Ice Storm and a Story

Yesterday and last night it rained, but it got below freezing so we have about 1/4 inch of ice every where. It's really cool, because the way it froze on the trees and bushes, it looks just like rain drops except it's frozen!

Now we are getting snow, we were supposed to have 5-9 inches by now, but we don't even have 1. I'm hoping we'll get a few inches by tomorrow morning, because if it's going to be cold outside, we might as well have pretty snow to look at/play in! :D


Ice on our raspberries (for some reason, we always have a few left through the winter, they never get ripe, of course!)

If you all could pray for my sister Lillian, because my mom thinks she is sick, and she keeps telling us she is sick. We just all got over colds, and nobody wants to get sick.


Ice on the rabbit fence.

Earlier I was trying to  take pictures of the birds eating, and in one of the trees we have. I can't ever seem to get that good of bird pictures, they are always grainy, because I zoom in so much.

This one I auto-fixed (which adjusts the contrast and exposure to picnik's liking) and focal softened it, so it blurred most of the picture.


So tonight I shall tell you all the reason I am going gluten free. Last year I had some labs done, and I was really low in Vitamin D. (Also my ANA levels are were really high, and one other thing wasn't right, but I don't know anything much about that). And several doctor's, and our old chiropractor, and our new chiropractor all suggested going off gluten.

Some people who are allergic to gluten (this is not celiac disease, which I don't have) can't absorb Vitamin D, because the cilia (finger like structures, which give your stomach more surface area for absorbing) is all eaten away by the gluten, and isn't there to absorb Vit. D.

I'm sure that explains it all, right? ;) Well, also this might help me feel better overall, because I am in pain a lot (pretty much everyday). And it would be really nice to have a pain free life. Or year. Or month. Or week. Or day!

Well, maybe that all will help you understand why I am going gluten free next month. Sorry if you're confused, but I don't exactly understand it all either! :)


Raspberry bush stem (it's a really big bush).

So if you all want to know how this all started, I sprained my right wrist really bad in June 2009. I was hoeing our neighbor's garden, which was so hard you could take two chunks of the dirt and bang them together, and they didn't come apart.
About two weeks later (a few days after my mom figured out my wrist hurt, because I thought it was just a sore, and that it was just not strong) she took me to the walk in clinic, because the our doctor was gone.

This lady (who wasn't even a doctor) came in, and she was all sure that I had a ganglion cyst (which is a bubble of liquid or something under your skin) and she even pointed it out to me, telling me that 'that big bump' while rubbing it hard was a cyst.
Well, that 'big bump' is still there today, and I believe it's called a bone. ahem. :)
But she proceeded to give me papers on how to treat a sprain, and a splint, because that is how you should treat a cyst, according to her.

A few weeks later, while I was wearing the splint 24/7, we went to the (old) chiropractor. He said that it was a really bad sprain, and he was suprised that I didn't break it. (That was not comforting, because it was over 5 weeks after I hurt it, it should have been well on it's way to healing).

I kept going to the chiropractor, and in August my brother kicked my ankle when we were playing soccer, so then I had a sprained ankle too.

In September my mom took me to the bone doctor (orthopedic I think) and he said my ankle was fine, and so was my wrist. He told me to stop wearing my splint, and prescribed Voltaren gel. Then he rushed out because someone was paging him.

My mom had wanted x-rays, but that obviously didn't happen. When she went to get the gel from the pharmacy, the lady was really surprised he gave it to a kid, because it's usually for adults who have like really bad backs or something. So then my mom didn't really want me to use it.

Then she just made an appointment with our regular doctor, and she took x-rays of my wrist, and said it wasn't broken.

In December we went to a doctor at Children's and she ordered a lab. That's when they first figured out my ANA levels were really high. She said that's usually when people have lupus, but that I don't have that.

I had also hit my knee on a metal pole in May of 2009, which is today, still a little funky.

Last summer we went to the GI (gastrointestinal doctor) and they didn't say much, except they took blood for labs, and said I am not allergic to dairy, and I don't have celiac disease. (I still don't eat dairy because I get a headache and a stomach ache if I do).

In August I was starting out lovely lawn mower, and it jerked back really bad (it has problems a lot) and I whacked my hand/wrist/thumb really hard on it. I think I dislocated my thumb then, because it was crooked, and later when I was mowing it popped really hard and was straight again. And it sprained my wrist again.

My mom was taking Joy to the new Children's (which is about 15 minutes closer than the other one) for her neck, because it was always bothering her, in August, after I had hurt my wrist again. We had gone to the chiropractor, who told me to wear my splint again.

I went with because I wanted them to take an x-ray of my wrist and hand. Well the doctor said she didn't like to do x-rays on kids, and hastily added that there's nothing wrong with them though. My mom was barely able to convince her to do x-rays on Joy's neck, much less my wrist.

She basically told me I was fine, because I didn't appear to be in much pain. That mad me really mad, because I have been in great and varying amounts of pain since the beginning of 2009 (I was getting really bad headaches, which glasses and going dairy free helped a ton), and I was never one to cry every time I stubbed my toe or something. So if I had gone in there crying she would have gave me an x-ray? :P

In September I had to go get blood work again, and they took 9 vials of blood. They said I am really low in Vit. D. So I had to take this supplement from market america. It tasted really bad.
Then in the end of October, there was a new bottle of it, and it seriously tasted like ladybugs and burnt peanut butter, and this stuff is isotonic (mix powder with water, and you get fizz :P) so it was like soda. I quit taking it.

Then my mom made me start taking it again in December, but there was a new bottle by then (other people randomly take it too...haha). I still don't like it, but I can drink all 2 oz. of it in one drink now, so that's good.

Then, a few weeks ago we went back for labs again. And guess what? I am still really low in Vit. D. and my ANA levels are still really high. So the chiropractor, thinks I don't 'lean into' the vit. d I take, which is kinda odd, but she says that if you don't lean into your vitamins your body won't accept them.

So now I'm sure you are all throughly confused, but I hope you aren't! :)

I'll leave you with a picture of yummy steak umms. :D

 

-Emily