Cold and Flu: Real Life Recovery

Last night I got the sore throat. I got the headache. I got the aches (from neck to calves, it's amazing how fast it kicks in). I cancelled my Sunday plans (which included being on worship, my favorite, boooo). I went to bed at 7 pm. But before I did that, I took a couple different things.

Take note,  this is the Mother Load.
1. Fire Cider/Supertonic
2. homemade echinacea extract (this is the stuff, ladies!!)
3. 100% herbal vitamin C (Look up Pure Synergy)

I took that a couple of times before bed... and I gargled with "Oral Therapy". Have you ever heard of Dr. Schultze? herbdoc.com check him out. He's about as legit as they get.

Then I went to bed (at seven, as stated).
I got up a couple times, (thanks Judah).
I had one Ricola and slept well.
Ben had our Christmas tree blend diffusing in the middle of the night.
I did get up in the middle of the night and took all the stuff again (minus the Oral Therapy)
I finally got out of bed a little before 8am.

I am still sore and achey, but not worse.
I am not fatigued... (no bus hit me last night)
Throat is 90% gone. No other nose/throat symptoms have appeared.
The weird part: I am actually energized. Had worship practice not started at 7am, I could have actually gone. (Note, I have not tested my voice....so no promises there)

Want to know more??
Let me tell you!!

Fire Cider is a potent blend made with Apple Cider vinegar, onion, garlic, jalapenos or stronger, ginger, and horseradish (although ours didn't have this. We made it ourselves). You use equal parts (except for the hot peppers), blend in a high powered blender with equal parts ACV and distilled or filtered water) and then you let it sit for 6-8 weeks (or indefinitely). After 6-8 weeks, you use a sieve (or old but clean cloth) to filter out the fibers.

The cool part is you can start taking it the minute you blend it up. And we do. Ben (hubby) takes this stuff nearly every day.

Echinacea (E-china-cea-- easy to remember how to spell, but not how to say) )(Ekk-in-A-sha) ok. no more of Grace's brain games.

Basically we bought an organic Echinacea herb from Mountain Rose Herbs. Then we went to the Alcohol store and bought the best vodka they had (think Russian made, so no GMOS). Fill a jar with the herb. then fill to cover with vodka. Then let it sit 6-8 weeks). You can also blend this if you want increase potency sooner. We did not. You know echinacea tinctures are ready when they tingle your tongue (but not from the alcohol).

Prior to now, Ben's research has always come up that echinacea can stimulate the immune system, but don't take it too much because it can OVER stimulate the immune system. But yesterday he was reading about it and found that medical doctors (MDs, ya'll) said it cannot overstimulate the immune system. And that it shortens a cold by 60%!!!! What?
Do it.
 This is the STUFF!!!

The last thing I'm gonna say anything about is prevention.

The best prevention is washing and drying your hands. We live in a very dirty world. The air is dirty, surfaces are dirty, our kids our dirty, we are dirty. If you can't get to your all-natural soap at home, though and don't want to use chemicals, what do you do??

Link

Carry your own hand sanitizer with you-- this is as easy as adding several drops of OnGuard to a 1 or 2 oz glass spray bottle with a little bit of sea salt or baking soda (this helps the oil not clump at the top). If you want a moisturizing version, you add witch hazel and aloe vera gel.

Need a source for OnGuard?

--This Monday (11/19/18)only you can Buy one OnGuard and get one Breathe for free. --
Interested in making essential oils an affordable and effective part of your non-toxic living?
Fill in the contact form below!

His Eye is on the Sparrow

"and I know He watches me."

Last Friday it rained a lot.
A lot is an understatement.
Last Friday the heavens opened up and we had a brief experience of what it would have been like if we missed the ark.

Thankfully, our home was not flooded, but others in our neighborhood were.

Now, Friday, at lunch time, I realized we needed to get milk. We had received a flash flood warning on our phone, but we hadn't had any rain, so that didn't seem very relevant when I was getting Judah and myself in the car for a quick run to the Country Store, about ten minutes from our house.

As I was driving in, it was starting to rain and I noticed a lot of areas that were saturated with water already, which I thought was unusual since we were not getting any rain. Then it started to pour again, as I was still driving toward the store, and I was noticing what seemed to be a lack of good drainage of the streets. And then I drove down an essential road to get back from the store, and saw that the low-lying bridge had rising, fast-moving, brown water under it. And I should have turned around then. But I am pretty hard headed. So on we went, a few minutes to the country store. As we neared it, there was water already overflowing from the drain in place under the road, and water over the road (just a half an inch, but it was there).

Quickly, Judah and I went in, and alas, there was no milk! I still bought cheese, and mentioned to the cashier I would probably have trouble getting home. Bleh. By the time I drove out of the parking lot, the little streams across the road were much higher and as I got to the road I would have turned down, I saw a fire engine turn down that road and I knew that there was no way down that road. So I pulled into a stranger's driveway. And there we sat as the rain poured down. I got Judah out of his carseat so he wouldn't get restless-- and he was Quite happy to climb all over the car. But I was anxious and at the beginnings of panicking because I wasn't sure when we would get home. At this point, it was 2:15 pm. I called Ben to tell him he was right, that I shouldn't have left the house.... and that my phone was dying. And after that call I couldn't respond to any of the messages of calls from him. Then we sat in the car in a downpour for close to an hour. It was still pouring down rain when the owner of the house came out and tried to help me brainstorm a way home, which proved futile; the roads he suggested were closed/flooded. So we ended back at the country store. I went in, bought a snack, and camped out in the rocking chair by the exit. It was ice cold in there, but at least there was food, water, a bathroom, and sweaters to buy if I got cold enough.

There were at least ten to fifteen people stranded there with me--a cluster of old gentlemen, one of whom graciously allowed me to call Ben on his phone to update him on my location (it had been at least an hour since we'd last spoken). A man came into the store in a full suit and tie attempting to get to a wedding in Elizabethtown (just ten minutes down the road). A grandma, mom, and her two kids headed for Hershey Park. A man and his son, who didn't know what town he was in, just that he had gotten off of 283, which was also flooded. Someone who lived half a mile from the store, but the road was closed to get there. A lady came in, also stranded, with updates-- a local trailer park was being evacuated due to flooding. And, oddly enough, an employee talking about how people just don't know how to drive in floodwater. The store manager was lightheartedly planning the night's stay at two employees' homes who lived within a quarter mile of the store.

Because we had left the house in a hurry, I didn't have my diaper bag, I was wearing shorts and a tank top, and Judah was just wearing a onesie. I did have my baby carrier, by God's grace.  The car still had our plug in GPS, but it didn't have live updates for how the roads were.

Eventually, we'd been there an hour or more (around 4:00pm), To quell my worries, I'd (unsuccessfully) shopped for sweaters, Naisa's birthday gift, various flours, and checked to see if they had diapers in stock. They did not.) The store manager looked up and printed a list of closed roads for several people. I took one and looked at it.... and after looking at it some more, saw that the date it was from was September 9, 2011..... from the last time Lancaster County had flooded... Eventually she called me into her office and showed me a map from the waze app (shout out to them!!), where people had posted alerts for roads that weren't just main roads, and all my roads home were still flooded. Then I remembered someone from church lived across the road... or at least someone else from church said that someone from church lived across the road, so I asked if I could use the computer to check. I found someone! I had to Facebook message them to see if they were able-- but they answered right away and invited us over!

I was so relieved! I gathered my things and headed out to the car. I turned on the GPS, plugged in their address, and drove the two minutes to their apartment. Jen and Caleb enthusiastically invited me in and immediately, I relaxed. As I borrowed Jen's phone to call Ben, Caleb showed me his phone charger, which worked for my phone! Judah was so happy to be out of the carrier and walking around, playing with the cat toys, and the games they had available.

They had planned to be at a home inspection, because they were buying a house, but because of the rain, they had to stay home. Out of the blue, Caleb asked, "Do you need diapers? We have diapers!" I looked where he was pointing and saw an unopened box of size 4 Luvs diapers. "Yeah, those came by accident from Target a few days ago."

They were the right size. Jen and Caleb don't have kids. They aren't even expecting a baby. They had absolutely no use for them. God provided for us, a few days ahead of time.

They also had a pull out couch if I needed a place to sleep that night. And they were totally ok with us staying there.

We sat down and chatted. I nursed Judah and he got his sillies out. We laughed and watched the video footage on the news from the flooding. It was absolutely crazy. Main Street looked like a river with rapids at one point. We stayed for dinner and dessert (yum!), and after dinner (7pm), I was starting to think about coming home.

Caleb volunteered to drive around to see how the roads were. (Thanks, Caleb!!) While he was out, Jen and I looked at each other's wedding pictures (which is always super fun!), and by then, Caleb was back and the roads looked fine, although he looked a little wet, (which we found out he had bad luck with a utility truck and closing windows too slowly), but if I couldn't make it home, they told me to come back for the night.

I was still smiling about it when I loaded up my finally tired baby, my block of cheese, my fully charged slider phone, and a box of 144 Luvs size 4 diapers into my car and said bye. Without much trouble (just one spot with water and two easy reroutings) I made it home and ended my evening with an early bedtime.

I give thanks and glory to God for that one! God knew I would need a gracious grocery store staff and a ROCKING chair to camp out in, and a manager willing to let me use the computer. There was someone I knew right across the road-- within my island of not flooded area. There were home and on Facebook the moment I messaged them. They were happy to host us for the night if need be. They had a charger for my phone and for goodness sake's Judah's diapers arrived a few days earlier!

God takes care of the little things in our lives, not just the big things.
We can pray to God for the little things, too.
Not just, "Lord, save me from this flood."
Not just, "Lord, keep me on higher ground."
But also, "Lord, please help me have diapers for my baby tonight!
Please help me be able to charge my phone."

Trust the Lord in the little things.

More Reflections, A Poem

My grief process continues, as it will for my lifetime.
I started writing a poem or something like a poem.

I have this mug that I got from Dad who got it from Anna that says, "Angels in us coffee".
We got it in 2016; when we saw Mom and Dad in the middle of the year, Ben had watched a documentary about Pentecostal Christians and they had a funny way of saying good bye-- "Angels on your body."

So that is how we acquired the mug, which we still have, and is still not broken (Congratulations, Grace). This morning I was drinking (caffeinated (after a month of boring decaf (Swiss water process)) coffee out of this mug, and an image of angels with Mom as she lay asleep at home, waiting to go Home.

As also a way to process a very traumatic event (the day Mom fell asleep and wouldn't be roused), here is my poem.

How we accumulated $100,000 debt in cafeteria food (how we met)

My husband and I were both good kids, enrolling in college and getting our degree on. We were also ready and willing to get those gifts that keep on giving— student debt! Did I think about paying for my school after attending as the best and only option?(sorry Dave Ramsey!) Yes, I did. My parents taught me (in a well thought out way, knowing me as a person) that studies were a full time job and should be treated as so, and to also enjoy the college experience. 

I did my part and got a half-ride scholarship to reduce the debt… and also accumulated 60 college credits before arriving on my first day of freshman year through the FREE program in Ohio called Post Secondary Enrollment Options Program (they probably renamed it by now). Seriously, I took piano lessons at college for free and only paid for (ok, mom and dad paid for) the parking pass. 

I figured that graduating from college with $20,000 in debt was pennies with a full time job and my genetically inclined “make doing” otherwise known as so frugal you don’t buy what you want ever. 

Problem number one with entering college directly after high school. 

High school is not real life. If I wanted any sort of life experience, there was no facilitating of that through my high school, I had to seek it out. I did one job shadowing before college, with my own pediatrician. I liked what I saw, so I thought I was moving in the right direction. (But I didn’t do any other job shadowing…. which I should have). 

I started college bored and antsy in my classes…. too much theory, too little application. I could have used a trade school option for that semester. I really enjoyed my work study job (setting up labs and taking care of frogs for the neurology professor), and I loved my musical extras (Jazz and piano lessons), but I was really enjoying the social aspects of college… friends that live in the room next door? They want to hang out right now? Let’s go for a run! Let’s eat for the seventh time today! 

Eventually I buckled down and got my studies done. I just didn’t enjoy my chemistry and biology classes… which were essential for my Biology degree… to go to medical school to become some sort of doctor… so I did a cross cultural in DC for a semester (which you can read about in detail on the blog !!! from 2010!)

Then I did a summer of service/outreach in New York, and I have honed and toned what I was going to do with my college experience— social work. I’ll be honest— it was either elementary education and social work. and the reason that I picked social work was….. drumroll please…. because I would still finish my degree in three years. I wanted to save money!! (Did one more year really matter that much in the amount I would be paying for loans? Not really. But in the actual events of my life, it worked out much better to graduate in three years… hello Naisa!) Once I started social work, it was definitely what I wanted to do (I could have said that with elementary education though). 

I was ready for whatever the degree threw at me!

Judah's Labor and Birth (September 6th, 2017)

Welcome to Judah Benjamen Delp, my T-Tapp baby!

He was born September 6th (40 weeks and 5 days for me) at 10:08pm, after a six hour labor, pushing for 13 minutes. :) He was 8lb 15 oz, 21.5 inches long, and had a 14.75 inch head! We are both doing great! 

The waiting game really started back in August when I got back from the T-tapp retreat. We were glad to still be pregnant, but now ready for the arrival. 

But 37 weeks passed. 

38 weeks passed. 

I was on the worship team that week. And then we thought, "now the baby will arrive!" 

Nope. 

39 weeks came. 

My dad and younger sister were there that day and we had hoped that baby would come by 39 weeks (like Yonah), but nothing. I made it to my appointment halfway through that week and had my membranes swept. The midwife told me I was 1 cm dilated and about 50% effaced (and still pretty high). 

So then 40 weeks arrived! And that day came and went. :) 

During this time, I kept exercising, baking, tolerating my children and my increasingly anticipating husband who would ask me if I was having contractions. 

 had been having them—but they were painless and that meant nothing… if you have to concentrate to tell if a contraction is starting then it’s not labor!! :P 

Labor day came and went. Then Tuesday was the first day of preschool for the kids, and so I went for a walk completely by myself for 45 minutes at a slow pained pace (my inner thighs had been bothering me for a couple weeks). I had my appointment and I had my membranes swept again (and it was much more uncomfortable this time), I could stretch to 2 cm, but baby was still pretty high. This was the appointment where the midwife tells you to call in when you reach 41 weeks to get your foley bulb placed. I was not excited about this option at all. The membrane sweep made me feel rather crampy, but I was usually crampy at some point during the day (usually caused by the digestion process ;)). I spent a good bit of time on the couch resting that evening. Then we slept through the night. 

Wednesday morning came and we had our weekly mom’s group. Before we went, I used my breast pump for some nipple stimulation. And then I had a random migraine that started and ended at mom’s group— like the aura in my eye (the most annoying part for me because I couldn’t look at people!) and then a dull headache. After lunch, when I went to use the bathroom, I passed some bloody show, so I had it in my head that the migraine came from hormone movement, and I started mentally preparing for that to be the birthing day. 

I didn’t start having contractions until 4:00, but I knew almost right away that they were the real thing because they were accompanied with the achey period feeling that would get more intense. 

Naturally, I decided to make pizza for dinner, because it sounded good! 

My contractions continued as I made it, and I called the midwife with our planned time of arrival, and I told my husband it was baby time. He needed to shower and put gas in the car, but naturally as I pulled some pizza (that I had baked in a glass casserole dish) out of the oven, it exploded all over our kitchen floor, so we (he) had to clean that up first, because I was in labor and we knew it! It was around this time that I told my kiddos that they weren’t going to be able to go to Awana (first night of the year) because Mommy was having the baby. 

They were super mopey and didn’t want to eat their pizza. I hardly ate mine because i was cleaning up glass and laboring. Once our childcare arrived (and I somehow managed to pull off some semblance of bedtime), and Ben had returned from getting gas (and squeezed in a shower), we got in the car (my seat lined with a garbage bag and towel) and left! We encountered no traffic on the way in, but it still took almost 50 minutes. I continued to have contractions that I vocalized through and when we got to the birth center, I had one contraction in the parking lot while we were unloading. We went straight to their exam room (a pre-requisite for getting a birth room— you have to be far enough along so they don’t have to clean a whole room for someone who was in prodromal labor). A nurse (I think her name was Paula) took my blood pressure, followed some of my contractions with a monitor, listened to baby’s heartbeat, and told me what a good job I was doing vocalizing through my contractions. The midwife came in after probably about ten minutes (while Ben was eating his pizza!) and checked me. 

I was at 6 cm, with a bulging bag of waters and +2 (location of baby’s head in pelvis). She asked me then if I wanted my water broken and I decided to wait and see if it would break in the tub. So at 8:00pm we went to our room and I got in the tub! The midwife who was there for our delivery was one of the few I had not met, but she was chipper and kind; so everything was just fine. Ben chose to stay out of the tub this time, bringing me my labor-ade and replacing my cool towels. the tub had jets… I would sometimes turn then on and off depending on the contractions (and how loud i was). Ben also did the music, and sometimes, depending on the song, would moan in harmony. I labored in the tub for almost two hours, slowly moving baby down (every time the midwife came to check heart rate (which was great), she had to relocate the Doppler further and further down my belly and pelvis.) Each contraction was hard, but not as hard as I expected transition to be, so at one point (probably around 9:45), I reached down and could feel that darn bulging bag of waters just an inch inside my vagina, and decided to have the midwife check me and also decided to have her break my waters. I was at 8cm then. 

Once my waters were broken, it was game on—the midwives told Ben to turn off the fan because the baby was coming— and I was in transition immediately and got as loud and low as necessary to make it through. Right before I started pushing, I made one fitful declaration, “I’m so uncomfortable!!” Of course, there was nothing anyone could do about it but me! So I repositioned from a squat to semi-reclined on the side of the tub, and it was pretty much pushing time after that. Very, very soon after pushing started, baby was crowning ( I was feeling the stinging!), and I had to hold the crowning for in between contractions to let him stretch me so I wouldn’t tear. After that, he came very quickly. My core was strong and quite effective at pushing. It was quite easy for me to push—thanks to all my brain to body workouts (thanks, Teresa!) and he was out at 10:08 pm after 13 minutes of pushing contractions. I think I said something like, “Already!” and began talking to baby immediately. He was quite calm, and I was quite surprised that he was a boy (and Ben was elated and pleased). 

My placenta came a few minutes later and I only slightly struggled with the membrane coming out. You have to cough for it. But even that was easier than previous births—despite a deflated abdomen I had noticeably more core strength to cough! I also didn’t get super shaky afterward. The midwives said his umbilical cord was longer than average—they held it out of the tub— quite long (although nobody measured it). Ben cut the cord after it stopped pulsing… I think I would have waited a little longer before putting it but at that point I was too tired and distracted to ask. 

They weighed him at 8 pounds 15 ounces (would have been more if he was still attached to placenta a little longer), 21.5 inches long and a 14.75-inch head (that’s a big head.) When Bonnie the midwife checked me afterward, I only had a skin split so not even a first-degree tear. I felt pretty good— not woozy, blood pressure was great, blood loss was minimal, I walked to the bathroom with assistance (but would have been just fine). No problems with bathroom going. 

Baby Judah wanted to nurse right away and wanted to stay nursing until he fell asleep (and then he did! But me and Ben couldn’t sleep. He was too cold, I was too hot, and the bed (a full size) was too small. We had hourly checks through 2:30am and then we went home. it was quite foggy when we left and we got home at 3:30 am. 

The next morning the kids met Judah! Yonah heard him crying at 6:30 after a bathroom break and asked me what Naisa was doing, “Naisa is sleeping. That’s the baby!” “Oh.” and he went back to bed. Around seven I went downstairs and Elizabeth (our babysitter) was already awake and texting her mom. When the kids came down, Yonah and something he wanted to say to the baby. “What is it?” I asked him. 

With a twinkle in his eye, he said, “Poopie”. That’s true love right there.