Heavenly Homemakers

If you missed them, please catch up on
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 and Part 5.

Malachi was about two months old when he suddenly became covered from head to toe with chronic eczema. Ironically all but his diaper area was affected. We immediately took him to our regular doctor, who gave him some sort of cortisone cream and an oral steroid.

The eczema cleared right up. We were so thankful, and we thought his “little rash thing” was all taken care of.

Then about a week later, when the effects of the steroid wore off, the rash came right back, only worse. 

Our baby became miserable.  He was extremely itchy all the time, yet way too little to understand anything that was going on. He could hardly be still in his crib, in his car seat, and sadly, even in our arms. I can’t put into words the helplessness we felt watching our tiny boy feel such misery and not know what we could do to comfort him. 

His jammies and his sheets would have blood spots where he’d rubbed himself raw trying to relieve the itching. His neck became an open wound. His face looked like he’d rolled around in a patch of poison ivy. His arms and legs were a mix of scabs and inflamed red sores.

And he stayed this way for months and months. 

People stared. People asked, “What in the world is all over your baby?” People offered suggestions of help. It seemed to become all people talked to me about and I grew extremely weary.

I remember trying to comfort him in the middle of the night, and just weeping and praying over him, begging God to please give us answers and healing for our baby. 

And I remember that even though it was so painful to watch our baby suffer so much, I was thankful. Thankful that it was “only eczema”. It made me more aware of what a parent might go through as they watch their child suffer from cancer or another major illness.

During the time we were trying to find answers for Malachi, one of my very dear friends was struggling severely and sinking into a deep depression. I had never experienced this kind of depression, nor had I watched a friend feel so much hopelessness. I was amazed by her absolute determination to fight it and find peace. She was desperately seeking answers.

We had yet another friend who had been doing a lot of research on whole body health and nutrition. This concept was foreign to me. But between the eczema and the depression we were all so determined to find answers for, we all began working together to learn and figure out how the food we ate effected our overall health and well-being.

I remember this being both a painful time, and a time of new hope. Could changing the food we ate make that big of a difference in our health? I truly had never though about food in that way. Crazy isn’t it? I never really equated food with nutrition.  Food was just…food.

Not only that, but I was learning about the long term effect of drugs generally prescribed for ezcema. Filling Malachi with steroids and covering his body with cortisone might help in the short term, but his condition was chronic. He only found relief from the eczema when he was on steroids. Did we want to place our baby permanently on steroids?

And so our search continued. It was at this time we discovered the book Nourishing Traditions.

It was also at this time that I landed myself in the hospital for five days because of complications from asthma.

To be continued…

 
If you missed them, please catch up on Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4

Back in Nebraska now, I had to adjust to the fact that NONE of the stores doubled coupons. I sort of went through withdrawals. Crazy, I know…but double couponing and getting most of our food for free had been a big part my grocery shopping/menu planning/cooking for the past four years. I had to learn how to shop in a new way now.

I continued to shop the sales and clip as many coupons as I could. I found I was still able to save quite a bit of money using coupons, spending only about $200/month for our family of five.

Our first summer here, I had my first real garden…asking as many questions as I could to people who knew more than I did (because at that point, EVERYONE knew more than I did about gardening!). It was fun…yet hard because I had a five year old, a two year old and a five month old at the time. 

I remember learning that I had dug up a nice strawberry patch because I didn’t know what that area of green stuff was growing in the middle of the place I wanted to put my green beans. I remember asking about what I should put on my tomato plants, then buying and using some sort of bug killer that would also hurt my children if not put up in a high place (yeah, I had barely even heard the word organic then).

My second year of gardening, I brought home my mom’s canning jars and her book about how to preserve food. That was the first year I attempted to “home can” anything…and I loved it! (I believe the rest is history in regard to canning and preserving!)

It wasn’t until I was pregnant with our fourth son that we even started thinking remotely about eating healthy. Even though I was pregnant, I still drank my Pepsi regularly…enjoyed lots of lunches out with friends…had a pantry full of boxes.

Then Matt went on a short trip to Scotland (LONG story) to visit some friends who were living there. While he was there, he kept a journal. In his journal, he even kept a record of the food he ate (because he thought I’d probably enjoy knowing…is he the sweetest or what?!).

The friends he stayed with there were pretty health conscious and ate lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. During meals, they would discuss some of the foods they focused on eating, and some of the foods they worked to avoid.

Matt came home from his trip and told me, “Did you know margarine is made from this stuff called ‘partially hydrogenated oil’ and that’s really bad for us?” To which I replied, “How bad is it?  Because margarine is really cheap and real butter is expensive.” Matt finally convinced me that it was worth it to buy butter, not margarine…but oh how I cringed when I put it into my cart.

Our switch from margarine to butter was the very first step we took on our healthy eating journey. Although, at this point, I wouldn’t yet call it a “journey”. 

It wasn’t until our littlest guy Malachi was born with chronic eczema that we really began looking into what it actually meant to eat a healthy diet.

To be continued…