Our Story: Asthma & Food Sensitivities, Part 3
In Part 2 of our story, I went into more detail about the food sensitivity tests we had done and the changes we made in our diet. This post will go into our decision to home-school and give a full before and after picture of Jon David's food sensitivities from February 2015 to November 2016. Hope this post blesses you!
Jon David started attending a new school because of redistricting in August, 2016. Before school started, I had a meeting with his teacher, the administrators, and the school nurse letting them know about Jon David's strict diet. The school was very helpful and we set up a health plan that stated that Jon David couldn't eat or drink ANYTHING that I didn't pack in his lunch, other than water, to ensure he wasn't being exposed to any of his food triggers. I left the meeting with confidence knowing that Jon David would be taken care of at school.
Despite the cooperation of the teachers, administrators, and school nurse, Jon David kept coming home in tears every day. I thought it was because he was at a new school that wasn't familiar and because he wasn't with all of his old friends. But, each day when I asked him what was wrong, he said he was being bullied at lunch about his food. He said the kids would sit at other tables when he opened his lunch box or would tease him. The other kids made a "junk food only" club so Jon David would be excluded. It absolutely broke my heart to watch his confidence and self-esteem fade before my eyes.
From the very beginning of that school year, Jon David asked me to home-school him, but I didn't think that was an option. Our family needed both mine and my husband's incomes to pay the bills. I thought Jon David would eventually settle in at his new school and would stop asking me to home-school, but he never did. By October, I told my husband we needed to pray about what the Lord wanted us to do for our family. Our church was entering into a 40-day period of prayer and fasting, so my focus was specifically on Jon David's healing and whether or not we should home-school.
God was calling me to home-school, but I was scared. What about the money? How will I stay sane at home with my children all day? I began to pray for job opportunities that would allow me to make money from home while teaching my kids. Nothing seemed to fit. My husband said it didn't make sense for me to leave a career I love to work full-time, at home, doing something I wasn't passionate about. I continued to pray.
The answer came at 5:00 am on a Saturday morning. The Lord sat me straight up in bed and said, "It's time to share Young Living." I'm not sure if y'all ever argue with God, but I straight up told God, "NO! I'm not doing that. I said I didn't want to sell anything and I'm not going to do it." Arguing with the Lord is pointless. He always wins! The Lord revealed to me that I could help others by sharing my story. I'd get to combine two of my passions, teaching and helping others! AMAZING!!! I scheduled classes every Friday night in January and February, 2016 and was beyond excited to be a part of my friends' health journey!
Around February/March, 2016 we started noticing Jon David's asthma symptoms flaring up. I didn't think too much of it until the school nurse called me, while I was teaching (I taught high school business classes), to come get Jon David because he was having an asthma attack. I rushed to his school, gave him an Albuterol nebulizer treatment in the car, rubbed Breathe Again on his neck and chest to support his respiratory system, and tried my best to help him relax. Once his breathing settled down, I stopped panicking, and I asked if he had eaten anything he wasn't supposed to. Jon David confessed to eating a cupcake at school that day. Somehow, I kept my composure, but I my head was spinning because one cupcake had all of the ingredients he wasn't allowed to have: gluten, egg, sugar (GAPS thing), dairy.
Jon David said he had a substitute that day, which happened to be Career Day. One of the parents was a baker who offered the class cupcakes. In an effort to be like the other kids, Jon David ate the cupcake, even though he knew better. There wasn't anyone there to stop him. Shortly after eating the cupcake, his coughing spell and wheezing began and then I came to get him. This was our first experience with peer pressure.
After a few other instances sneaking food from other kids and having bad reactions, my husband and I agreed that it was best for us to remove Jon David from public school, help him catch up in a few subjects he had fallen behind in, and start rebuilding the confidence he had lost that year from being bullied.
At the end of the 2015/2016 school year, I resigned from a career I loved to teach the children I loved most, my own. Homeschooling my children has been an incredible joy, filled with highs and lows. The most challenging part, for me, was not having daily adult interaction. I missed my colleagues, but was blessed to have a lot of new friends through Young Living.
Flash forward a few months. At this point, we had been doing the GAPS Diet for about 10 months and had done the Elimination diet for about 5 months prior to that. Based on everyone's observation, Jon David was a completely different kid. His asthma had almost completely gone away, minus a break through coughing spell every once and a while. I'm an analytical person, and data is my thing, so I wanted proof that the GAPS Diet had really healed his gut. We gave Jon David another IgG Food Sensitivity test in November, 2016. I waited on pins and needles for those results.
My jaw hit the floor when I opened the email. Praise the Lord! ALL of Jon David's sensitivities had gone away, with the exception of oats and he was borderline sensitive to eggs. No one can tell me that God doesn't answer prayer. I had documentation! After consulting with Dr. Butchart, we were advised that Jon David could have a "cheat day" every 4 days with the foods that he use to be sensitive to, but we were warned that his sensitivities could come back if he was overexposed to those foods. We celebrated that night with PIZZA!!!
Our health journey didn't stop there! Next time, I'll share some other things we've done to help Jon David stay healthy. Send me a message if you'd like to discuss ways to help your family get healthy using some of the same Young Living products our family uses.
