The Faux Normal — Part II
What to do when you can't control every situation
In the last post, I promised that I would share some exceptions to the amazing changes my daughter Emily experienced after making radical (but simple) changes in her diet. If you did not read the previous post, I would recommend reading it before reading on. It was titled The Faux Normal.
There was an element in Emily's life that we as parents had no control, and that element was her weekend home. Though she lived with us the majority of the time, she would spend weekends and/or vacation weeks with her biological father. During these times, her diet would revert to the BAD diet (Basic American Diet).
A couple of days of BAD food was not a big hardship on Emily's health; it was the vacation weeks that caused the problems. Now Emily is partially to fault here; she likes food — all kinds of it, regardless of the health benefits. Plenty of tasty unhealthy food was readily available, and she gobbled it up.
Without fail, as if a timer had been set, Emily would return from a week at her father's house either sick or with a stuffy nose, allergies, heartburn, asthmatic systems, ear infection, or just excessively tired. It would generally take her two days to recuperate from the exhaustion, or a week (sometimes two) to recover the health, just in time to spend another weekend away from home.
By God's grace and providence, Emily's biological father was not living near our home when my husband and I first married, this allowed a year or two of good nutrition without many set backs, except one.
While involved in a local youth group, Emily was spending a lot of time away from home preparing for a youth event. Subsequently, the youth leaders were providing her meals (this was during the summer months). I explained to them the issues with Emily's health and asked if they could help her make wise decisions with her food. The response did not bring me any encouragement, "Oh, we are eating healthy tonight — spaghetti."
Spaghetti can be healthy if it is made with the proper noodles, meat, and sauce, but I knew that was not the case, and I knew I could not control the outcome. So I smiled at the youth leader...and prayed.
During this period in Emily's life, her allergies came back with a vengeance, particularly in her eyes, which would swell up and fill up with a mucilaginous gel. It was alarming to me, because I had never seen her eyes react like this, and it happened off and on during that whole season with the youth. And then when the oven of summer turned off and life returned to normal, thankfully so did her eyes.
There are many people who doubt the connection between what they eat and how they feel (if everyone truly believed there was a connection, they would change their diet — who wants to feel bad on purpose). I am a believer because I have seen first hand results in my daughter, husband, and self. I want to continue sharing what we have learned and experienced.