Therapy Help

I need your help with vision therapy!

I was in a bike accident this past January, as many of you know, and I am still recovering.

I took a corner too fast and basically landed on my left arm, shoulder, and head/helmet. My shoulder has long since healed, yet my head/vision has not. It was an accident that I should not have been able to walk away from -- my eye doctor said I am lucky that I only got away with double vision and my physical therapist looked at me several times in disbelief asking me, "how did you not break anything?" It was also a miracle no one was behind me, as it happened at a busy intersection.

Since the accident, I constantly either see double or suppress one eye -- the danger in this is that my brain ignores one eye which can lead to other vision problems. Both of these mean a lot of headaches, eye fatigue, that I often cannot read for long periods of time, and I can't get back on my bike since my balance is off and sometimes my vision jumps. (All of my food allergies came back as a result of the bodily stress, but I am finally able to tolerate a little bit.)

Vision therapy (VT) is $105/session which is every week and my expected recovery time is anywhere between 6 months to one year (I also have 20 minutes of daily homework). I have already undergone 3 weeks of therapy. In this time my headaches have gone down (I've actually been able to make it 68 hours without headache medicine), and I was able to focus a short distance for five seconds one day and one minute the next day. A full minute of both eyes working together to form one image may not sound like a long time, but this was one minute longer than I have ever done in the past 6 months!

VT is not covered by insurance and the VT office currently does not have any scholarships available. I am setting a goal for $2600, which will cover 6 months of therapy (and the 5% gofundme takes out for their services). As a humble children's bookseller I am already on a tight budget and am still paying off my MRI bill (my eye doctor and neuro-ophthalmologist were concerned about possible brain bleeding for a while). Without this therapy my eyes may not relearn how to focus (and glasses wont help the cause). Can you please help me out by contributing financially? Any amount helps!

 

DONATE HERE: http://www.gofundme.com/3kfgvs

Please let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to pass this along!

Thank you and God bless,
Emily

Healing is not the end

What did I have today? Cheddar! Melted on a panini grill, in-between a brown rice tortilla and kale. It was awesome. 

Yes, dairy is back in my life! After nearly four months of complete restriction my body can tolerate it again. What other food may be just on the horizon? I used to react slightly to cross-contamination amounts of wheat (for you non-allergy readers, this basically means a very small amount). That appears to be no more! I will challenge wheat probably in a week or so, after I see how much dairy I can handle and what my intake level should be. Oh, and my chocolate intake has gone from once a month to twice a month.  I love healing! These are very recent and positive changes. However, change throughout the past few months often brought negative changes to my health. 

The biggest change since my last entry was soy -- turns out that was the culprit behind sudden internal swelling, intense cramps, and near hemorrhaging amounts of menstrual blood loss.  Yeah, soy is not only an allergy/sensitivity for me, but it in fact completely screws up hormones and other bodily stuff.  I didn't like soy before, but now I think it as a greater evil.  It wasn't a huge switch taking it out of my diet, but certainly will be as my diet changes and I can incorporate more food back in. Soy is practically in everything semi-processed or commercial!  But, enough of that peril, let's go back to the healing.

What was the switch? Medically the integration of vitamin B12 (which was quite deficient within me) and the removal of a pharmaceutical that was used to help with my headaches and migraines -- mainly from the post concussion and the continued double vision -- could answer this sudden upswing in healing.  Amazing, eh? However, I do believe there is another important factor while working toward healing: pray to Jesus Christ. 

Don't roll your eyes, I do not mean one prayer and everything is all better. It doesn't always work that way. I've prayed for months and others have prayed over me for months and physical healing was slow in progression. Yet, even when it seemed every other week shot a new arrow -- leading to discouragement, depression, fear, and pain -- it was prayer that brought me toward peace, endurance, thankfulness. Supplements can't do that. Too often we think of healing as working toward a state of being pain free, but there is a lot to be said for the journey to that place. It's what you do with yourself and what you learn that makes a difference. It's what you find yourself worshiping or running toward (or from).

I haven't really come up with new recipes lately, just modifying:

Blueberry cereal from a modified granola recipe in 1,000 Gluten Free Recipes

Snicker doodle cookies in 1,000 Gluten Free Recipes

Cupcakes from Baking with Agave Nectar

Allergy cooking isn't limited, it's just learning how to use a different palate of ingredients.  All of the above are free of that white sugar stuff and the top 8 allergens.