g/L the day after his transfusion to 120 g/L (i.e., to normal levels, the highest his hemoglobin levels have ever been) on the day we were discharged (Day 15).

We were happy and thankful to bring our boy home. There was a big snow storm during the night before and the morning that Moses was discharged. As we were driving home, it occurred to DH and I that the new snow symbolized a fresh start for our family and our boy. He was discharged on the day that our American neighbours to the south celebrate Thanksgiving. So much for us to be thankful for.

Another thing that I wanted to mention is that Moses’ skin during this time has remained clear. He seems to be releasing through his lungs, but not through his skin (whereas in the past, he released through both avenues). I need to remind myself to count the blessings where they can be found.