My butt is broken

As I've mentioned before, I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis a few years ago.  The lucky ones take a few pills and pop into remission for long periods of time.  I, however, have tried most of the treatments currently available and have yet to achieve remission.  Unfortunately, I've been sicker than ever since my 2nd baby arrived this past summer.

Having spoken with my doctor and declared the most recently tried treatment (Remicade) a failure last week, I decided to sieze the gap before we try the next one (Entyvio) to give the Specific Carbohydrate Diet (SCD) a chance.  This diet was developed a long time ago, but is popular today in several forms (GAPS) and has a lot in common with the Paleo Diet (and Paleo AIP).  The basic idea of the diet is to eliminate all bad starches and sugars from your diet, slowly changing the population of bacteria in your gut and allowing the lining of your intestine to heal by stopping exposure to irritants and by maximizing nutrition.  Everything needs to be homemade or from a carefully verified source, and it's a very overwhelming commitment - a lot of work!  And what about restaurants, or going on vacation?? (Note: I've been sick enough that vacation isn't an option, so that's not really a reason not to try it)

I've been interested in trying this medication-free approach to healing since I was first diagnosed 3 years ago, but was worried about the implications of the "Intro" phase on my pregnant and/or nursing body - how would I possibly get the required calories?  And would toxins released during the "die-off" of bad bacteria cross the placenta?  So I waited. I finally stopped providing nutrition to another human being this past September, but since I was trying out new drug therapies (Humira and then Remicade) I didn't want to add another factor to the mix so I postponed trying the diet.  If I had done the diet AND the drugs, how would I know which one had worked?  The drugs, when they work, are very long term and many people can't restart them once stopping (they develop an allergy), so I would have been stuck in an awkward situation with continuous nagging in the back of my mind saying, "Maybe you don't need this medicine..."  I figured it was better to keep the factors separate so that I could have a better idea of what contributed to any improvement in my condition.  But now I've run out of excuses, and patience!  Time to give the diet a chance, even if only for a week or two.

The Intro phase is basically homemade broth, lean plain meat, and pureed carrots for about 5 days.  After that, you can add in fats and cooked vegetables one at a time, then cooked fruits one at a time, before moving on to incorporating raw foods, homemade yogurt, natural cheeses, and nuts and seeds.  Some people eat yogurt and eggs from the very beginning, but if a sensitivity is suspected then it's best to wait.  The goal of the Intro diet is to kick start the "die-off" of bad bacteria and yeast, which unfortunately causes many people to feel sick for a day or two as the organisms fight for their lives, but once they're gone your gut can begin the slow process of healing.  After a year or two (the general recommendation is at least 2 years) one can start reintroducing other foods, such as chocolate, potatoes, and bread, to see how they are tolerated.  If all goes well, one can then eat "normally" again, though it is recommended that one not fall back into the typical "western" diet, since many think that leads to developing a "leaky gut" in the first place.

I finally took the plunge and started the Intro diet this past Saturday, December 27th.  I cried a lot the first day, I was so food frustrated!  Everyone around me was (and still is) eating leftover christmas cookies and ham, and I was eating a plain hamburger patty and a mug of chicken broth for breakfast, and again for lunch (I wasn't in my own house that day, so I was limited to the food I had brought with me in preparation).  Dinner was a little bit better (at least some variety) with some plain white fish and pureed carrots, with homemade grape juice jello for dessert.  Woo. Hoo.  Bleh.

I've had stove, oven, and crockpot running non-stop (luckily mostly hands off simmering-type things) since I returned home on Saturday, trying to add some variety to my choices.  I've made jello, chicken, turkey breast, lamb, fish, carrots, and turkey sausage, plus a few different broths/stocks.  It's a lot of meat... but at least it's variety.  And LOTS OF SALT AND PEPPER, otherwise I would lose my mind from the blandness!  I cheated (or did I? The instructions are a little vague) and added some thyme to the turkey sausage, but just a little.  Finally a breakfast-ish food!

These have been my meals so far, in case anyone out there searching the internet is looking for starter ideas:

Day 1
Breakfast:  Ground beef patty, mug of chicken stock, tears
Lunch: More of the same
Dinner: Flounder, pureed boiled carrots (ended up mixing together like a soup with lots of salt and pepper, tasted surprisingly good), grape juice jello (not so great), cup of 1/2 grape juice 1/2 water

Day 2
Breakfast:  Diluted grape juice, ground beef patty with grape jello as a sauce (strange, but I saw a suggestion for that at scdlifestyle.com)
Lunch: Leftover Flounder with pureed boiled carrots (my 2 year old stole this from me and loved it! How unexpected!  She wanted me to eat her rice and beans...)
Dinner:  Soup made out of chicken stock, pureed carrots, and crockpot roasted chicken breast

Day 3 (today)
Breakfast: Diluted grape juice, small bowl of pureed carrots, mug of chicken stock, turkey sausage
Lunch: Soup of lamb broth, shredded boiled lamb, pureed carrots

I'm hungry, but I'm so used to starving myself in preparation for trips out of the house that I'm kind of used to it.  I could eat much more than I have been, but ugh, i just don't want any of the available choices.  So far I don't feel like I'm experiencing any "die-off" symptoms, and my insides have definitely improved... though that's possibly from eating hardly anything.  I don't want anyone to be caught saying "TMI! TMI!" but I have been dealing with urgent bathroom trips an average of 10 times per day recently (as high as 25 earlier this fall!) and at all hours of the day and night, so yesterday's 4 which were all between 5 and 10 am was fantastic by comparison.  Today has been similar to yesterday so far.  If this continues I might be able to leave the house without anxiety in the near future!

My plan:
If I continue to feel ok, I may reintroduce my multivitamin tomorrow morning, and then calcium the next day.  After that I think the next thing I'll add is eggs - I've been avoiding eggs for a very long time now because of a suspected intolerance, but allergy testing had no reaction.  It'd be really nice to be able to have sausage and eggs for breakfast... and to determine whether I have an egg intolerance or not.  I'm supposed to start Entyvio sometime in the next couple of weeks, but that may depend on what kind of changes I'm experiencing in my symptoms due to the new diet.  I should also note that I've been on Prednisone and/or Prednisolone for over a year now, and am working determinedly to get off of it, tapering very slowly at 2.5 mg per week.  I did not taper this week while beginning the new diet, because I didn't want to go through withdrawal and die-off at the same time!  And again, I'm making an effort to isolate factors.

I'd kill for a cookie right about now.

I had a baby!

I have two children under 2!  Eek!!  My daughter is now 22 months old, and my teeny tiny baby boy who arrive a scary 5 weeks early is already 2 months old!  Life is hectic, my children are wonderful and impossible at the same time, I'm sooooo tired, and so full of mommy guilt.  I want to give all or my attention to each of them!

Needless to say, I don't have much free time.  Occasionally I manage to make some dinner...

I did manage to crochet a baby blanket while we were in the hospital! The NICU is a stressful place, but the crafting gave me something to do...

New craft technique!

I'll be honest, I didn't think this up myself... I saw it on Pinterest.  But now I'm making it mine!  I tried it out on a baby blanket for a friend this past week, and it turned out great!  So much quicker than crocheting an entire baby blanket, but still turned out nice enough that I wanted to keep it!

Crochet an edge on a piece of fleece for a quick homemade blanket!  I used a piece of white and grey chevron fleece, roughly 30x36ish (I didn't really measure, just tried to square it up).  

Chevron fleece baby blanket with green and grey crochet border

I worked around the edge poking an exacta knife through the fleece roughly every 1/2 inch, leaving about 1/2 inch border so that the holes didn't turn into edge fringe.  I then worked all the way around doing single crochet, chain, single crochet, chain, etc as the base border (doubling up in the corners) and built upon that for decoration.  I was impressed with the way the back edge rolled nicely under the stitch, so that it didn't matter much if my exactly knife wholes were a consistent distance from the fleece edge.

I chose to do a round of * 2 double crochets, one half double*  in grey, then switched to bobbles for a backward round, singles to finish the bobble look, and then back to grey with a round of double half crochets for the border.  I think I used less than half a skein of either color yarn - mine were standard acrylic craft size yarn skeins, fancy yarns would certainly require more than one of those tiny skeins.

Bobble Stitches are easy and provide nice texture for babies!  For a typical double crochet stitch, you do yarn over, through, yarn over, pull through 2, pull through 2.  For a bobble stitch, you skip that last bit of a double crochet, just pulling through 2 loops ONCE.  Do this 5 times, and you'll end up with 6 loops on your hook - the last step of 5 different double crochets.  Then pull through all 6 loops at once, pull gently to tighten, and secure with a single crochet in the next space over.  Voila! Bobble complete!  Here's a link to another example of a baby blanket using the bobble stitch.

Closeup of the bobble stitch (my camera didn't want to focus)

After completion I washed on cold, and dried on a normal cycle, to make sure the new mom-to-be would be able to was up any baby stains without messing up her new soft baby blanket!

My mom also suggested the great idea of doing this on a bunch of smaller pieces of fleece and then putting them all together like a granny square afghan or quilt - I love the idea!!

Hot Chocolate with Whipped Cream

I love whipped cream.

Back at Thanksgiving, I bought some heavy whipping cream, intending to make whipped cream to go with my pumpkin pie - but since someone else brought a can of whipped cream, it never got used.

It's just been sitting in my fridge, calling to me.

Yesterday, I finally gave in - and about time too!  Technically (according to the date on the package) the whipping cream expired last week... but it smelled fine to me, so into the mixer it went!  5 minutes and a little sugar later, and ta-DA!  Finger-licking delicious.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately?) all I had to eat it with were my fingers.  So I made microwave "real" hot chocolate for all of us, so we had somewhere to put our whipped cream :)  Mmm, mmm!

Whipped Cream

• roughly 1 cup of heavy cream
• roughly 1/4 cup of sugar (i used raw) *i mistakenly wrote 3/4 cup in the original post
• 1/2 tsp vanilla (i didn't measure)

Hot Chocolate

• handful of chocolate chips (i literally put my hand in the bag, grabbed at the chocolate chips, and put that many in a mug)
• tiny bit of butter - less than a "pat"
• 8 to 12 oz of milk, depending on the strength you like and the size of your mug

Instructions

1. Pour cream into bowl of mixer, the colder the better.  Whip for 3-5 minutes, slowly increasing to the max intensity. When it starts to puff up and form "soft peaks", add sugar and vanilla, continuing to whip to combine.  Be careful not to over whip, or you'll make butter!
2. Meanwhile, put chocolate chips and butter into a mug, microwave 30 seconds.  Stir, microwave another 30 seconds.  Add a tiny bit of milk, stir, and microwave another 30 seconds.  Stir - if not yet melting and mixing, microwave for 30 seconds more.  If still not mixing or you're getting a weird tootsie-rollish thing, add more butter - the fat will help the chocolate mix with the water in the milk.  When combined well, go ahead and add the rest of the milk, stirring while adding.  Microwave for another 60 seconds or until hot chocolate is the temperature you like. 
3. Add whipped cream and drink up!

I'm not really sure how much whipped cream this made, since I ate so much of it off the spoon.  I'd guess probably 2.5 to 3 cups?  We consumed it all on 4 hot chocolates with AMPLE whipped cream.  (No, the baby didn't get one - I had 2!)