I haven’t spoken about my chronic illness called Scleroderma here, but I should, after all, the blog deals with my everyday life and scleroderma is part of  it now. I was diagnosed in November 09′ and it has been an interesting seven months. Aside from the fact that it has affected my lungs, joints, skin and has the potential to affect my other internal organs I am very lucky that I was diagnosed early.  Actually, it  has turned my life around. Since the culprit is my immune system I take a medication that supresses it and I also have pulmonary hypertension caused by the sclero so I take a med for that too. Other than that, I take less drugs than most people.

What I have found, is a new way of looking at what I eat, how I feel and what I do about those things. I’ve always been a believer in alternative medicine, therefore, it was the first place I looked for answers. The mind, body and soul connection, as I refer to it, held all the answer’s for me. I have been slowly transitioning into a plant based diet at least 30% of the time right now. To do this I needed some guidance and I found a women who has been doing this for twenty or more years  and holds classes  in her home. What I need are enzymes to protect my liver and kidneys that are filtering the meds I am hoping to protect  my other organs and intestines. I received a Vita mixer for mother’s day, something I wanted because it is a strong blender that turns fruits and veggies into delicious drinks, and because they are raw, I get all the plant based enzymes directly from the plants.I feel really good, and feel I should share some of what I learn along the way, right here. I will start a new category  called “Raw foods and Scleroderma”.

Here are some pictures of my visit at the Turquoise Barn with Michelle, her website is www.turquoisebarn.com

Turquoise Barn

Her home and classroom

Michelle preparing a meal

Zucchini pasta, sauce and salad

In the meantime, our bird Garfunkel ( his brother’s name was Simon) got a new cage. He loves it!

Garfunkel's new home

A new view too!

I have saved the best for last! some cutie pictures of Jacob…

Hanging out and cooling off

cute! mickey mouse diapers

April 30th turned out to be the day Jacob would be born not on May 13th as thought.  It started out very normal, I had a dentist appointment and John and Missy had an appointment at the hospital for a weekly check up. It seemed Jacob’s heart would slow down with a contraction, so the doctor decided a “C section” was necessary that day at 4pm.  My hubby called me to tell me to come right home after the dentist so we could go to the hospital.  We met Missy’s mom and John with Missy in maternity and they were getting her ready for the procedure. All looked good and very normal but as it turned out, Jacob had a blood clot in his umbilical cord, it was a good thing they got him out when they did. Later we found out that the odds of this are one in a million and this hospital had two in the same day! crazy huh…

Well it doesn’t end there,  we went to the nursery and watched as they took his foot prints and started to clean him up when they noticed he was not getting enough oxygen. They tried for the longest time to get some of the fluid out so he could breath normally but his breaths were very rapid. They decide to take him to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) , there, they were able to give him more oxygen and watch him closely. By day three, Missy was beginning to feel depressed, she was not able to hold Jacob at all since birth and she could not spend much time with him either. Finally, Jacob started to improve on day 4, they were now able to feed him one ounce of mother’s milk of which he took down with no trouble.  What a relief, they said it could take up to two weeks or more, and now they could hold and feed him. He is still in NICU as of today but doing much better. Here are some of the photo’s taken during this time…

moments after birth

7lbs 3oz, 21 1/2 inches long

signs of trouble

In NICU getting oxygen

Finally, mommy can hold me!

real food, not sugar water

hat on...

hat off...what a cutie!

very proud daddy!

We're doing great!