Celebrating a Birthday I Wasn't Predicted to Have

Today I celebrate another year of life.  What's significant about that?  I wasn't expected to be celebrating today.  In fact, based on the doctor's predictions they shared with my husband almost a year ago, I wasn't supposed to live, yet here I am now entering my 40th year of life.

Predictions don't determine God's plans, and God had my days numbered before I was formed in my mother's womb.  I will not die a day earlier than what was predetermined by Him in His sovereign will.

So, here I am celebrating the life I still have left to continue to serve God.  When I didn't die there in the hospital when they discovered I had severe acute hyponatremia (sudden, low sodium levels) and thought they were too late, and when I woke up after being unresponsive for 24 hours exactly and discovered that I was in an ICU and had been hooked up to a ventilator, I knew there was a reason why I was still here and not in heaven.  As the painfully slow days of my recovery turned into a few months with my making a surprising and unpredicted near-complete recovery from the damage done to my heart and brain from the low sodium levels, I realized that God still has work for me to do for His kingdom. 

My continued unresponsive state after being removed from the ventilator

I don't understand all that God is doing in my life or what He expects from me, but I do know that He has called me to live each day for His glory as I love Him and follow His commands.  As family trials have continued to be difficult over the last year making the past two years the most difficult ones of our lives, I can't say that there haven't been times that I have wished I had died that day or wondered why I couldn't be free of these trials and be present with the Lord.  Those thoughts have come and gone over the course of the year, but one thing I always come back to is that God's not done with me yet.  When He is, then I will enter His presence. 

In the meantime, I rejoice that I have breath to praise Him and energy to serve Him.  I celebrate the life He has given to me and the course of life that He has ordained.  God is good in the good times and the bad times.  This year has been a time of growth in my trust in Him and His sovereignty as I learned in new ways to let go of my own plans and desires and let God be God.  I love Him more today than I did a year ago.  I know Him in a deeper and more intimate way today than at my last birthday.  I hunger and thirst after His Word and His righteousness more than I ever have.  They are my lifeline!

So today, I celebrate His work in my heart and life.  I reflect on His sovereign plan for my life.

Because of God's faithfulness, I am here today celebrating a day others predicted I would never see.  May He receive all of the glory and honor due Him.

Psalm 139:13-17:
"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, God!  How vast is the sum of them!"

Coming Back from the Brink of Death

On Wednesday, November 22, 2017, I had to have an urgent, simple, outpatient surgery.  I was discharged that afternoon and cleared by the surgeon to travel up to my parents' house as originally planned for our Thanksgiving holiday.  Little did I know that our holiday plans would drastically change within a matter of hours.  As we began our 2.5 hour journey by car, I was in pain and nauseated--something my doctor said would be a possibility and had instructed me to take Toradol for pain and Zofran for nausea.  Because I wanted to make the car ride as comfortable as possible and given my current symptoms, I chose to take 1 Toradol and 1 Zofran.  Instead of getting better as the journey continued, I got worse.  By the time I arrived to my parents' house, I was feeling terrible.  It was all I could do to sit on the couch and be still.  As the night wore on, I began to feel like my head was in a fog.  I knew something was wrong but didn't have enough cognition left to figure it out.  Twice, I asked my husband what was wrong with me which befuddled him, and he just reminded me I was tired from having surgery that day.  Shortly after that, I lost all conscious awareness and memory.  My husband claims I mumbled responses to a few more of his questions to communicate basic needs, but I have no recollection of any of these discussions.

Tim carried me downstairs to our awaiting bedroom and put me to bed.  At 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 23, I screamed a "bone-chilling, blood-curdling cry" that will forever be etched into Tim's memory and made him jump out of bed and turn on the light.  He found me in a full Grand mal seizure.  Tim managed to lower me to the floor to prevent me from falling out of bed and put me on my side as I foamed at the mouth with blood running out the side of my mouth thanks to my biting my tongue.  The seizure lasted about 90 seconds according to Tim.  Because I am the one who makes the medical decisions in the house, Tim decided to wait for me to wake up to ask me what we should do.  I never woke up.  By 3:00 a.m., I had vomited all over myself.  After the second vomiting episode, Tim was really starting to get concerned, but was too afraid to leave me to go up 2 floors to awake the rest of the household.  Just before 6, David awoke, and sensing something wasn't right went downstairs to find Tim and me.  Tim hurried David to wake up my parents to let them know we needed to go to the hospital.  That started a flurry of activity as preparations were made for my dad to drive Tim and me to the hospital 20 minutes away in Scranton.  After another vomiting episode in the car, we arrived at the hospital where the real urgency quickly became evident to all.

I was whisked off to Trauma 1 and pounced on by many specialists.  I was unconscious and unresponsive.  However, I had a lot of meaningless movements that showed agitation and inhibited medical care making medical intervention difficult.  I was injected with Versed, a sedative, to assist the staff in getting blood drawn and an IV line in.  I was given a rating of a 7 in the Glasgow Coma Scale which falls in the severe brain damage category.  My pupils were not dilating or responding, I had no signs of cognition, and I had severely abnormal flexion of extremities to give you a small glimpse of how bad it looked.

Due to my depressed mental status and agitation, the decision was made to intubate me and put me on a ventilator.  I was also further sedated in order for a CT scan of my brain to be done to check for a brain bleed (thankfully, the CT scan showed no brain bleed).  My preliminary blood tests came back with the most alarming result showing my Sodium level to be 121 which is dangerously low!  My EKG also showed some issues going on with my heart which isn't a surprise with low sodium, and I was placed on a heart monitor.  At that point, the doctors were thinking it was too late and that I wasn't going to make it, but they made every effort to get me as stable as possible.  The parish nurse was called in to say a final prayer over me.  The doctors began to treat some other electrolytes out of whack and get me hydrated.  Tim said at one point, I had 4 usable IV sites in my arms and had 3 IV sites being used at the same time to get meds and IV solutions into me.  I also had an Nasogastric tube (NGT) down which they were using to get electrolyte tablets into my stomach.  Once I was stable, they transferred me to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).

My ventilator

I had a foley catheter inserted into my bladder to keep my bladder draining, and thankfully, the thermometer gage on it alerted the staff to a quickly elevating body temperature.  They discovered I had aspiration pneumonia from aspirating on my vomit, so they quickly responded with IV antibiotics.  Tylenol was given via NGT and a fan was brought in to get my temperature down.

As the hours went by, and I remained alive, and my sodium levels started to increase, the thinking turned to maybe I will survive, but will I be permanently brain damaged or will I ever wake up or will I remain in this vegetative state?  I also continued to be very agitated and was allegedly pretty persistent in trying to pull out all of the many tubes and wires going into me.  While I was intubated and breathing on a ventilator, I had to be restrained in order to keep me from pulling the breathing tube out.  Tim claims that didn't stop me from trying to slide my body down so that I could try to reach the tube with my tied up hands anyway.  Who knew I could be such a fighter when unresponsive??? As the day wore on, I passed a spontaneous breathing trial and was maintaining proper oxygen levels, so I was weaned from the vent and extubated and placed on an oxygen mask.

Hand restraints to keep me from pulling out all of my tubes

Breathing on my own but with an oxygen mask

In the evening, my parents brought David to see me.  He sweetly sat by my bed and held my limp, unresponsive hand while I continued to lie there with oxygen going in via nasal cannula by that point.  As the sun went down, I got more and more agitated, so David couldn't stay at my side any longer.  He was such a trooper through the whole, scary ordeal.  [He won't talk about how he is feeling after going through all of that which concerns us.  We pray he will open up when he is ready.]

Overnight Thursday into Friday, I was taken off of oxygen completely
Note: David wanted to help calm me down while he was with me and did my hair.  Do you like my hair dew?

Holding steady

I finally had to be sedated again to keep me calm, and Tim entered another sleepless night waiting at my bedside praying that I would wake up.  Sometime early Friday morning, I woke up for the first time.  I was very groggy and pretty confused.  I was shocked to learn that I was in the hospital then succumbed to sleep once more.  Later that morning, I woke up again to relearn I was in the hospital, discover that I was in a hospital in Scranton (for a while, I couldn't figure out how I had even got up there since I didn't remember the drive up to my parents' house Wednesday night at first), and then I felt panicked when I learned I was in the ICU!  I was also disheartened to learn that I had completely missed Thanksgiving!  It took a few more periods of sleep and being awake before I learned the whole story of how I got there.

Sleeping peacefully after having become responsive once again

By the afternoon, I was allowed to get out of bed for the first time.  It set off the heart alarm making staff come running, but it felt so good to get up.  A physical therapist and occupational therapist later came by to help me walk a little bit for the first time.  I learned a new meaning of baby steps!  I had a visit from one of my aunts and then my parents and sister and David.  I am sure David was so happy to see me awake, and it was so good to give him a hug and truly hold his hand.

Working with the PT and OT to walk for the first time

My second walk was with my handsome date as my escort

I was so much better come late that evening, the doctor decided to move me from the ICU to the main floor.  Ironically, I ended up being moved to their pediatric unit.  It was very weird for me, a pediatric nurse, to be a patient in a pediatric unit!  I continued to set off the heart alarm each time I got up, but at least then, only one person came running.

Saturday morning in the pediatric unit

Enjoying our visit with David

On Saturday, I was feeling stronger and enjoyed a visit from David, my parents, sister, and brother.  We were then given the good news that I could go home that evening if my last blood test results came back fine and after I had a brain MRI to follow up on the findings of the CT Scan.  [Back in 2011, I was diagnosed with a brain lesion.  Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, and a parasite were all ruled out, but the four neurologists I did see couldn't figure out what it was.  The decision was made to repeat the MRI yearly and follow up with the neurologist I chose to be my treating neurologist.  After two subsequent yearly MRIs showed no changes, the decision was made to repeat the MRI every few years.  My last MRI was in 2013.  The CT scan revealed another lesion and changes to the previous lesion, and the MRI in the hospital that day ended up showing definitive changes.  I follow up with my neurologist this coming Wednesday to find out her thoughts on the changes and to discuss any long term damage to my brain that may have occurred from the dangerously low sodium levels.]

At 9:30 on Saturday evening, I was discharged following the completion of the MRI.  I arrived back at my parents' house by 10:00 to get settled into bed for the night.  The next morning, we woke up, packed up the car, and left to head back home swinging by the Lancaster area to pick up Josh for a home visit from his residential center he had been at for the month.  Once we were home, I got settled on the couch so I could enjoy seeing my family together and be able to interact with them as I was able.  It was a happy day despite the fact that I was tired and weak.

Settled at home and happy to spend time with Josh

So many people have asked what happened since all of this had been so sudden and unexpected, so I thought blogging about it would be helpful to give a thorough recounting and perhaps save me or Tim from having to rehash it several times a day.  There is still so much more to the continuing story, but perhaps that will be for more blog posts to come.  We are very much still trying to process all that has happened and figure out what God is trying to teach us.  We remain confident that God will work all of this out for our good and His glory and are praising Him for the miracles He worked in my life the two days when I walked on the brink of death unknown to me in my unresponsive state.  One other thing we are confident of is that God's not finished with me on earth yet!  I still have work to do!

The Battle with Weight

Anyone who has known me for any length of time knows that I am on the skinny side when it comes to weight.  I always have been and if anything, it's always been a struggle to keep weight on.  When we started our cellular healing diet as a family to help us be more healthy and help Josh thrive better, I was a bit concerned about the potential weight loss due to the healing ability of the diet that promotes toxic weight loss (toxins are stored in body fat) that naturally occurs with a healing/detox diet.  I was already slightly underweight to begin with.  I was told by the nutritionist guiding us through the diet that while I would love toxic weight, my body would find a happy place and stop shedding the pounds.

Well, unfortunately, we started the diet at the end of March, and Tim had the whole ordeal with his appendix at the end of April right after we started the heavy detox part of the diet.  Needless to say, I wasn't monitoring my weight, I was simply trying to care for Tim and keep the household functioning.  As a result, by mid-May, when I finally got around to stepping on a scale after noticing that none of my clothes fit me anymore, I was shocked to find that I had lost 14% of my body weight in less than 2 months!

I panicked and reached out to a friend who is a dietitian who was able to put me in touch with a friend of hers locally that has a practice.  She has been my weight coach ever since.  She was very concerned about the weight loss and the danger zone my body was in.  Not only had I lost 14% of my body weight so quickly, but I was less than 2 percentage points away from my body using my essential fats to survive.  My cycle had shut down, and I was losing hair by the handfuls.  I was weak and lethargic.  I was a mess.  I had to see my primary doctor for a full blood work-up to see if damage had already been done to my organs.  Thankfully, everything checked out fine.  I've been on a 2250 Calories a day diet since and had to add grains back into my diet.  I am still sticking to a very healthy and organic diet, so I have to eat a ton of food to reach my calorie goals because fruit and vegetables and healthy meats just don't have the high calorie content as junk food does. Sadly, the weight gain progress has been painfully slow since embarking on this journey!

I haven't spoken about the situation much with people because I'm sick of getting the whole "You are so lucky!  I'd love to have your problem instead of my battle to lose weight" comments.  While I don't know what it's like to struggle to lose weight, I know the struggle of maintaining healthy weight.  Let me just say for the record, the struggle to maintain a healthy weight, whether it's losing or gaining is NOT fun by any means!  It's a daily battle!  I have come to despise eating because I constantly need to be monitoring what I'm eating and how many calories I'm consuming and whether or not I am getting in the recommended amounts of each food group daily.  It's such a drudgery!  I want to eat food again just for the enjoyment of eating!

Thankfully, my cycle has since reset, and while I am still losing hair, it's not by the handfuls anymore.  I have much more energy and feel a lot more like my usual self.  My weight gain goal set by the dietitian was 1.5-2 lbs a week, but unfortunately, since starting with her in May, I have only gained 4 pounds.  Having a stomach bug 2 weeks ago in which I lost 4 pounds in 1 day didn't help matters.  I gained 3 of the pounds back by the time I saw my dietitian last week, so now my total weight gain since starting with her has been 3 pounds.  I can't help but be discouraged, but I'm going to keep on keeping on until I can get my body into a healthier place.

I am still under the care of my family physician who has been concerned about my ability to regain the weight.  When I see her next on October 5, she will be ordering some tests at the request of my dietitian who is now concerned that I may have an absorption issue.  Also, on the rare occasions when I indulge in a food that contains gluten, I get really bloated and struggle with abdominal cramping.  There is concern that I am now gluten intolerant or sensitive, so I will be tested for that as well.  Even though I've always consumed a lot of gluten-containing foods in the past (I am Italian after all!), apparently the few months hiatus I gave my body was enough for it to detest any trace of gluten.  I also may get my metabolism tested.  There is concern that it's way too high adding to my issues and inability to gain weight.

Having to deal with this has been hard because I don't have time to worry about myself with all that's been going on in our family.  It's been a drudgery and constant source of discouragement.  It's also been a lonely, isolating battle.  I was encouraged the past few weeks when I've met two other people who understand my struggle, so it helps to know I'm not alone.

God is in control, and while His timetable may not be my timetable, I am learning to trust and be patient in even these uncomfortable circumstances.  Each day is a gift, and I need to use it to its fullest by God's grace!

When God's Strength is Enough

This summer did not go as planned to say the least.  In fact, it's been an intense, harrowing past 5 months!  Even as I sit here reflecting back on all that transpired these past several months, I can't help but shudder at the difficulties we faced and dread ever experiencing anything like it again -- Lord-willing, we won't!

The saga began in April when Tim injured himself pulling our dead lawn tractor, which had 2 flat tires, out of the shed all by himself.  If you read my post from May about the miracles God worked in Tim's life over those next few weeks, you understand how this frightful journey began.  His injury led to a ruptured appendix that we didn't realize was a ruptured appendix until 4 days after it ruptured which led to a 5 day stay in the hospital with doctors being amazed that Tim was alive not to mention not as sick as he should have been.  The doctors told us removing the appendix could kill Tim, so they instead inserted a drain into the abscess Tim's body had build around the appendix in order to drain the infection so that surgery could take place.  That began a routine 2-4 hour visit to the hospital first weekly then every other week to get the drain and appendix checked.  Our hopes of healing went up and down, and after another visit with the surgeon, we found out he would not need surgery but could live with the healed appendix.  We were thrilled to get that wonderful news since Tim was just starting to feel better and the thought of having surgery again was disheartening.  Then the wait began to hear the news that the appendix was closed and the drain could be removed.  We waited and waited and waited some more.  The hospital visits were starting to get old.  The hospital staff all knew us by name.  The routine that ate up a large part of a day every two weeks was starting to wear on us.

Then came the day we met once again with the surgeon and received the bad news that the appendix was not healing as expected, and surgery was a necessity.  The hope was that they could remove everything they needed to through laparoscopic surgery, but given the amount of inflammation, there was a chance Tim would need to be fully opened up. The surgery date was scheduled unexpectedly quickly once the decision was made, and Tim had an appendectomy on July 26, three days before we were supposed to leave for our Russell family vacation.  We were thrilled that the surgery was successful as a laparoscopic procedure, and Tim was discharged from the hospital the next afternoon!  We had decided to leave on Saturday instead of Friday for vacation to allow Tim one more day to recuperate at home before needing to sit in a car for 6 hours and endure the bumps.  However, by Thursday afternoon, Tim's fever he had been battling off and on since the night before, soared higher than we would have liked forcing me to call the surgeon who told us to come immediately to the ER.  We spent all evening in the ER talking with the surgeon and his staff and having another CT scan done as well as blood work, and IV antibiotics were started.  Things were not looking good.  Tim was readmitted, and the doctors were talking about opening him up again to try to find the source of the infection.  Thankfully, Tim's surgeon came back on duty the next morning and  decided to try taking Tim off the antibiotics and see if the fever would return since it had broken the night before.  He was hoping that if the fever didn't return, we could call it a fluke and avoid unnecessary surgery.  If it returned, surgery would have to be done.  Thankfully, God intervened, and the fever never returned, so after another day in the hospital for monitoring, Tim was able to be discharged mid-day on Saturday.  His parents had graciously taken the boys with them for our vacation on Friday.  By God's grace, Tim was able to endure the car ride down to Virginia on Sunday.  Even though he spent his vacation lying around and taking it easy, he was thankful that he was able to spend time with his family.

For 6 weeks after his surgery, Tim was not allowed to lift anything that weighed more than 10 pounds.  This became really frustrating for him once he finally felt back to his normal self, but I was persistent in being firm because I didn't want any other set-backs.  This drama had gone on long enough.  Last week, on September 2, Tim's weight restrictions were completed, and he was able to go back to functioning normally, and I felt as if I had been given my life back only to discover that I now had to pick up the pieces of my life to put them back together again.

Tim has always been the rock in our family.  He keeps us sane and keeps us functioning.  He's always there.  He has always been the healthiest of us all.  In raising two precious special needs boys together, Tim has been my supporter, helper, and teammate.  In everything he had to endure the last 5 months, I felt as if I lost all that I had come to rely on from him.  It scared me tremendously when it all began to know that he should have died - that I could have been a widow.  I'm grateful that God had other plans for Tim and so thankful to have Tim still at my side filling those roles once again.

As I struggled these past several months to care for Tim and his physical needs, keep the family going, keep up with our 1.8 acres of land, keep up with the meals and laundry and housework, continue to work part time as a nurse, and run my essential oils business, there were many times where I felt as if I would crumble under the enormity of the tasks resting on my shoulders.

With the 10 days total of hospitalization Tim had plus the 7 outpatient visits for drain checks, surgeon appointments, and repeat CT Scans, I had a lot of childcare arrangements to make.  It was so difficult to juggle caring for my boys and being at the hospital especially when Tim was so sick and in so much pain during his first hospitalization.  The emotional toll of Tim's near-death experience and continued issues and then surgery for the boys was really costly.  They both struggled to come to terms with why God was letting their daddy suffer so much.  They felt the void of not having Daddy be an active member of our family greatly.  It was exhausting for me to stay emotionally strong to help them become stronger emotionally.  The whole ordeal created a lot of childcare needs.  Finding childcare has always been an enormous challenge given Josh's special needs.  I am so grateful for Tim's mom and several of our friends who were so willing to step in and care for our children when I couldn't.  I'm also thankful for Josh's home health aide services which helped to fill in the gaps for his care.

With our special healing diet that we had started in March, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen making everything from scratch including our own crackers and yogurt.  I get all of our dairy, produce, and meat from local Amish farms on a weekly basis.  When Tim was in the hospital, we couldn't accept the offered meal help from church friends because the diet is just too complicated.  People would offer to make a meal and ask what we can't have.  I always said it would be easier to tell them what we could have.  So, I had to run back and forth from the hospital to home to ensure the boys would have the food they needed for their meals while Tim was in the hospital.  Several people encouraged me to just let the diet go.  I refused because we have seen such amazing results with the diet for Josh that there's no turning back!  Every minute I labor in the kitchen is so worth it to have a son who is thriving when he was predicted to be struggling.

Our property is beautiful.  We love every bit of it!  However, it's a lot to manage and has always taken all hand's on deck to help keep things under control during the Spring and Summer months.  Tim does the majority of the work.  With his being out of commission for most of this Spring and Summer, this put a huge hardship on us and our property.  We also had planted an extra large garden this year to help us financially manage our organic diet.  I will be forever grateful for our neighbor who so lovingly and faithfully mowed our lawn for us with the lawn tractor.  That was a huge task to take over and a huge burden taken off of our shoulders.  However, the parts of the lawn that needed to be push-mowed, the weed whacking and pulling, and maintaining and watering of the garden still needed to be done.  I gave it my best shot, but there came a time where we just had to let the weeds prevail.  I could only do so much in the limited 24 hours in each day.  The boys stepped up and helped also, but we couldn't do it all.  Thankfully, we were able to keep our garden going, and while it had more weeds than I would have preferred, it produced well for us providing ample food that we were able to eat fresh as well as plenty that I could can or dehydrate to keep us going until next year's growing season.

We love our house.  We love the ample space it has giving us the ability to minister to people.  However, the size provides plenty of rooms and space that needs to be cleaned on a regular basis.  Cleaning the house takes time!  Time that I did not have enough of.  Again, the boys stepped up to help share in the load, but just like the weeds overtook our yard, the dust overtook our home.  I can't tell you the number of times I wished I could have more than 24 hours in my day these past several months!  I made it a priority to keep up with doing the laundry because we do need to stay clothed, but sometimes, it would take a week before the clean laundry got folded and brought up to the rooms.  My family was gracious and never complained the countless times they would run downstairs to pull out needed underwear or socks or other needed clothing from the baskets waiting with laundry that needed to be folded.  Having the boys take over the responsibility of washing and folding their laundry over the summer also was helpful.  I am also grateful for two people in our church who graciously gave of their time to help me with housework when Tim was hospitalized and another who paid for me to get my house cleaned.  Just having someone help share the burden was a huge relief and a real encouragement.

I continued to work 18 hours 2 days a week unless Tim's hospitalizations required that I take off from work.  I also continued to run my essential oils business although I was getting sick of always having to apologize for the length of time it took me to respond to an email or phone call because I just couldn't do it all.  I'm grateful for the way God blessed my business during these tough months helping me to reach higher income than I've ever had at a time when I didn't have time to keep things going.  That helped keep us financially afloat as we dealt with missed work for Tim and me not to mention the unexpected medical expenses as we maxed out Tim's high maximum out of pocket expense medical deductible (No, Obamacare is NOT more affordable!), and the amount of gas we were spending in the countless trips to the hospital that was a 25 minute, mostly-highway drive from our house.

The physical and emotional exhaustion I experienced on a daily basis these past several months was overwhelmingly enormous!  The long hours I spent keeping our family going with the very little and sometimes broken up sleep I was getting at night was enough to kill me.  When I did finally get to bed, I would fall asleep in utter exhaustion the moment my head hit the pillow.  I have never found myself always on the verge of tears and feeling as if my legs were going to crumble underneath me on a daily basis, but that's just what I experienced these past months.  There were days that I felt as if I would never survive the day.  I truly have never been as overwhelmed as I have been these past few months, and I never want to feel that way again.

Through it all, God was so gracious to me.  I never would have survived had it not been for His help, grace, mercy, and largely, His STRENGTH!  I spent my days in a constant state of prayer asking for the same thing over and over again, "Please, God, help me to have the strength I need to do all that I need to do today."  I'm glad God never gets weary of hearing our petitions because mine were so redundant and desperate!  I had no strength to carry the burdens heaped on my shoulders daily, but God gave me His strength, and Jesus carried my burdens.  God's strength was my lifeline.  It helped me pull my weary body out of bed early each morning, work non-stop making sure the needs of all of my family were met, and brought me to bed even if it was for a few short hours.  God's strength kept me going even when I knew how impossible it was for one person to do all of the tasks set before me in a given day.  God's strength kept my heart from wallowing in misery, discouragement, and self-pity.  God's strength helped me be all He called me to be on a daily basis.  His strength never wore out.  It was fresh and new every morning.  Great is His faithfulness!

These past several months have helped me to come to love and respect God's strength.  It has drawn me yet again closer to Him helping me to realize I am nothing and must rely on Him for all things.  Feasting on His Word on a daily basis became so much more meaningful to me as it nourished my soul allowing me to keep pressing on each and every day.  This hard time has strengthened my belief in His promise that "I can do all things through Christ who strengths me" (Philippians 4:13).  I experienced daily what it was like to soar with wings as eagles and run and not be weary and walk (or even stumble) yet not grow faint (Isaiah 40:31).  God brought me through the waters, kept me from drowning in the rivers, and prevented me from being burned in the fire (Isaiah 43:2).  I never want to go through something like this again, but I am thankful for the refining work God did in my life as a result.  As I sit here letting my mind reflect back on all that I had to go through the last several months, my stomach is churning into tight knots.  I feel traumatized all over again!  However, God's goodness prevails, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God worked all of those hard times together for my good and His glory (Romans 8:28).  I want to forget the painful memories, and putting them into words will help me do that, but I want to always remember the wondrous comfort God gave me daily and the incredible strength of His that carried me through.

Through all of these hard months, one song continued to run in my head over and over again and still does.  I am trying to convince Josh to sing it with me sometime in church.  The words spoke to my heart over and over again reminding me of God's strength and the work He was doing in my life on a daily basis emptying me of myself and filling me with Him.  These words so eloquently and beautifully describe what I truly believe deep down in my heart and was so evident these past several months.  His strength is perfect!

His Strength is Perfect

I can do all things
Through Christ who gives me strength
But sometimes I wonder what He can do through me
No great success to show
No glory of my own
Yet in my weakness He is there to let me know

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect

We can only know
The power that He holds
When we truly see how deep our weakness goes
His strength in us begins
Where ours comes to an end
He hears our humble cry and proves again

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect

Written by Cedric Caldwell, Victor Caldwell, Cece Winans • Copyright © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

The Day We Never Thought We'd See

God continues to do amazing things in our family.  He continues to bring healing in areas we never thought possible!  We are forever grateful for His amazing handiwork in our lives and for the incredible answers to prayer we continue to see that are above and beyond all we could ask or think.

Three weeks ago on August 29, 2016, we saw the day that we never thought we would see.  I still feel as if I am living in a dream and that soon, I am going to wake up and discover it was just a dream!

As you know, Joshua, our oldest son who just turned 12 this past Sunday, has Autism along with Bipolar, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD.  The gloomy future predicted by the many doctors and specialists Josh has seen throughout the years was daunting and frightening.  They had warned us about the scary years of puberty where Josh would be in and out of the psychiatric hospital and needing constant medication adjustments due to the raging hormones.  We were told we would see a reprieve once Josh reached his 20's, and his hormones stabilized.  Being under the care of a psychiatrist would be a lifelong necessity as medications would always need to be monitored and tweaked as time went on.

As I wrote in my annual Autism Awareness blog post in April, things have drastically changed for Josh due to our journey in natural solutions over the past now 2.5 years.  In addition, the healing diet we as a family have been doing since the Spring with the intent to help Josh has also been instrumental.  Beneath the surface of these solutions, God was orchestrating all of the events - giving me the drive to fight for my son, leading me to the right people and the right information, giving us the means to put the natural solutions to the test and finding success with them, etc.  This was God's capable hands at work in an incredible way in Josh's life as well as in our family's lives.

Before making the wellness journey into the wonderful world of natural solutions, Josh was taking 10 pills a day (7 different drugs) to manage all of his medical and psychiatric needs.  With the help of natural solutions, Josh experienced increased remarkable medical and psychiatric stability which led to a 2+ year journey of weaning off of medications.  It has been an exciting journey watching him transform before our eyes as drugs left his system revealing wonderful personality traits we didn't know existed.  On June 8, 2016, Josh took his last dose of Risperdal, a drug crucial for managing his moods of bipolar and the last drug of which he weaned.  We were told by several doctors that he would never be able to go without a mood stabilizer.  In the midst of puberty and raging hormones, at the time predicted to be the worst time of Josh's life and craziest emotional roller coaster ride, he stopped taking his most crucial drug and since has been THRIVING and has been more stable than he ever has been since developing Bipolar!  How is that for a miracle?  We are still praising God for that incredible answer to prayer!

Josh saw his psychiatrist for a follow-up to being off of Risperdal on August 29, 2016.  She was amazed at how well he was doing and thrilled for his success.  She looked at him and said, "Well, Josh, you don't have to come back and see me again."  I almost fell out of my seat, and Josh was just as shocked as he said, "What did you just say?" She repeated herself, and Josh clarified, "You mean for a long time?"  She answered, "No, never unless you need me again sometime later down the road.  You are doing so well that you don't need my services anymore.  There is nothing that I can do for you that you aren't already doing for yourself."  I thought I was going to need to be pulled down from the ceiling because I was flying so high.  I never dreamed I would see the day when Josh would not need to see a psychiatrist regularly.  She and the psychologist have also been mentioning dropping some of Josh's diagnoses because of the lack of symptoms.  More time still needs to transpire before the diagnoses can officially be dropped, but we are getting close.  It's been over a year since Josh experienced a cycle with his bipolar.  His anxiety completely disappeared after he weaned off of his anxiety drug in December 2015.  His Autism has become so highly functional that if he were to be diagnosed today, according to his psychiatrist, he would not qualify for an Autism diagnosis but would instead receive a social delay disorder diagnosis.

My heart continues to soar as I see my son happy, thriving, and better than I had ever dreamed.  We have lived to see the day we never thought we'd see, and it only keeps getting better.  Josh moved into the Middle School in August as a big 7th grader.  Knowing the changes of middle school from elementary school and given the fact that he would have a whole new team of teachers and support staff, I was really anxious about his transition.  This kid continues to amaze me and transitioned so well, you wouldn't have thought it was a new experience or a new team.

God is the Great Physician, and we have certainly experienced His healing hands in Josh's life.  We are forever grateful for His great mercy and grace to Josh and our family, and we eagerly look forward to the future plans God has in store for our precious son.

Miracles in the Rough

Well, this past week has probably been the most difficult one we've had to face so far as a family.  As always, God's grace has proved sufficient to get us through.  We have been amazed at the countless miracles we have witnessed God perform in and through this whole ordeal.

Two weeks ago, Tim had injured himself dragging out our dead lawn tractor which had 2 flat tires from the shed.  He had been nursing the injury which had started to improve, but then a few days later, he started having increased pain in the area.  Of course, being the nurse that I am, I instantly checked him out for appendicitis since the area is in the right lower quadrant.  He passed all of the tests for that, so I told him he probably did something that re-injured his tendon.  On Friday night, we felt a pop playing a game at the boys Taekwondo lesson.  That brought us up to the past weekend where Tim started feeling really sick and spent most of Saturday and Sunday in bed.  He thought perhaps he had a virus.  On Monday, he was feeling much better and went to work.  By the evening, he was feeling poorly again and was complaining of severe back pain and wanted me to put Deep Blue essential oil blend on his back.  When I touched his back, I recognized instantly that he was feverish.  I immediately thought of his injury and told him to roll over so I could check the area.  I found a large mass in his lower right quadrant that was even hotter than the rest of his body.  I knew things weren't good, but I was thinking he had caused a hernia and perhaps some of his bowel had become obstructed.

He wanted me to go to work and promised he would call the doctor first thing in the morning.  I told him there was a chance the doctor would send him to the ER.  He said he'd be fine.  Sure enough, he was sent to the ER.  The Lord orchestrated the events giving Tim a Christian physician to care for him.  The doctor was assuming it was an abdominal wall hernia and ordered a CT Scan.  When he came in to give Tim the results, it was quite a shock for Tim to hear the diagnosis was Ruptured Appendix.  The doctor prayed with Tim at that point, which was such a blessing to him.  Tim called me right away, and I was able to get my clinical manager to cover me at work so that I could go to be with him.

The biggest miracle in all of this is that Tim is alive and that he is doing as well as he is.  Every doctor who has been in to see him has remarked that he is doing better than most people in his situation.  We think the appendix ruptured Friday night when Tim felt that pop, so he went several days with a ruptured appendix before receiving medical help.  Thankfully, once we thought he had a virus, we were using essential oils to support his immune system.  Tim's body perfectly encapsulated the toxic waste from his intestines in a multi-compartmental abscess that preserved him from going into sepsis or from death.  The doctors put him on IV antibiotics, and the next day they placed a drain to get the infection and toxins out of the abscess.  Tim will have the drain in for the next few weeks until the abscess is fully drained or until he can have surgery to remove his appendix.  He will need weekly checks of the drain and follow-up CT Scans.  Before the surgery, he will also need a colonoscopy.

Our family has done a lot with essential oils and natural supplements over the last two years to support our bodies and help our bodies function at its optimal function.  In addition, Tim did a gentle, natural cleanse in January to clean up his gut and help it be extremely healthy.  Then in March, our family began a cellular healing diet that has really helped our gut to be healthy and helped our bodies detox so that we can be as healthy as possible.  All of these events has allowed Tim's body to be able to function at its highest level helping to preserve his life and keep him from being as sick as he could have been.  We praise God for the perfect timing of all of these events and for the amazing design He has created the human body with to naturally be able to heal and protect itself.

Once the drain was inserted with radiographic imaging while Tim was sedated, Tim got worse with the fever, infection, and pain.  We were warned he would get sicker before he got better, but we never expected the pain to be so terribly extreme.  The last several days have been very difficult, discouraging, and exhausting.  The extra energy I have from being on our diet has tremendously helped me as I stayed overnight caring for Tim at his worst and continued the rest of the week pulling late nights with going to bed after midnight and getting up at 6 and spending most of my awake hours with Tim and orchestrating child care.  Through it all, God has been our strength and calm and our every present fortress.

It would take a long time of telling you all of the "mini" miracles we have witnessed this week between Tim's medical care, health, the ways things worked out with the boys' needs, how God intervened when I had to be in two places at the same time and needed something else from home, and how God brought so many people to our rescue to help us in so many countless ways.

One last miracle I have to share is the fact that through this very difficult week that has been hard on all of us, especially the boys who have spent evenings visiting Daddy in the hospital and hardly having Mommy to care for them, Josh has done extremely well.  With his Autism, Bi-polar, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder, something as huge as this whole event has been should have landed him back in a psychiatric hospital.  The last 2 years, he has been able to wean off of 9 of the 10 drugs he took daily because of his increased function through natural solutions, and his final drug is on schedule to be completed by the middle of June.  Josh took this whole ordeal in stride and even had a few perfect days at school despite the drama going on.  In fact, his behavior overall was better than David's.

All of us are emotionally raw and ready for our normal family routine.  Tim was discharged from the hospital on Saturday evening.  He is still recovering but slowly.  He has a long road ahead of him as the toxins continue to drain out of his abdominal cavity, and he anticipates abdominal surgery in about 6 weeks or so.  Through it all, we have confidence that God has all of this under his sovereign control.  He holds us closely in His capable hands drawing us near to His heart.  We are so thankful that we don't have to go through this alone.  We are also grateful for the many family and friends who have come to our aide no matter what our needs have been through this whole ordeal.  God is so good!

Autism Awareness Month 2016

As Autism Awareness Month comes to an end, I am finally having a moment to write my yearly Autism Awareness post. 

In the Autism world, it is so easy to be consumed by hoplessness.  It's an overwhelming diagnosis with life-long implications.  As the years ticked by after Josh's Autism diagnosis at 4 years of age, things only looked gloomier and more hopeless as more and more diagnoses were tagged on and more problems ensued.  By his second psychiatric hospitalization at 8 years of age and the warning by the doctor that it most certainly would not be his last hospitalization and things would get really rough once puberty hit requiring constant medication dosing adjustments to compensate for fluctuating hormone production, we were left with worries about the future and realization that we would need to start planning for his adulthood and his needing care and supervision for the rest of his life.  I stopped dreaming that someday he would be able to get married recognizing that it was just too impossible.

Fast forward 3 years, and our hopes for the future have drastically changed.  Instead of doom and gloom and the impossibility of independence as an adult, we see a bright future, and I have begun praying that God would raise up a godly spouse for him one day.

What has changed? EVERYTHING!  This metamorphosis began when we started using essential oils over 2 years ago then incorporated natural supplements all while getting rid of typical personal care and household products that are toxic switching to natural stuff I make with natural ingredients to keep us safe and healthy.  Then began a greater scrutiny about the food we used and the process of eliminating processed stuff and switching to more organic choices.

With each change we made in our daily habits and choices, we saw more and more changes for the better.  The two-year transformation began with instability and a threat of a third hospitalization due to the 10 drugs a day he was currently taking not enough to keep him stable.  Fast forward two years, and Josh is only taking 1 drug a day that he has been slowly weaning off of over the past 2 years and will be fully weaned off of by the middle of June according to his doctor's wean plan.  With each drug he weaned off of, he became happier, more compliant, and more stable.  We have been discovering more and more aspects to his personality that had been locked inside him unknown to us.

The medical world has things all backwards when it comes to Autism.  They treat symptoms with drugs that often make the person have a flat affect and zero personality.  While some behavior therapy recommendations are made and can be effective in helping a child cope in our world, progress is painfully slow.  What is often overlooked and neglected is the availability and success of natural things and diet.  God created all things for our benefit and good, and mankind has done a lot to taint it or ruin it altogether.  We need to get back to the way God created things!

This year, I began a new learning journey into the world of healthy diets and was blown away by what studies are out there regarding the implications of a leaky gut and the benefits of cutting out inflammatory foods from the diet.  While this information is helpful to every human who wants to be healthy, it has HUGE implications for people with Autism.  After reading the literature available, I decided to take the plunge and eliminate gluten from Josh's diet (I had already eliminated artificial dyes and flavors a year prior to that).  Surprisingly, he went from a jittery, fidgety, easily irritated kid to a calm and collected child who hardly gets irritated.  After letting him have gluten for one meal around the Easter holiday and having a difficult next 1.5 days of increased irritability and hyperactivity, he reset and went back to his new norm.  That was enough to convince us of the importance to avoid gluten for good.

In March, we embarked on a journey as a family beginning the Cellular Healing Diet by Dr. Pompa.  It is a pretty involved diet that heals the leaky gut, helps the body rid itself of toxins, decreases inflammation, and improves cellular health.  We believe this is the final key for helping Josh fully recover of his Autism and other issues.  From the changes we have already seen since starting the diet, we are getting more and more confident of the end results.

There is hope!  Don't ever let anyone or any doctor convince you otherwise.  Never give up fighting!  Don't accept a doom and gloom prognosis.  There is always room to improve and excel.  Don't discount God's power to do the impossible!  Josh's prognosis seemed dismal and improvement seemed so impossible, but God is greater and more powerful!  He has directed us to the right people and the right resources, and with the change to natural solutions and healthy diet, Josh is on the road to full recovery!  God is amazing!

Psalm 147:11 - "but the LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his steadfast love."

Celebrating Success

If you are a special needs family, you understand the difficulty of doing special things in the community as an entire family.  This is a struggle we had dealt with since our boys were a toddler and baby.

Due to his Autism, Josh struggles with sensory overload and anxiety over new places and new routines.  As a result, being in a new and public environment doesn't work so well for him.  Our attempts to have him in this kind of environment usually end up in an embarrassing meltdown and humiliating drama.  As a result, we typically don't bring Josh into community settings, and it's not for the lack of trying.  Every so often, we build up the courage to give it a shot only to be discouraged and disappointed when it didn't go so well.

We got convicted about preventing David from experiencing community outings because of his brother, so we started doing family events with just the 3 of us leaving Josh with a home health aide to care for his needs.  Even though, Josh never really seemed bothered by it or left out, we always felt so guilty having fun without him and feeling his absence deeply.

Since Josh has been doing so much better as a result of our wellness journey and use of essential oils, we decided to test the limit.  We had been doing a few small-scale outings with the assistance of a home health aide and having an easier time of it, but the outings were not huge events.  We decided to press the limits this past Friday and have a family dinner at a Turkish restaurant in Philadelphia then attend a String Quartet concert at the Kimmel Center.  The concert started at 8:00 p.m., which is Josh's bed-time, and usually, he doesn't do well if we mess with that, so this test was huge in many respects.

I am so excited to announce that the evening was a HUGE success!  Josh didn't have any meltdowns.  We had a close call in the middle of the second musical piece when we prevented Josh from lying on the floor during the concert, but he was able to use his coping skills and pull himself together without creating a huge scene.  He loved the outing and has remarked several times how much fun he had and that he wants to do something like that again!  It's great for his confidence to know that he can have a successful outing also.  A second test was the next day because of the extremely late night.  We got home shortly after 11:00 p.m. Friday night (of course, Josh slept the whole way home).  When Josh doesn't go to bed at 8:00 p.m., his behavior is usually terrible the next day.  However, on Saturday, he had a great day despite the many chores (another angst)!

We are praising the Lord for His work in Josh's life and giving our family the chance to be whole and enjoy quality and memorable time together doing special things in the community!  We pray that we will have many more happy and memorable outings.

Waiting for the concert to begin

Results to be Excited About

We have been concerned about Josh's triglyceride levels ever since we had to put him on a mood stabilizer back in 2012.  Within months of starting the medication, Josh's triglyceride levels increased.  At the same time, we were concerned for his LDL and HDL cholesterol levels.  Because of the harmful side effects of these kinds of drugs, we've had to get Josh's Lipid Panel checked about every 6 months to keep a close eye on his levels.  In January 2014, we went into crisis mode because Josh's triglyceride levels skyrocketed to 517, a level that is extremely dangerous for adults not to mention children.  Josh was immediately referred to a cardiologist to make sure his heart wasn't already suffering.  Not only he could have damaged his heart, but he was at risk for pancreatitis and other complications.

At the recommendation of the cardiologist, we started using flax in various meals and desserts to help lower the triglyceride levels.  The cardiologist also recommended that we switch from whole wheat bread to whole grain brain (Did you know that whole wheat bread is broken down in the body just like white bread?  The best kind of bread to consume is whole grain bread if you don't want fast sugars in your body) We also started Josh on a fish oil supplement and tried to get him to do intentional exercise a few times a week.  A re-test in April showed good improvement with the triglycerides in the sense that the severe cardiac and other organ risks were lowered, but his levels were still too high.  We were told that most likely, Josh's low HDL levels (the good cholesterol which help to keep LDL, the bad cholesterol, down) were a genetic issue even though both Tim and I have HDL levels in normal limits.  We were told it most likely will never improve.

In March, we began using essential oils to help Josh with his mood instability.  We had such great results that his psychiatrist started decreasing his mood stabilizer medication.  He went from 1.5 mg daily and did a 0.25 mg decrease at a time over several months until he leveled out at 0.5 mg daily this past Fall.

In August, Josh had a severe allergic reaction to the antibiotic he was put on for Lyme's Disease, and his body went into a heightened period of hives.  Taking his fish oil supplement each morning caused him to break out in hives, so we had to stop the fish oil.

In the middle of December, I started Josh on a trio pack of natural supplements (3 all-natural, bio-available supplements including a multi-vitamin, essential oil and omega supplement, and a cellular restorative supplement) with the hopes of helping his body be healthier, help with his Autism symptoms, and help with his triglycerides.  We saw a huge improvement in his Autism symptoms pretty much right away, but only time would tell if the supplements were helping with his triglycerides.  Due to the timing of Josh's follow up with his cardiologist, we just got his blood drawn last week.  I got the results on Friday and nearly cried out of pure joy!  Josh's triglyceride levels dropped by 200 points!  His HDL also increased by 10 points, and while still below normal, it's so close to being in normal range!

I am so excited about the incredible test results that I just have to share with the world - well at least my friends who read my blog!  Moral of this story - don't ever give up or let what a doctor says keep you from trying.  God is greater than modern medicine, and as I've found out through the natural supplements and essential oils, God's creation is powerfully beneficial for our bodies and health!  These supplements and essential oils don't cure or treat in any way, but they support our bodies to do what God created our bodies to do - Heal and repair itself!

I created a table to make it easy to see the progression of Josh's Lipid Panel results this past year.

If you think I am making this up, look at a few of his test results for yourself!

If you would like to know more about these supplements we have been using for Josh as well as the rest of our family, contact me!

Do You Want a Wellness Revolution?

In light of the fact that World Health is celebrated annually during the month of April, I have joined the efforts of the American Recall Center to spread awareness of medication education and help educate people so that they can make informed medical decisions as they work with their doctors in honor of World Health Day.

As a Registered Nurse, I have seen many adverse side effects from drugs, even those that were properly prescribed.  I have worked with patients who were on drugs to help control the side effects of other drugs.  As a patient, I have had multiple allergic reactions to drugs, so my allergy drug list is quite extensive.    As a mother, I have experienced the pain and frustration of dealing with drug reactions or harmful side effects of drugs as well as vaccines for my two special needs children.  I am not anti-drugs.  If I were, I would need to stop being a nurse.  I am, however, a huge advocate of people making informed medical decisions after doing thorough research on their own before starting a new drug or receiving a vaccine.  The pro’s and con’s need to be weighed thoroughly to make sure the benefits outweigh the costs.  In addition, I am a huge advocate of using natural means to promote a healthy lifestyle to support current disease and illnesses and preventing others from developing.  That is why I became a Wellness Advocate so that I can educate others to take control of their health.

In nursing school, I learned about the importance of eating a healthy, balanced diet and exercising.  In practice, I am not seeing much of that being carried out nor proper education from doctors about this issue.  America is more about treating disease and illness rather than preventing it.  Doctors are quick to prescribe medications rather than help the person change their health habits.  In addition, it is becoming harder and harder to eat a healthy, balanced diet rich in nutrients because so much of the food available to us is either processed, thus losing its nutritional value, or has been genetically modified causing digestive issues, allergies, and decreased nutritional value.  Fresh foods are contaminated with pesticides, and meats are injected with steroids and antibiotics.  Our bodies are being filled with additional toxins that lead to disease and illness.  Also, in a technological era where we hide behind our smart phones and computers, we are not getting the exercise our bodies need or sun and fresh air to be healthy.  America needs a wellness revolution where we change the way we treat disease and start preventing it.

For me and my family, we have been on our own wellness revolution over this past year plus.

1. We eat organic and locally grown foods as much as possible making sure we are balanced in our fruit, vegetable, protein, grain, and fat intake.
2. We exercise as regularly as possible.  We really enjoy going on family walks or hikes together to not just exercise but strengthen our relationships with each other.
3. We take all-natural and whole food vitamin, nutrient, and omega 3 supplements that were made based on scientific research for what our bodies need.  These supplements are bio-available which means they are already broken down so that the body doesn't have to waste time and energy breaking them down, and the body can use it in its entirety.  These supplements have given us increased energy and stamina, helped us stay healthy and fight germs, and increased our ability to focus and function because our bodies are getting the nutrients needed to function optimally.  For more information, click here and here.
4. We take a pro-biotic that was ingeniously made to give us the maximum probiotic amount with a pre-biotic formula present to keep the probiotics from dying off.  In addition, they are a capsule within a capsule so that they get to the small intestine where they are needed the most.  Having a healthy gut is so important for disease prevention.  For more information, click here.
5. We use Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade Essential oils to support our health and bodies.  Extracted from plants grown in their natural environment and protected from pesticides and contaminants, we use the immune system of the plant to help our bodies be well.  Nature produces it, we use it, and our bodies are able to function and heal themselves.  Because it’s completely natural, we don’t have to worry about harmful side effects.
6. We keep up with our routine wellness visits with our doctors to make sure we are staying on top of our health and addressing issues that may come up as soon as possible.  If a problem arises, and we can’t address it naturally, we will go to the doctor for recommendations but do thorough research before making a final decision regarding the doctor’s recommendations.  If the benefits outweigh the costs, and all alternatives have been considered, we then will take a recommended drug.

This is something that everyone can do for themselves and their families.  It’s time for YOU to make a wellness revolution.  Be empowered and take control of your health.  Start with yourself and your family then join me in educating others to improve health around the world!

If you would like my assistance in starting your wellness revolution or if you would like to get the all-natural supplements and probiotics or essential oils, contact me at cmr1120@gmail.com or 610-286-6777.  When contacting me, use the phrase "Wellness Revolution" to get a free wellness consult.