Before I dive in, I want to say from the beginning that the main thing we’ve learned over the last decade is that God created us as WHOLE people. Body, mind and soul. As this story progresses, I hope your attention will be drawn to the fact that God is a caring Father who doesn’t leave us to struggle with no purpose. We found healing to my husband’s illness in the most unlikely place.
Our first Christmas.
Newly-wed bliss!
I shared a very condensed version of this story on Instagram. Here is a more expanded version: My husband and I were childhood friends who started dating in college. When we got married, we were super broke but living the dream. We had the best first year of marriage. No fights, just two besties in love and living their best lives. I recognize not all couples experience that, and I am super grateful. We were in our senior year of college, living in tiny apartment, working on campus and we both had side-gigs to make ends meet. Oron and I ended up staying in our college town for three years and was kind of a slow merging into “real” life and it was wonderful.
As broke newly-weds, were living off of all the various pastas I could come up with. Also, Cheezie’s Pizza which was better and cheaper than Little Ceasars and we could get three meals out of one $4 pizza. We were active, we ran together, went hiking and worked out at our local gym. I also did all manner of Beach Body and Jillian Michaels workouts because it was the 2010s.
Wheels falling off the wagon.
My husband had asthma since he was a child and an unspecified autoimmune condition. He had struggled various times throughout childhood with unexpected flares and it was always chalked up to asthma. During our engagement he had several flares, and we went to a bunch of doctors to try to get some answers. Always resulting in a prednisone prescription and being told that his blood work looked normal. And in his case a “flare” almost always meant crazy hives and struggling to breath.
About 6 months after we were married, Oron’s health began to rapidly decline. He was truly ill. He could barely take a full breath and his skin always looked like it had been burned. It was so bad that one time when we returned from a weekend away, someone asked if he had gotten an acid burn on his face. And when his eyes weren’t swelling shut for no apparent reason, his skin would just fall off. He was in constant pain-both his skin and internally. He was constantly being prescribed prednisone, but no one had any answers.
We had been married just over a year when we got into a car accident that changed our lives for the better. Up until this point, I had been doing all the things I knew how and researching like crazy. This was pre-Pinterest. I even went to the library! We had cut out gluten because my grandma mentioned that it might be celiac disease. And because this is how my grandma was: (and I loved it) she sent me a million emails with info on celiac disease.
We were in and out of doctor’s offices: allergists, dermatologists, and acupuncturists. Biopsys and blood work thankfully ruled out cancer but we still had no answers. All tests returned “normal”. No one had any answers. He was constantly being prescribed prednisone, which is great in a crisis, but it was nearly all the time. We were getting desperate, and we began to beg God for answers. There’s only been a few occasions in my life where I think we’ve felt as helpless as we did during this season of life. Healing was on the way, but we were in the thick of it and the waiting seemed like forever.
Healing in most unlikely place.
Then, by God’s grace, we got into a fender bender and had a little whip lash. So, we went to a Chiropractor who took one look at my husband and told us that the whiplash was the least of his worries. I remember saying, “The neck will be easy, not worried about that. Tell me about this *points to Oron’s skin*. He asked us about medical history, our food and exercise.
The doc said, “This is inflammation.”
He explained my husband’s body was fighting itself and we needed to reduce the inflammation and one significant way we could do this was through diet. So for a period of time, about 6 months, we eliminated all dairy grains, sugar, some starches and cooked only in olive oil. Basically, AIP before I knew what that was. (Autoimmune protocol)
This was taken the weekend before we graduated from college.
Drastic changes.
We ate chicken, potatoes and French green beans on repeat because those were some of the only “safe” foods that I knew how to prepare. Living in a college town surrounded by delish food, we were a real buzz kill for a while. But something interesting started happening. It only took a few weeks for my husband to start feeling a lot better. We still had work to do, but he was able to take a full breath for the first time in a long time.
We continued with this way of eating: meat, fruit, vegetables cooked only in olive oil for about 6 months, maybe more, it’s a bit of a blur now. It was challenging, and somewhat boring as far as variety. BUT he had his life back! He was not in pain, he was sleeping through the night, his skin was healing. It was truly the miracle we had prayed for. I still thank and praise God for the miracle of that little fender bender.
Last picture together before the wee baby arrived!
Eventually we were able to incorporate some things back into our diets without any crazy reactions. We focused on eating squeaky clean at home, and then if someone served us something in their home that wasn’t “anti-inflammatory” it was fine. And that’s kind of the same model we’ve maintained for our entire marriage. Not always squeaky but pretty clean. Its not to say we never buy junk. But for the most part, even the “junk” we buy is made with better ingredients.
And it’s not to say that my husband has never had a flare again, he has. But we are able to catch it and intervene before it spirals out of control. It usually occurs when we’ve gotten run down, maybe let the diet slip a bit but usually the main trigger is stress. So, we now know how to better manage the load on his body by eating well, managing stress and limiting environmental factors that might contribute to a stressed immune system.
Fast Forward ….
OKAY so… let’s fast forward. By now we’ve adopted our sweet boy. Another miracle only God could have orchestrated. By this time, he was about 4 years old. Our son was struggling to keep food down. He had terrible rashes and food allergies. We were already eating well, because of everything we learned before. We were going to doctors, testing for all manner of allergies. At one point he was tested for leukemia, which was thankfully ruled out. After a really scary morning that landed us in an ambulance to the Children’s hospital he was diagnosed with a certain type of hypoglycemia.
The doctor explained how a lot of his symptoms were as result of the hypoglycemia and how it could of evaded us and our doctors this long. The symptoms were likely due to the stress the blood sugar dysregulation was putting on his body. He ate a balanced diet; protein, fruit and vegetables, but his body needed more support. So once again, our attention fully turned to nutrition. Even now, with all the work we’ve done we cannot ignore nutrition or food. Its not a one-time thing, we must constantly support our bodies with sound nutrition. And as our son grows- it’s been important to teach him how to care for his body.
Forming Family Culture
Experience with autoimmunity and a severe blood sugar disorder has been formative for my family and I. Learning to cook, or rather recalling what my mom had tried to teach me, was critical. I learned about nutrition, inflammation and blood sugar regulation, how to read labels and prepare food that would set us up for health. Educating his caretakers, friends, and teachers about how to use a glucose monitor, how/when to use a glucagon pen (like an epi-pen full of sugar) and when to call 9-11 was difficult but necessary. Believe me when I tell you that the moment you say “sorry he can’t eat that until he eats some protein” or “sorry, he is allergic to that” you get a wrap for being the “uptight” parents really quick. We had to develop thick skin and boundaries.
I love motherhood. When he was born, I remember thinking “I was made for this.” And I was. I love being his mom. I know that God gave him to us, and us to him. Like most moms, I will go to the ends of the earth to get my child the help he needs. Researching, listening to doctors and providers, learning with my son, and teaching him how to care for his body and keep his blood sugar stable has been a challenge and one of my greatest joys. He has learned so much, and he does a really good job advocating for himself, which I love.
All of these things, the health issues, lifestyle changes, prioritizing eating well, getting rest and so on, have really formed a great deal of our family culture. Not out of fear or duty, but because we thrive as a family when we do the things that help us feel our best. Food restrictions means you really make most meals at home, and I am so thankful for that. So many meals around the table and opportunities to connect over food and conversation.
He brings home the bacon; I make sure its pastured raised.
Oron is a grown man, capable of his own decisions but he trusts me wholeheartedly with our family’s health and I appreciate how he voices that to family and friends. It’s never, “Lauren has us on this diet.” It’s very much we. He brings home the bacon; I make sure its pasture raised. 🙂 We followed all the advice of our chiropractor, and it got us out of the crisis zone, and I am so glad.
Over the years, I’ve added to or modified our family’s dietary needs depending on what’s going on. We’ve tossed back a lot of weird stuff in the name of health. Every time I hand my husband a little shot of something I usually say, “Don’t worry, it’s not as bad as the diatomaceous earth.” or “Not as good as an adrenal cocktail, but you won’t die. Down the hatch with it.” Every now and then he grumbles…and I jokingly remind him that he drove me to this.
Its been a journey, and its one we are still on. No one just arrives at health one day, it’s a slow process built over years. When someone has been through a health crisis, autoimmunity, cancer…anything, there is the temptation to latch onto the healing modalities instead of the Great Physician. Humans like control, and we like to think we have it all. I have seen and have been guilty of, researching myself into the ground and forget to consult the One who knows best. God led us to healing in the most unlikely place. I am so thankful for the car accident that led us to the information we needed. It led us to healing for my husband and gave me information I would need years later for our son.
So now its my turn.
For most of my adult life, 16 years or so, I have enjoyed great health. I’ve had the energy to work out, work, care for my family and my home, have a social life and go on adventures. As a child, I never had any crazy health experiences. Even when Oron and/or our son were struggling with their health, I had mine. I didn’t take it for granted, I’m so thankful for it because I was able to care for them. For almost a decade, I’ve been the healthy mom at the helm. Then it all came crashing down.
Go to part 2.
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