Sunday, during the football game that Travis and Bro-in-law were watching, Sister and I took children in 2 Ford trucks to Carl's Junior to play on the big toy and have some rowdy time away from the guys watching football. This was a treat for Travis and Bro-in-law. We don't have any TV at home, just Internet, so Travis does not get to watch sports, he merely sees the updates that the NFL website posts on the scoreboard every minute or so during the game. Exciting, I know. Bro-in-law and Sister recently ordered Cable just so he could watch the games in the comfort of their own home.
Back to our trip out that Sunday. We traveled over quite uneventful. Shared some food, let the cousins play... Then we headed back to their house. As soon as I put the truck into Drive, I knew something was wrong. The blinkers would not blink even when I pushed the stick up or down. The ABS light would flash rapidly then stay lit for several seconds and then blink rapidly again. And I just had the feeling that I should be getting back there or we would have to use our road side assistance package on a drizzly dreary looking night. Not fun.
I pulled into Sister's circular driveway and put the truck in Park, realizing seconds too late that I should NOT have done that. I sent a son in to fetch his dad who came running out. I relayed the message that the steering column was broken. He checked it out and pronounced it undrivable. We all went in and Travis finished watching the rest of the game. Seahawks won, thankfully, in an exciting game ender. But, the truck would need several hundred before seeing the Drive action again.
We (I use this loosely, since it means Travis, my Dad, my Bro-in-law, and my Stepdad) tried to fix the truck. Dad is a mechanic and helped us out with a great resource of Harvey at Gundy's in Graham, WA to direct our part-buying ways. Online we had read that the F350 steering column we needed could be found on a Mercury Marquis of the same year. WRONG. The part could be found on the Ford Aerostar and Windstar.
Travis and Stepdad went over to the salvage yard (aka wrecking yard, junk yard) and harvested a steering column from an F150 of the same year. Travis and Bro-in-law tried in vain to insert the new steering column. Several hours and a certain sum of money later, we found out that Ford made two models that year and the steering column that we paid for had a wrong bolt pattern for our truck. Lesson learned: just suck it up and have the piece sent from the experts - it might even cost less. We called dear Harvey back and ordered the piece - plus shipping, which made it $5 less than the ill-fated steering column from the salvage yard.
Travis left early Tuesday morning to head back to work. And Wednesday morning I packed up 5 children into Sister's car and traveled the hour to my midwife appointments. I had a fasting blood glucose test to deal with. At 9 a.m. they called me in and drew blood. It took 2 tries. Then I gagged down a nasty bolus of glucose solution that I proceeded to keep down. Do you know how hard it is to keep a bolus of glucose down on an otherwise empty stomach? I am sure the ladies in the OB/GYN waiting area thought this woman who kept moaning and holding her stomach had some infectious disease or was having contractions! It was interesting. And I was SOOOO irritable. The children would just ask a question and I would tell them to sit down and be quiet. I am NOT a nice pregnant and hungry lady.
Ten a.m. rolled around and we had the midwife appointment and then another blood draw. Three pokes this time. The very smart tech said after the second failed attempt that she was going to get someone else to draw the blood, just in case. You think? Another tech came in and took if first try, without even hurting me. I like her.
Eleven a.m. rolled around and the first tech brought me in to draw the third and last draw. She had crackers and juice waiting for me. Only one poke and success. Glad to be done with it, I rushed out to pack up children and hightail it. Unfortunately, the littlest walking Carlile had to drop her deck of cards all over the floor and keep us there an extra several minutes. Otherwise, I would have walked out oblivious to the fact that my healthcare "provider" thinks I have gestational diabetes. By 2 points.
So we went and ate our sack lunch at Pharmacy to pick up blood glucose testing supplies. And I have the joyous job of pricking myself 4 times a day and recording what I eat and how much I exercise. Hmmm, Winter in Alaska, ice and cold, wind and rain or snow. Not much exercising. Thankfully my Sister has a big TV that I can use for yoga. And I have a copy of Element: Yoga for Weight Loss but I have to find a good aerobics DVD.
To be sure, this morning I tested my "fasting blood sugar" and it was slightly elevated at 93, normal being 92 or under. All day, being the regular active of a homemaker and home teacher to 5 children, I worked off enough sugar during the day. My tests 2 hours after each meal were 99, 112, and 94 respectively. The norm is 140 or less. This does not prove much except that my "resting blood sugar" is higher than what they see as typical.
Nonetheless, I have been having other symptoms that require attention. My beloved friend ulcerative colitis has returned to say hello, I have been having slightly blurred vision and I have an "ouchie" that has not healed after a week of ointment.
Several months ago, Travis' cousin Mandy blogged about the Whole30 idea of eating a Paleo-based diet.
She and her husband have had great success with their 30 day diet.
Eat meat, seafood, eggs, tons of vegetables, some fruit, and plenty of good fats from fruits, oils, nuts and seeds. Eat foods with very few ingredients, all pronounceable ingredients, or better yet, no ingredients listed at all because they’re totally natural and unprocessed. Don’t worry… these guidelines are outlined in extensive detail in our free shopping list.You can find out more here.
Now, based on the standard of what the Word of God says, I am opposed to thinking that all of our ancestors evolved from some form of blood type evolution tree with the earlier ones being only O+ and eating only what they could scavenge. Genesis explicitly states that Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the garden. This means that God PROVIDED food for them and they did gather, but they had no need to hunt. The Word of God did not allow for animal eating until after the flood, when the Earth would have been bare of most vegetation, due to torrential floods and tides. The earliest men and women would have been gatherers, but not hunters.
These are my honest beliefs and I will not be swayed. However, I will concede that a diet as stated above will give superior nutrition over the garbage-laden processed food on the typical grocery store shelf. And, since I have a freezer filled with wild Alaskan moose, caribou and salmon, who am I to negate the usefulness and bounty of God's provision? I am not anywhere near the place where I can say it was other than His will to provide this wonderful bounty of His animals.
So, on the Whole30 Travis and I will go. I think we will also be taking our 5 children in the house for that ride. All of them suffer from different small ailments.
If you wish to leave comments, please be civil and kind. Disagreements welcome, rudeness and incivility not.
Mama Sasha
