12 Commandments of food

I just received an email news letter from a nutritionist we took Annabelle to see last year.In her news letter she quotes these great food commandments, I thought that with the new year coming up they could be incorporated as part of our new years resolutions.

Michael Pollan’s “12 Commandments of Food” from his 2008 book In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto.
1. "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
2. "Avoid foods containing ingredients you can't pronounce."
3. "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot."
4. "Avoid food products that carry health claims."
5. "Shop the peripheries of the supermarket; stay out of the middle."
6. "Better yet, buy food somewhere else: the farmers' market or CSA."
7. "Pay more, eat less."
8. "Eat a wide variety of species."
9. "Eat food from animals that eat grass."
10. "Cook, and if you can, grow some of your own food."
11. "Eat meals and eat them only at tables."
12. "Eat deliberately, with other people whenever possible, and always with pleasure."

I particularly love no 10 and would love to have a little green house or vegetable patch in my back yard to grow all sorts of vegetables in, a person can dream!

Beach Therapy

Aloha from Hawaii.

We cashed in our American air miles we've been saving for the past 4,5 years to get 4 flights and we've rented a friends 1 bedroom condo at a special price, so that we can spend Christmas on Kauai Hawaii. We most probably won't get the chance again to come round to this part of the world any time soon.

It is a truly amazing place and I think Annabelle is in love with the beach, the sea, the sand and the waves. We have been visiting the beach most days and doing our own form of therapy that Annabelle seems to like very much - Beach Therapy we sit on the shore and wait for the waves to come up and splash us and then she giggles with delight. It fills my heart with joy to hear her laugh so much.

We have a small palm tree in the lounge and have made it our Christmas tree. As you would expect back in Bethlehem when Jesus was born they too only had palm trees, I bet!

We have been eating good food and detoxing with good clean sea air. Annabelle and I had a spa morning in, we rubbed our whole body with rhassoul clay and let it dry, we even put it in our hair, then we showered it off, this detoxes by drawing the toxins out through the skin.Your skin feels so smooth afterwards.

Only 1 day to Christmas, there is much excitement, we are having a very simple Christmas only a handful of presents (can you believe Amercan charges $25 for each bag you check) so we couldn't bring too much with us. But Christmas is not all about the presents it's about remembering Jesus's birthday and being with the people you love.(sorry Mom I wish you were here too I love you)

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas.

DME # 2 aka Wheelchair

It arrived! We started talking about wheelchairs with Annabelles PT in January after months of thinking about having my child in a wheelchair. As a mom you want to stay positive that your child will walk, and by getting a wheelchair I felt that I was giving up on that. But now I see that it's not the case, most typical children would be walking by a year old, 18 months at the latest, she was already 2 and not even sitting independently yet! I knew that she was soon going to outgrow all the "baby" equipment - highchairs, strollers that we use and we would need something that would suit her needs and grow with her. But a wheelchair is a hard pill to swallow for a mother.

 We got into the wheelchair clinic with CCS in April, and by May we had her measured and fitted and it was ordered. It was crazy they only had 2 styles of wheelchair to offer one with big wheels and one with small wheels that reclined I chose the big wheels because then there would possibly one day be a chance that she could propel herself with her arms, with small wheels there would be no chance for that. But there were 100 colours to choose from (as if that was the most important thing about a wheelchair?) I dont get it! Then came the wait getting insurance to cover it! After one denial and having to send more paperwork through they eventually approved it end of October. Then the supplier waits for all the pieces come from all over the country then they assembled it here. After many phone calls chasing everybody we went to the wheelchair clinic last week to go fetch it.

I decided to try it out when we got home and walk down to Matthews school to pick him up, I don't know why but I felt like I was walking down the street with no clothes on it was a strange feeling, not that people were staring at us, I guess its just something I will have to get used to. I can't hide anymore, the wheelchair shouts out to everybody that my child is disabled. A few children came up to us at Matthews school and asked us why Annabelle was in the wheelchair, it threw me off gaurd as I hadn't prepared for questions I just said "that she was in the wheelchair because she didn't walk" they asked why she couldn't walk, and I said that we weren't sure why she didn't walk which isn't entirely untrue I guess I need to prepare in my head what my response is going to be to people who ask questions, I'm not very good at thinking on the spot!

We have been try it out and I must say it did help us get through LAX a lot faster gates open where before we would have had to stand in line. We got let on the plane first. But there has been some cons too I bashed my lip on it getting it out of the boot (trunk), it weighs over 40lbs! It has no suspension and you can feel every bump if you are on a bumpy pavement. All in all I hope this will help provide Annabelle with more support and that she can be more mobile as she grows.



Homeless

We had our final garage sale on the weekend and God found good homes for most of our worldly possessions. Phone and internet get cut off tomorrow so I am now relying on 3G and our iPad to do posts. The few possessions that are left get packed up and shipped to England on Wednesday - this will take 6-8 weeks to get there, in the mean time we are living in hotels and furnished apartments till we leave for England on January 29th.


So before we get cut off here's some great photos of Annabelle on the beach on thanksgiving day.

So Thankful

This thanksgiving week we have been in Morro Bay it was a vacation we planned long before we knew we were moving back to England. I was annoyed before going away that we had so much to do and going away would stop us getting things done, and that it wasn't good timing just before moving! It was planned to celebrate my father-in-law 70th birthday and Thanksgiving, together in Morro bay.

The Boys went fishing and caught a fish.

But this week has not been what I expected, it was great to get away from it all. My stomach has been in a knot with all the things that have to be done, things we still have to sell or give away and doing budgets figuring out if we can afford to get through it all without bankrupting ourselves. So to get away and take a step back from it all has really helped us see things clearer and relax about everything, things don't seem as bad as they did a week ago.

Annabelle sitting more and more

Having a special needs child is a bit like this, you constantly have this knot in your stomach about what the future holds for your child. You are so close to the everyday problems, in the thick of things, that you can't see an image of your child progressing, and seeing other children progressing can really make you sad and overwhelmed, such as when I saw Charlie from Bird on the street sitting up, the thoughts running through my head was real happiness for Charlie that he was sitting but sadness that Annabelle wasn't. I just couldn't picture her sitting up, it just seemed impossible at the time! I knew that we were doing similar therapies but that doesn't mean that your child will follow the same path. Sometimes you have to take a step back, and accept we are not in control ( even if you would like to be) away from all the therapies, the supplements, the doctors and relax! Then that image of your child progressing can form in your head. Your child can relax too.

Very happy to be on holiday with Nanna and Grandad

I have been exhausted constantly on the go from therapy to doctors to more therapy sometimes we just need a break.
I am so thankful for the time to relax and spend time with our family to create our future together and when you relax, and leave the things that are out of your control, the plan becomes clear.
Happy Thanksgiving everybody.

Banana love affair

Yes my child is in love with bananas she will eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She will even take her medicine with no complaints when its mixed with .. yes you guessed it.....bananas. This morning it was like she was in heaven eating her banana. Rolling it around her mouth even getting good lip closure (for those of you who don't know the world of special needs terminology - kiddo's with oral motor issues usually have trouble closing their lips hence a lot of kiddo's drool a lot.) Because Annabelle has oral motor issues and swallowing issues she battles with movement of her tongue and movement of her lips and coordinating it all so that she can eat - But it seems not when it comes to bananas.
So bananas will be on the menu for the foreseeable future.

Well you are probably thinking, if you have been following our blog, what happened to the swallow study that we were supposed to do? If you want to catch up here and here .
We were due to do a repeat swallow study to see if there was any regression after having stopped doing the Vitalstim therapy for 3 months.  To see if she has started to aspirate again. Well it has been 5 months since we stopped Vitalstim she has not had a chest infection, bronchitis, pneumonia in this time ( this would definitely indicate that food/liquids when swallowed was going into the lungs, meaning she was still aspirating) and she hasn't so that's good news. Also since we left our previous house the vomiting has been minimal and she is still eating and drinking well.

So I emailed the therapist that used to see Annabelle for Vital Stim and we have decided to put the swallow study on hold for now because Annabelle is going through this detoxing of the mold toxins and to subject her body to unnecessary test which includes X-rays (radiation) would be silly, when we can see clinically that she is doing a lot better. Just in time to eat all that turkey next week for Thanksgiving.

"Get me out of these pumpkins and give me a BANANA!"Said Miss Lip

If only we knew....

This ones for you Sharna - a Purple Couch

Caramel Macchiato mmmmm

Tonight I was chatting with an old friend on FB, we used to work together in England. We became friends because of our love of coffee, we used to go to Starbucks in our lunch break order Caramel Macchiato's and sip them and lounge on these wonderful purple couches they had there, until it was time to go back to work. Sometimes we used to moan about work, well actually all of the time we used to moan about work, little did we know how good we had it back then!

We said that we longed for those days and would love to have the freedom we had back then, we have fond memories of those days. We both said that every time we pass a Starbucks we try recreate those times and remember each other. But it's just not the same now.  There are no Starbucks in Perth Australia where she lives now, and the Starbucks here in California don't have couches and you don't get coffee in proper mugs only in paper cups. And of course we both have 2 children now and there is always something on the To do list and there certainly is no time for lounging. 

The fond memories need to stay in the past.

You need to appreciate the moment you are in now. Back then we didn't really appreciate those moments, where you bond with friends and they leave a mark on your heart forever.

Take a look at what I can do now!

 Where is the video camera when you need it? Anyway, we took photos of this amazing thing Annabelle did last weekend at our last California ABR satellite. She was on the floor crawling around, while I was learning the new exercises for her. She crawled over to the stroller pulled herself up on it, Cristina our trainer went behind the stroller to support it and then she pulled herself up to stand while being supported by the stroller. We, us and another family in the room also training, all watched in amazement at what Annabelle did. We all were dumb struck.

"No matter where you go, there you are"

So today and for the past week we have been selling our worldly possessions, Craigs list, Ebay, and then this morning a Garage Sale.

We have been in the USA for 4,5 years and our Visas run out May '11 my husbands employer wants him back in the UK to manage things in Europe now. We have taken this opportunity to make a clean start, sell everything that could have possibly be contaminated by the mold, and live simpler lives.

If there is any slim chance that Annabelle could be still affected by the furniture that was in the house and if it means that we have to get rid of it, we are willing to take that chance by getting rid of it. Our daughter has done so well since we have moved and her life is far more important than a couch that we own or the clothes that we wear.

At the moment we are trusting God to lead us he has promised that with Him all things are possible and I believe he is showing us the way we just have to listen to him.

The title of this blog "No matter where you go, there you are" I never really understood it until recently I was chatting to Elinor, Annabelle's Feldenkrais practitioner, and it came up, Yes we are moving back home, yes we are leaving everything behind, no we are not trying to run away, we are still who we are, we still have deep feelings of sorrow for what has happened to our daughter and to our family, we have had to face some hard stuff, loss of our health, our home, our worldly possessions. But we still have each other, we still can laugh, cry and love. And most importantly we have God to help us through.

Amen.

Mold Case Part 4

Previously on Mold Case Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3

We were ready to leave it all behind.... what have we decided to do?
Read on and you will find out.

So last Thursday we drove up the coast 3 hours to get to Santa Barbara (wow California is beautiful! You tend to forget how beautiful when you are rushing to therapies every day!) to go see a Doctor who is a mold specialist. She was affected by mold sickness herself and now treats mold patients. I had sent her all the test results before hand so she could revise them, so after a short history she started to do an extensive treatment plan (5 pages) for Annabelle, here's a shortened version:
She said Annabelle's body has been subjected to many toxins and is like a barrel that is filled to the brim and possibly over flowing. Her body is finding it difficult to process and eliminate these toxins and to develop at the same time, so what we need to do is eliminate all toxins in her environment and also try to eliminate the toxins inside her body too, to help her heal.

Environmental controls

1. Avoid exposure to water damaged/moldy environments
2. Avoid exposure to pesticides, solvents/VOC's (paint, carpeting, adhesives furniture, cleaning products personal care products, smoke, traffic pollution, Plastics, heavy metals, Dry cleaning
3. Clean all household with baking soda, vinegar, Borax including clothes.
4. Organic diets minimizes exposure to pesticides and other contaminants
5. Filter drinking, bathing and washing water
6. Use a triple element air filter
7. Create bedroom sanctuary un-carpeted room with healthy non-contaminated bedding and sleeepware
8. If outdoor air quality is good spend as much time outdoors
9. Spend time daily in sun without sunblock

Just to add this in for those who don't live in California this is a fumigation tent that is put over the whole house and pesticides are pumped into the house and left there for 16 hours then they take the tent off and it kills all the bugs. This is what I came home to on Friday morning, this is the house next door and this is after the Doctor had specifically told us to avoid pesticides well to say the least I freaked out.

We called the company and made sure they secured the tent down properly so that none would come over to us they assure us they would. We closed our windows and went out the whole day when the tent came off so that we wouldn't breath in any of the pesticides! This is just one of the challenges we have faced this past week.

Internal controls

She has also prescribed Cholestrymine (this will help bind the mold toxins in her system and excrete it in her stool) to be taken with Charcoal also a binding agent
Nasal Fluconazole spray for her nose
Ketoconazole shampoo to be used all over her body for the rashes she has.

She recommended this great soap which we all tried tonight its by Collective Wellbeing Detox Charcoal Cleanse Soap  we really felt good after using it

Warm Epsom salt baths with 1 cup of espom salt per bath

Sauna therapy ideally with far infared sauna

She also has given us Nasal glutathione to be used in conjunction with the glutathione cream

Supplements - she has recommended an whole bunch of new ones to add to the ones she is already taking I will be taking that slowly introducing one at a time.

We talked about what to do with our furniture and she recommended we get in touch with Jack Thrasher Phd which we did. He did not say yes or no directly he said that mold affects different people in different ways some people will be fine taking their stuff and would have no problems others who are more sensitive would not be fine with taking their stuff. This includes clothes even after washing them. Which we did take with us. And until we go away and leave our stuff, clothes and furniture we will not know how badly its affecting Annabelle just like we didn't know how badly the house was affecting her before we moved.

In the mean time while we make up our minds about what to do we have done a huge clean, washing everything in Borax and wiping everything with hydrogen peroxide. Making her bedroom a sanctuary.

Watch out mold spores your days are numbered!

Halloween 2010 pic's

We had a great time trick or treating last night, Annabelle had fun in her stroller watching Matthew and our next door neighbors kids running up to all the doors asking "trick or treat" and then getting a whole bunch of candy.

Annabelle chose a lady bug fairy costume, Matthew was a storm trooper, and Martin decided to be James Bond in shorts??? Very dashing! We had loads of fun.

Mold Case Part 3

Previously on Mold Case : Part 1 and Part 2 we had fired the environmental doctor that we were seeing and had gone back to see our HBOT doctor who had ordered some tests to see if the mycotoxins from the mold were in Annabelle's body.......

Well the results are back.... read on to find out what they are.


I grew up in South Africa and lived there until I met my husband who was working in South Africa from England on a 2 year contract, well needless to say we met, fell in love, got married and we decided that we would move to England because of better job prospects for my husband and I. So we had all our worldly possessions packed up, and shipped in a container to England. The container took 8 weeks to get there, living out of a suitcase for 8 weeks is pretty hard but we managed and we were really grateful to see "our stuff" again. Being in a new country is really challenging but being around furniture and stuff that I recognized helped me through, it comforted me when I was so far away from my home country and my family.


We settled down and decided to start a family and  after 41 weeks of being pregnant and 13 hours of labor, Matthew was born. Things were going well and then my husband comes home and says " How would you like to move to America?" He had been offered a job to head up a new business in the USA and the head office was in California, he went on a 2 week trip to see what it was all about and left me at home with a child who had just contracted chicken pox so I was confined to our home for 2 weeks! What fun.


Well our possessions were packed up once again (I'd hate to know what our carbon footprint looks like!) and shipped to California where we moved to our previous house that we moved from because of the mold issues. We decided to have a second child, I fell pregnant and 9 weeks later I lost the baby to a miscarriage, we decide that we were going to try again and 42 weeks later and only 6 hours of labor Annabelle was born.


Well what I am trying to get to really is that no matter where we moved to I always felt I could cope with the stress of living in a new country because I always had "our stuff" with us.


The test results are back and here they are :
Aflatoxin 0 ppb (NP)
Ochratoxin 4,9 ppb (P)
Tricothecene 0,47 ppb (P)

NP - Not present
P - Present
So to explain this result Ochratoxin is the mycotoxins that are produced by Aspergillus/ Penicillium and Chaetomium, that figure is quite high amount in her system.
The Tricothecene is the mycotoxin that is produced by Stachybotrys, that figure is low.
These were the 4 prevalent Molds found in the house by the air quality tests that were done so she has been exposed to the mycotoxins and they are still in her system.


So when we left the house just as a precaution we decided that it would be prudent to start some sort of detoxing, so we decided on Modifilan Brown Seaweed and is known to "Detoxifies the body from heavy metals, radioactive elements, free radicals and toxins."We felt great better than we had in months but then after a month the detoxing kicked in headaches, mood swings and dizziness. Eventually things smoothed out and we started to feel better again.

We got the test results so now what? I emailed Andrea over at Our mold Journey and asked her that question? She recommended we see a mold specialist and recommended a good one who is in Santa Barbara, I have already had 2 phone calls with her and we are heading up there on Thursday. The other part of Andrea's email was "You have done the most important treatment possible and that is leave the environment. (Do you have anything from the house with you? It might be good to store those items)…" She added her post that she had written on the subject which was a real eyeopener. Well as you know we had packed up all "our stuff" after wiping it down with Lysol wipes and moved it to our new house with exception of soft furnishings, rugs, soft toys which we threw out. Supposedly this is not good enough mycotoxins are so small that 20 million 5 micron spores would fit on a postage stamp, scary stuff!

Well when I really started to think about it did we get everything? Eveything was such a rush to move, then I thought Oh no! our broom was something we brought with us that was used in the other house and we've been sweeping the floor in the new house did we bring the mold with us? Do we have to get rid of all "OUR STUFF" for the sake of our health? That comfort of knowing that even being in a foreign country I have "my stuff" with me gone, how would I explain to my six year old he has to throw away his lego's because its making him sick? Even worse how do I explain to Annabelle, she loves brother's lego's?

Great recipe to boost your childs health

So I have recently been trying to feed Annabelle better food, we have already changed most of her food to being organic, but I really wanted to add more raw fruits and vegetables in her diet. I was not sure of this because of all her swallowing, chewing difficulties, how would she be able to crunch into a raw carrot or chew on some lettuce? Well a doctor (DO) that we see regularly suggested this recipe but I have tweaked it a bit and I think it is delicious.
I call it "Rootslaw" because its like coleslaw with out the cabbage and with out the mayo well may be its not like coleslaw at all! oh well here it goes:

These are the raw fruit/vegetables you want to peel and grate - turnip, carrot, beetroot, and apple - I grate mine fine because then Annabelle can swallow it easier. You can add other root veg that you think might go well I think I am going to try some radish in my next batch to give it a bit of a kick.

Then squeeze some lemon juice, and some extra virgin olive oil into your grated veg/fruit then mix, your mixture will become bright pink from the beetroot like this.

Add sea salt to taste. Note I have not included quantities but most salads shouldn't have quantities.
Serve as a side to your lunch. 
Note I have added pictures of the fruit/veg just in case you have never heard of them before and it will be easier to pick them out in the grocery store lol.

God does perform miracles!

Recently my husband and I stood crying watching our baby girl do something we once thought was impossible for her to do.. she was sitting... yes sitting in the middle of our lounge she had pulled herself up with the toy box and she would usually just use it for support but on this day the toy box slid away and she stayed sitting. You say well what is so hard about sitting? To Annabelle because she has so many involuntary movements any stationary position is really difficult for her because she is constantly moving but not always by her own choice.

Here is a video we took after we stopped crying and realized we need to capture the miracle.

Thank you God for your wondrous miracles you perform every day, if we just believe, they will happen.

"Oh poor thing!"

No thanks! We don't need your sympathy, we are doing just fine without it!

People just don't know how to react when I tell them about Annabelle this is the reaction I got today "Oh poor thing"  do they feel sorry for us or is it just a knee jerk reaction because they are lost for words?

We are sort of stuck in the "inbetween" most people don't realize there is something different about Annabelle because she looks quite typical in her stroller, most children at 2,5 could still be in a stroller but Annabelle is fast approaching 3 and soon it will be obvious that she doesn't walk, talk, and sit and I will be confronted with having to explain to people "No she is not sleepy she just can't hold her head up" "No she's not shy she just doesn't talk" "No she's not been sick she just doesn't swallow very well and some of it comes out of her mouth sometimes" Then I'll have to face the uncomfortable silence or the stares because they have been shocked unexpectedly or have to deal with comments like the above yuck....

The other day another Mom at school came up to me very excitedly introduced herself was really friendly was really keen on our sons having play dates, then when I told her about Annabelle she seemed to brushed it off, well I haven't seen her since, is she avoiding us?

Please don't stare at us it makes us uncomfortable please rather come over and talk to us, Annabelle does understand more than you think!

Please don't make rude comments like the above, Annabelle does understand more than you think!

Please don't ignore us we have feelings too, Annabelle does understand more than you think!

Moms inspiring Moms

The internet is a fantastic thing! What I think is that there is 2D, 3D, 4D and even now also ID, a dimension where you connect with others on the internet. Especially if you are a mom with a special needs child. I really don't know what I did before we had the internet.

If it wasn't for other Moms blogging, inspiring, sharing, confiding, guiding, advising and teaching I am not sure I would be as sane (well only sort of) as I am today. So today I am going to recognize all those moms out there that I have not even met in person but have inspired me to be a better mom, wife and person all through their blogs, I thank you with all my heart I am truly grateful you are all awesome please carry on blogging you are doing a great job!

Firstly Katy at Bird on the street and her very cute son Charlie inspired us to go to Montreal to do this crazy, wacky therapy called ABR. Boy am I glad we did! She is still inspiring us all the time, she posts Thematic units she does with Charlie, their last theme was on school, and she also inspired me to do this craft a DIY light box that she guest posted (not sure if that's the correct term) on "No time for flash cards", with my son Matthew, he wanted to do a solar system version of the light box.

 Secondly to Marcela over at A little piece if heaven, inspires me with her wonderful writing, her beautiful words helped me through some down times, Thank you for all that you do for Nathan and for never giving up, you are a true inspiration I love this post Worry Less, Love more. Your detail you put into all your research for therapies for Nathan, never stopping, always searching for the best person to help him, you are awesome, and may be some day between your busy schedule and mine we can slip some time in to meet for coffee, What do you say?

Thirdly to Holly over at Caleigh's Corner you have inspired us with Caleigh's use of her iPad to communicate.  Your tireless devotion to your daughter is awe inspiring, helping her do things "they" said that she would never be able to. You have inspired us to use the iPad more and to trust my instincts when its comes to the education of my children. Thank you for sharing your journey of homeschooling Caleigh you are showing us what is possible.

Lastly a new blog that I found over at Our Mold Journey and already have emailed Andrea several times. Wow her site just blew me away I really wish I had found it a year ago, it has guided me and taught me more about mold and what to do when you find mold in your home. She has also got recommendations about treatments, testing, change of diet, supplements and natural ways of detoxing from mold exposure, Thank you so much for your wonderful site and my prayers are with you and your family in your current situation.

Well these are just a few that I love and wanted to share with you all and I seem to be addicted to blogging especially when you guys are writing, thank you.

Mold Case Part 2

Previously on Mold Case...... 

So we last figured out that I have an allergy to mold, now there is a difference between just having a plain allergy to mold, this is where you will get common allergy type reaction or symptoms when exposed to mold, or having a toxic reaction to mold. Now 25% of the population because of genetic differences will experience more than just your average mold type allergy symptoms, but will experience the toxic effects of toxic mold. Symptoms ranging from runny nose, cough, shortness of breath, wheezing, chest tightness, itchy eyes, nosebleeds, urinary problems, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, nervous system problems such as dizziness, anxiety, weakness, restless legs, metalic taste in mouth, low blood pressure, headaches, memory loss and shaking. Memory loss, nosebleeds, anxiety, shaking, nausea and vomiting are not typical allergy symptoms, all the symptoms that are in blue above where symptoms experienced by one or the other of my family.

My son Matthew, since we moved to California has had nose bleeds, we always thought they were due to the dry air in So Cal (it doesn't rain much here in So Cal) we tried everything, saline spray, creams, gels, vitamin k, they all would help for a certain time, then the nose bleeds would come back full force sometimes 3-4 nosebleeds a day. When I first started to read about mold toxicity I read one of the symptoms were nosebleeds this was what set alarm bells ringing in my head.

I can't remember exactly when but I think round about March or April of this year Annabelle started vomiting, the therapist at vitalstim thought possibly I should feed her smaller pieces at a time and that I should go slower (gees sometimes it would take an hour to get a small bowl of food down her if I went any slower I may as well not have fed her, then sometimes she would still puke it all up again) we would get so desperate at times because she wasn't gaining any weight, we even considered that Annabelle would need to get a g tube so that she could get in enough nutrients. I discovered that she would feed better in her car seat so I made a point of not even feeding her breakfast at home,  I would go to our therapy appointments then afterward feed her in the car she seemed to do better there.
The nosebleeds and vomiting seemed to have stopped since we have left the house.

We went back to see the environmental doctor to get the results of the urine test he said will give us some answers, it came back and Annabelle seems to be very deficient in all the B vitamins her immune system is down and they recommended that she takes large quantities of Vitamin C. She needs CoQ10, Lipoic Acid, Carnitine, Mg, Mn, Argnine, Biotin, and the scariest thing about the test is that the doctor said that her DNA was under attack, the test was inconclusive as to what was attacking her DNA but it was under stress.  His recommendation was that we start giving her a multivitamin, (which when I got it home and compared the ingredients to the one she is already taking it is pretty identical) The doctor says it could possibly be the mold attacking her system and we could do another test ($900) that could pinpoint if it is the mold causing the damage. Well I just about had enough of this doctor why could we not have done that test in the first place? Is he just dragging things out so that he gets in lots of visits? Well I fired him, just like Katy does in her post here, and not going back, we really don't have time for people to waste our precious time and resources.

So we went back this past week to our previous doctor the one that recommended HBOT.
I updated her on the situation and here were her recommendations for Annabelle
She said to stop taking all multiple supplements and introduce one new one at a time and the ones that she is most deficient in first
Methylcobalamin B12 - 2500mcg a day
Folate MTHF - 1000mcg a day
Culturelle Probiotic - 2 a day
Glutathione cream - 1 ml to skin at night before bed ( if you don't know what this is check out the link)

She also recommended a mold allergy test
and also agreed to do this test I found,  Urine test from Real time labs that will tell us if Annabelle has Mold toxins present in her body, so just waiting for the test kit to come and so wait and see in mold case part 3 for the results.

Annabelle busy raiding brothers Lego box