Story time with aunt Julie

Last weekend cosette had a little tummy bug. Is that not the saddest face you have ever seen? Glad she recovered quickly.

Nothing better than snugling up with a squishy baby

Juicing

Kansas City weathermen are threatening that there is going to be a huge snow storm tomorrow.  I don't really believe it. As long as I've lived here I have heard weathermen predict 6-10 inches of snow several times... but never have seen it.

Maybe this time it will be different. I doesn't matter... I'm not going anywhere ANYWAY tomorrow. Today, Javan and I had fun building a fire :-) and tomorrow I have some fun snow science experience lined up.

This evening while Javan was at Awana I sat by the fire sipping a glass of wine... just kidding, it was really salad in a cup - that's what I call it anyway, tee hee.

Experimenting with juicing has been fun and I'm really sad that I didn't give it a better chance the last time I gave juicing a try.

Lesson learned, always start with a base of celery and cucumber. Everything else you add  barely tastes like anything.

I've really enjoyed starting my day with a celery, onion, tomato, parsley, lime, salt, tobasco juice...kind of like a bloody mary without the alcohol.

Anyway, I've done some reading on the stress hormones Cortisol and Epinephrine. When you are stressed your body gives off these hormones. AND THESE HORMONES CAUSE INSULIN RESISTANCE.

Now, this is not a new fact for me. I've known this for quite some time... but I'm not really the "stressed" kind of person. I don't think so, anyway. But, I found it interesting that the doctor in that movie I watch the other day talked about how when you sleep at night the cortisol and epinephrine levels naturally go back to normal.

Ding! light bulb.

My blood sugars are high all day but regulate itself at night. hmmm... maybe there is something to this whole stress hormone thing.

Still researching and adding to my list of things to mention to the doc when I see her.

I promise my next post will involve cute baby and little boy faces and less about diabetes. Now off to bed to regulate my stress hormone levels ;-)

Starting over

My blood sugars have been high. Like really high. Like higher than they have EVER been in my lifetime (as far as I know anyway). You all know I've been frustrated with it and feel a little like a hamster on a wheel trying to find some kind of "cure".

Now, back when I was prego with Cosette I was all gung-ho on the "help my body heal itself" bandwagon and was full of victories.

And now, here I am, my body is drained... i'm drained... and my diabetes has just gotten worse. What is up with that!?!?!

I'm losing steam and I find myself getting frustrated and sneaking bites of a cookie or cheesecake or icecream or whatever. Heck, oftentimes I don't even test my blood sugars because I don't even want to know. There are days when i just can't handle see a way too high number on my blood glucose meter.

Today I realized two things.

1. Its obviously more than just a diet thing... when I woke up with a nice 108. Ate a salad and an omelet for breakfast because I wanted to really try to maintain that number. Didn't take my number after breakfast because I didn't want to be disappointed, had a whole bunch of almonds as a snack and had a salad and a salmon patty for lunch.

Took my blood sugars and they were in the 300's.

That's awesome. Way to put a damper on my afternoon. It was good to know that its not my diet that's the problem (except that I did let myself get hungry and I do consistently see big jumps like this when I allow any kind of hunger pain.).  Then I proceeded to eat a whole bunch of junk because in my mind it didn't matter anyway, my number goes high - might as well enjoy my food.

I am beginning to surrender.

2. I watched this movie this evening:
http://www.movie2k.to/Hungry-for-Change-watch-movie-2547215.html

I am a documentary junkie and this one was right up my alley. Its all about diet and especially geared toward people who are trying to lose weight but no diet works. They explain why we eat the way we do (its really an addiction) and I totally related to that part.

They, of course, explain it a lot better so you should just watch the movie ;-) but basically the food we eat is purposely addictive (by the people making the big bucks behind it all).They talk a lot about sugar but its not just sugar... its everything and I realized that I'm gradually falling back into my old addictions and trying to find ways to "sneak" them.

Basically, that food makes me feel good.

The movie is all good (that's why you should watch it - hint hint)  but there is this lady on there that changed her diet (raw foods, juicing, etc) and not only lost a ton of weight but cured herself of cancer.

Ok, people... if she can cure herself of cancer - I can beat this stupid diabetes.

So, tomorrow morning I'm going to pull out the juicer and get serious about getting some veggies in my diet. (juicing helps the veggies digest faster and easier getting the nutrients to our bodies faster).

I've got 2 weeks until my appt with the naturopath and my goal is to be well on my path to recovery when I get there.

Happy Valentines Day!

These little one's each stole a piece of my heart when they were born. 

Cosette has such a silly and strong personality

Javan is the most caring and loving little boy. His heart is always bursting with love for his sisters...

I couldn't have chosen a better role model for my girls...

Cosette already loves her baby sister ...

Maybe a little too much... she doesn't like to share!

And my Valentines present to myself is that I gained some weight !!!!! 

Only about a pound or two but I'm calling that a small victory. 

Our little artist

This mamma is going to be productive today!

One more reason homeschool is cool

You can't do your work in a hot dog costume in public school :-)

A new domain

This morning I was working hard filling out envelopes for our baby announcement and decided its about time to change the domain to our blog. 

I've had this blog since Javan was a baby and originally it was just for updating on his little life... BUT... we now have THREE children so I thought it was only fair to change the domain from 

javanscott.blogspot.com to kcferrisfamily.blogspot.com

now if we ever move out of KC I'll have to think of another one - haha. 

I don't see that happening anytime soon (crossing fingers)

For those who subscribe to the blog (via email) this shouldn't affect you at all. 

Shoot me a message if it does so I can **attempt** to fix it. 

If you haven't already subscribed to the blog you can do so by adding your email on the right -->

that says "follow by email"

On Wednesday we went on our first bike ride as a family of 5. It was loads of fun AND the next day I noticed my blood PRESSURE (not to be confused with blood sugar) went down a little - woo hoo!!  It is now within normal range (which is still pretty high for what I usually am...but, hey, I'll take what I can get!)

 I heard back from the doctor yesterday and my iron levels were a little low (not terribly anemic but worth noting). My T3 thyroid levels were also low. Its all a little confusing to me because HYPOthyroidism (low thyroid levels) is usually related to weight GAIN and low blood sugars (which I am experiencing the opposite). I asked the doctor about that and he said that is usually true except in cases of low T3. In thyroid language there is t3,t4, and tsh to consider. (From how I understand it t3 is the only one that is not totally related to thyroid function but also intertwined with several other systems within the body.) However, I haven't found anything via google about that. Then again.. I don't really have much time to do any research on it with two babies needing my attention and getting caught up in our home school.

At any rate. What I do know is that diabetes and thyroid are directly related (they are all part of the endocrine system) and when one is stressed the other is likely to be as well. I have read that adding muscle mass will help both of these areas (which makes perfect sense as I have 0 muscle mass or fat). So, I will continue to work on building muscle mass. However I also read that exercising for more than 30 min at a time will cause the body to release the stress hormone cortisol which will increase blood sugars (which I have seen this happen first hand).

My appointment with the naturopathic doctor (N.P) is March 4th. I'm anxious to get the ball rolling with her :-)

I do feel good that I at least have a path that I can move forward with. We are falling into a nice routine at home too, which feels delightful. So, I guess I don't have much to complain about.

My mom went home today.

We all enjoyed having her here and I successfully completed my first day on my own with 2 babies and a 6 year old.

It actually went surprisingly well... I can do this!

Tonight I went to bed early because I really feel like my body just needs rest.... and here I am at 12:30am writing on my blog.

I hate that when you know you should be sleeping but your brain won't turn off. blah

Anyway, i thought this would be a good time to send out an update on the goings on around here.

Violet is such a sweet little baby. So easy. She sleeps a lot and well and basically only wakes up to eat.

its so funny to me how all three of my children were so so very different as babies.

Javan was the colicky one. He just cried and cried all of the time. I'm pretty sure nobody slept. All he wanted to do was nurse non-stop. I had to nurse him every 2 hours. Which he would literally nurse for 40 min if I let him and then it was another hour and a half later he wanted to nurse again. haha. he was a nut. It was a real workout (literally - bouncing and swaddling and swinging - whatever it took) to get him to sleep.

Cosette didn't want to be held too much. I never heard of such a thing before but it worked every time that she would cry and cry and you just lay her down and she was happy and content.

Violet is the opposite of Cosette. She LOVES being held. Most times if she cries (which she doesn't do often anyway) and she is not hungry... she just wants to be snuggled up on someone's chest and she is happy as can be.

So many people ask me whether Cosette is jealous. And she is NOT at all. She really loves her little baby sister. The only time she really cries about Violet is when we have to move Violet for fear she might get smothered (literally smothered) by all of the "kisses" and "hugs" she gives.... and occasional eye, nose, and mouth poking.

Javan, as I expected, is an awesome big brother. He loves to help and really is a HUGE help with Cosette. He loves to snuggle Violet :-)

As for my health, I am trying hard not to get too frustrated about the whole thing. When I was pregnant with Cosette, my blood sugars stabilized in the 3rd trimester and stayed that way until I got pregnant again.

With Violet, my blood sugars stabilized in the 3rd trimester but just last Friday they just went totally wacky again.

I spent a good amount of time in tears about it trying to figure out what to do. I really have a hard time with doctors.

They always seem to over prescribe and its frustrating (and a waste of money from my perspective) but the numbers kept on creeping up there and I knew something needed to be done.

My plan was to just get some insulin from the doctor.

That's it. Walk in. Get insulin - take it once or twice to get my numbers down and never go back.

Since every OTHER doc I have seen has been quick to pump me full of drugs I didn't think it would be an issue.

But, this time I went to Dr. Brooks who is well known for leaning in the direction of natural medicine (he is the one I saw for the pneumonia - he doesn't even vaccine his kids - one of many reasons why I love him)

He would NOT prescribe the insulin.

I couldn't decide if I was happy or mad about that. lol. I mean, its awesome that I finally found someone who was willing to look outside the diabetes box BUT..this was the ONE time I actually wanted it! haha.

Anyway, he did some bloodwork to see if he could pinpoint some kind of autoimmune disorder and/or an endrocrine blockage somewhere (thyroid??) One thing that is very clear is that my body is under a huge amount of stress and that ALONE can cause insulin resistance, add in some extra hormones, and some other issues and you've got a recipe for diabetes disaster.

Once Doc Brooks gives a little more insight (from the bloodwork). I am planning on moving to a naturopathic/homeopathic doctor (most likely in a addition to Doc Brooks - although I did discuss this plan with him and he was a-ok with me just using an NP) that can work with me on some homeopathic remedies, etc...

This Sunday at church I got prayer for healing.

One of the many prayer warriors at our church (who also is known for getting prophetic words) told me that The Lord told her to tell me that I'm on the right path.  That before I was going down a different path but I changed to a new path and that is the right road.

This woman knew nothing about why I was getting prayer or anything about my situation. She wasn't one of the women who was praying for me. The Lord just spoke to her and she went ahead and relayed that message.

I assume what He meant was that before I was choosing to take care of this on my own but going to a DOCTOR and possibly a Naturopath as well is the new path I have decided to take and it IS the right path.

I really needed that affirmation. He is so good at knowing what I need to hear.

Always in awe of Him

In the meantime, my blood pressure is still high - argh. I was told that it can take quite awhile (for some people) to lower blood pressure after pregnancy. And for some, it never goes down naturally ... i don't even want to think about that. Then, I wonder, if it has anything to do with that digoxin that I was taking???

My biggest personal struggle is my weight. Of course, the weight loss was a side effect of that 2 weeks that I was sick with pneumonia. High blood sugars can also cause weight loss (its called ketosis and people actually do this on purpose to lose weight - think atkins). I realize that I'm not going to just gain weight overnight... but its painful when I look in the mirror. I weigh a measly 103lbs right now. I have NO butt. I really take the term "skin and bones" to a whole new level.

Its slightly comical because most people can't fit into their pre pregnancy clothes because of weight gain.

My pre-pregnancy clothes are falling off of me.

Of course, how does one gain weight when they can't really eat carbs??? I realize I need to solve the first problem (getting healthy) before I can really address this "side effect" but anyone who knows anything about me knows I tend to get a bit obsessive about things.

The best thing I can do is pack on the calories... well, vegetables aren't really all that calorie rich SO healthy oils and fats... extra protein.

I've decided to try to add some muscle mass to my body by working out... but its a VERY fine balance because i can't afford to burn more calories.

Anyway, it will all work out. I just need to take it slow and one day at a time.

So, here are a whole bunch of pics I've taken over the past month or two. The first ones are from a town festival we went to with Santa and bombfires in the middle of the street. It was really a fun night..

There are some from Christmas, a couple of Javan at his wrestling tourney and then some from the baby, of course....

https://picasaweb.google.com/115639023178791141355/20130201#

2013-02-01