Part 2, This Is Me

I've honestly, been procrastinating part 2 as it is still hard for me to deal with the feelings that arise when I speak about my next dive into failing health. After my liver was doing much better we decided to expand our family and our first son came along, I had some ups and downs with my health after his delivery but we were able to manage them easily enough with natural means. I always wanted a big family, but I had started to see the trend with my health and being pregnant. My health always seemed to go downhill either during my pregnancies or shortly after. But ultimately, a couple short years after our son was born, we decided to add one more munchkin to the family. We felt great loss with a couple of miscarriages and after the second loss, we decided to try one more time and if it didn't work we wouldn't put ourselves through further pain of losing anymore babies. The whole pregnancy had a lot of down's and not many up's but our second son stuck it out! He was a true fighter right from conception on, but that is really his story and not mine. I was diagnosed with cancer, early in my second trimester. My options through western medicine were very limited. I was told we could do nothing and see how it goes but ultimately, I could be killing not only the baby but myself as well. Which would leave my husband a widow and my three young children without a mother. Or I could terminate the pregnancy at the 4-month-gestation that the baby was at and under go surgery and treatment. I cannot even touch bases on what I was feeling hearing the news from my OB/GYN. I stayed strong in the moment not showing my fear and emotions, but once I got out to my vehicle it hit me like a damn letting go. Here I was again up against that wall of death, but this time it was not just my life that I had to take into account. Our baby, that we tried so hard for and suffered through two losses previous to his pregnancy. Our healthy baby, how could I ever take the life of my child to potentially save my own. It goes against every single mothering instinct that I had. Parent's are to protect their children at all costs, how could I not try to protect the innocent life growing inside me. Of course, my husband and I talked through all avenues even what we both considered to be the unthinkable. I was unable to sleep much and my brain would just keep going over the worst cases, the worst outcomes. I needed to put my brain to work so I researched and researched, late into almost every night. I read cancer survivor stories, I scoured google scholar for every study ever done with cancer and herbs, I watched documentaries on the topic. I felt in myself there was a natural way I could do this, natural means had saved me once before and there had to be something to save me now. Something that would help me and not harm our unborn child. I was able to find some studies and many things that others had done and healed themselves, what kept coming up with every story was diet. The foods people were eating. foods that led to gut issues which led to a weakened immune system. About 80% of you immune system starts in the gut! I learnt so much about the human body and how it should work. I finally had the hard lesson, the lesson of what we eat turns into what we are. We didn't lead an unhealthy lifestyle, but there where many things we didn't prioritize. We knew it was better to eat homegrown and we did grow a garden, but we ate prepacked foods and store bought meat. We settled on a plan that partly had western medicine backing it, even though it was a natural product, and other stuff that was backed by testimonies from other people. I got confident in my plan, my husband was confident in my plan, and it was time to tell the family. It was hard to tell people but we had a plan, I had done my research, and I was living-proof already that natural ways can and do work. We told people, I told them our plan, and I asked that if they had any negative energy or perceptions not to talk to me about it. That may have come off as a bit harsh, but I had a full plate already and I really couldn't worry about others opinions. I went to my next appointment and my OB told me that while he didn't like the idea of a medical abortion at what was now almost 5 months gestation, that he did not agree with my plan. In denying the medical abortion there was really nothing they could do for me, besides monitoring the pregnancy as normal for baby and I. I had no extra help from them. There was a few harsh words condemning my actions, of course I expected this, but I was concrete in my plan at this point. This fourth pregnancy would turn out to be my hardest pregnancy, my hardest delivery, and my hardest recovery but none of that had to do with my diagnosis. At my post-delivery check-up they took a scraping of my cervix and estrogen receptor cancer cells where still found, but they were not worse as was expected by my doctor. It wasn't great news but it also wasn't horrible news. So we made the hard choice for me to stop breastfeed so I could take more things for myself without worrying about passing them through the milk to our son. I added in a bunch of other things people had used while still continuing what I had been doing, and went to a full raw diet. Let this be clear, I'm a meat eater and I'm by no means against eating meat. But there is plenty or research that shows a full raw diet can help when it comes to cancer. Three months later, five months post delivery, I had another check and I got the all clear. It was a medical marvel, doc couldn't wrap his head around what had happened. He was happy for me, I had grown quite a close bond with this man over the stretch of 4 pregnancies and births in a 8 year span. He was never trying to be mean or hurtful to me, we only know what we know in the moment. His knowledge was based on western medicine, not preventative medicine, and not natural healing. I hold no remorse against him. I literally owe him some of my children's lives, but that is yet another blog. He is great at what he does, he just isn't a herbalist and that's fine. Since that whole experience I have looked at our food differently, it has pushed me to not only grow more of our own vegetables but also to start growing more of our own meat. Currently, we only have waterfowl and we do butcher some of our own birds and consume their eggs. We do grow and preserve a lot from our gardens but we're hoping to expand our Mini Farm in the coming years. We are hoping to get to a spot where we are mainly only consuming what we grow/raise ourselves.

Coming to a close, these two parts of "This Is Me" are some of the most defining reasons in my life that give me the determination to go on and work harder. They are part of my Why! "Why are you doing this?", I honestly believe that everyone needs a why. You need to be strong in your why, because when life tosses you roadblocks and hard-times your why will be there to pick you up and get you back into the game. I do not want any of my children to have to go through the health struggles that I have. I want to be able to teach them a better way of health care and that is preventative care. I want to teach them about the power of the foods we eat and the herbs we can use to help our bodies heal. I want what every parent wants, a better life than I had for my beautiful children. Many of my conditions have a genetic link, so it's very likely that some or all of my children will have some of the same issues I have had. I only show cased the two worst health issue I've had over the years, but there are other conditions and issue that I could pass onto my children. I only want to stay healthy and keep my children healthy. I have four of the biggest why's anyone can have, each of my children's health.