Moving Right Along

I've had some questions about how we all are adjusting to Harrison's Crohn's and medications.

Harrison was put on a high dosage of predisone in mid-October. It seems to be effective. His diarrhea has stopped and as far as I know, the bleeding has stopped too. The side-effect of prednisone (especially the HUGE dose he is on now) that we are experiencing now is complete, total emotional chaos. To give an example.....we can be driving down the road, listening to his choice of music, going to get his choice of lunch and all of the sudden - screaming and kicking and crazy comes from his little car seat. Once I can talk him down from the fit, he'll tell me that the sun was shining on him, or that he was wanting me to turn down a different street or something else completely crazy. I've even thought during some of his fits that he might hurt himself. I have to say that I think his body is adjusting well and I think he is getting better at controlling his outbursts for the most part. Today was an exception to that rule, but we are hoping for a better tomorrow.

We have started on the Imuran, and immuno-suppressing drug. I had such a hard time giving that to him the first few times, but I'm getting better. Right now I'm looking at it as the necessary evil to get off of the steroids. Probably this week we'll be able to start backing down off of the predisone. Once off of the steroids, we'll hopefully not have any more "flare-ups" for a while and we'll be labeled "in remission."

Once in remission it's my hope to try to avoid foods that we think might be triggering these flare-ups. I've done a lot of reading about Crohn's and talked to a few people that claim to be healed from this chronic disease. Apparently, coconut oil and milk are very healing to the intestines. I've tried sneaking coconut into several things we eat, and I don't think anyone knows. I'm learning new things (I learned today that coconut oil does not microwave well....and that was a fun mess to clean up) and learning about cooking with coconut flour. I'm very interested in holistic healing.

We traveled to Sapulpa to see a Christian healer who is able to look in your eyes and tell what is wrong with your body. I was skeptical. She looked at Harrison and the first thing she said was "My, his colon is sick." I had not even told her Harrison's name at that point! I was pretty impressed. She suggested some things that would help him and advised against giving him what the doctor had suggested to suppress his immune system.

I had a little soul-searching to do after I saw the healer. Did I follow her advice and try to heal Harrison with natural remedies, or did I follow the advice of the best pediatric gastro-interologist in the state? Because he was so sick, and so far his treatments have worked, I've decided to stick with the medical approach. That is not to say that after we are in remission for a while and he starts gaining weight and growing again, that we will not take another look at holistic healing. I HATE giving my child chemicals. I would rather believe that giving him a concentrate from okra would heal his body. But, he was so sick, and has stopped growing - and I think it's important for his body to heal as quickly as it can so the important work of growing his body can resume.

So, for now, we deal with the emotional outbursts and with the danger of him getting infections more than normal this winter - all in the hopes that his little body will grow. Will you pray with us that the medicine will work in Harrison's body, and that the possible side-effects will not be known to us?

We've had other things going on too. I'll post some pictures of Hamilton in the colorguard on Veteran's Day at his school. I was so proud of him! Henderson has a cold now, but is becoming more independant by the day.