Cradle Rocking Mama is One…and One YEAR on a TED!!!

Actually, I’m not entirely sure that today is the actual  one year anniversary of Cradle Rocking Mama. As I said in the beginning, I post-dated the first many entries to correspond to the day they actually happened. Sometime in the first two weeks of August WAS the day I launched this blog, though, so WOW! I’ve been sharing our story for a whole year now!

When all of this started last year, I already had a blog; a small, password-protected blog to share stories about Jed with my out-of-town relatives and friends. I would have continued to write that blog exclusively with the addition of Zac to our lives, but FPIES changed that plan.

With FPIES, I quickly realized that other Mama’s were the reigning experts on my sons’ condition, and learned more from reading fellow FPIES Mama Blogs than I had from any doctor we had encountered thus far.

And I knew I couldn’t keep our story to ourselves.

Somewhere in the world there was a mother, desperately Googling bizarre symptoms in the hopes that she could finally find an honest answer for her child’s constant sickness; if finding something I wrote could help her wade out of the murk and into the light, well, then, I had to WRITE.

I’m so glad I made that decision! So far, I have received several messages from mothers who did, in fact, help diagnose their children via something I wrote on this blog. I’ve also received messages from people who suffer from different food-related illnesses who tell me I’ve given them a step in the right direction due to a recipe they found or from sheer inspiration – “If she can do it, so can I!”

Y’all, that makes my whole body warm and fuzzy to get those messages. It makes my WEEK when I hear from someone I’ve managed to help through this blog. (So don’t hold back if that applies to you – I’d love to hear about it!)

Beyond that, though, I’ve gotten an unintended benefit from Cradle Rocking Mama that I never saw coming.

Writing about our story this way, well, I would have done it anyway on my old private blog. But having readers, people who don’t actually know me and my family in real life, pushed me beyond simply diary-style documentation (though there is plenty of that, still!).

It made me want to learn more. It made me decide to document the recipes I created. It made me want to know more about our food supply, about healthy eating, about how food works in our bodies. It made me want to provide something useful for YOU, beyond just a narrative of our journey.

Basically, it made me want to “not suck” when you read my blog! 

In trying to “not suck”, I have gained knowledge I never would have gained. Y’all have been an amazing motivation to me this year, and I can’t thank you enough for that. 

More than any of it, though, this blog has created a small community of people that truly know and understand what my family is going through. You’ve become a source of comfort, humor, wisdom, and encouragement through all our trials.

Some days, you’re all that keeps me going. When I’ve wanted to bury my head under the covers and not emerge for a week, you’ve been there reminding me that it will get better. When I’ve had good news about some little thing in my boys lives, you’ve been there understanding why something so little could be such a big deal.

You’ve been there through it all, and I am blessed by you and grateful for you. So today, I want to celebrate this tiny little milestone in my life. One year ago I started writing this story…and now you have become a part of it.

Thank you.

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Today is also another actual milestone: one year ago on this very day I started my Total Elimination Diet for Zac. 

One year of eating nothing but grass-finished beef, carrots, potatos, onion, garlic, olive oil, sea salt, black pepper, tea, and stevia.

Yowza.

August 8th of last year, I honestly believed that by now I would be eating more foods. It never entered my mind as a possibility that at 14 months old, Zac would still be exclusively breast fed. Darrel and I both were confident that by this age he would have at least a small list of safe foods.

Because of that confidence, I never investigated vitamins or supplements for my own health. We’d planned to introduce “powerhouse” foods for Zac to begin with; foods that would certainly add to my own nutrition to make my diet complete.

As time passed, and we realized how sensitive a reactor Zac actually is, I hesitated to try any vitamins or supplements because every one I looked at had corn as one of the ingredients. I was – and am – too scared to mess with what is working to risk trialing a vitamin for me, when we so desperately need a solid food for Zac.

So I’m sure my body has been slowly cannibalizing itself of vitamins and minerals this year to provide what Zac needs from my breast milk, and I’m sure that in my old age, I will pay heavily for this TED. (Osteoporosis, anyone?)

Today, though, one full year into it and knowing what I know now, I asked myself the question: Was it worth it?

Was it worth it to spend a year on such a diet when we’re still not really any further along than we started? Was it worth it to wreck my own health this way?

My honest answer:

YES!

A resounding YES, as a matter of fact!

We may not have any safe foods for Zac, he may have had nearly constant reactions to random junk throughout the year, and our family may face bankruptcy from my current (and any future) leave of absence from work, but one year ago, Zac reacted to two elemental formulas and I had no choice but to begin this diet.

By knowing without a shadow of a doubt that his diet – my breast milk – was safe for him, we’ve been able to discern what he reacts to much more easily. We’ve been able to discover his terrible sensitivity to corn, and were easily able to spot his reactions to oat, acetaminophen, ibuprofen, GutPro, not to mention tree buds!

Keeping my diet safe removed one GIGANTIC variable out of this whole mess, and that diagnostic tool was worth every bit of energy expended and health wrecking I went through. 

So, I’ll keep on TED-ing for Zac, and hopefully August 8, 2014 will see me – and Zac – eating a much larger menu.

Let’s also not forget that it was going on this elimination diet that also helped us discover a major health issue for Jed. I don’t know how long it would have taken us to learn he has Fructose Malabsorption without spending August of last year unwittingly bombarding his system with fructose!

So for Zac, and for Jed’s health, I’m grateful for the TED.

Oh, and the 63 pound weight loss is a nice little side benefit to this TED, too, come to think of it. My vitamins and minerals may be deficient, but the weight loss is a nice health BOOST for me; as time goes on and I can eat more variety, the vitamins and minerals will work themselves out. Now that I know how my body functions, I have every confidence I can keep the weight off while that happens. I never would have figured out how my body reacts to foods (by making me fat) if I hadn’t done the TED.

So really, everyone in my family has benefited from the TED! (For his part, Darrel eats healthier and loves having a skinny wife!)

Besides, it’s not really that rough on me, believe it or not! To this day I still LOVE pot roast, hamburgers, french fries, carrot chips, and steak. (After one year of cooking and eating nothing but those things, I’m also a by-God expert on how to make them perfectly, too!)

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So here’s to One Year of Cradle Rocking Mama, and One Year of my TED!

(Go have a cocktail and some mozzarella sticks for me, okay?)

Cheers!