Mexican street market
Sometimes in life a health crisis helps to bring about profound changes in how we approach illness and recovery. Maintaining good health can, after all, be a tortuous journey.
Health Crisis, Hospitalization
Sixteen years ago my wife became very ill in the last week of a wonderful long winter vacation in Mexico. Having experienced tummy problems from contaminated fruit in Chile a few years previous, we assumed that Gundi had picked up parasites from market food, possibly tainted chicken. On return home, severe diarrhoea continued for a month or so and she lost a ton of weight. Finally we called an ambulance and doctors went busily about administering antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and IV fluids. Their tests resulting in a diagnosis of the catch-all IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). She was prescribed stronger anti-inflammatories. The visiting surgeon wanted to remove her colon. Worryingly, several weeks in hospital over two stays failed to stem the draining depletion of her system. Have you or yours experienced a health crisis? What mechanisms have you used to see you through?
Fresh lavender bunches
Herbs & Naturopathy
Once the public health system had stabilized her condition somewhat, we turned to a concoction of herbal healing teas from a traditional Chinese medicine (also Western medicine-trained) practitioner. We boiled up the powerful mix of barks, seeds, leaves, flowers, and roots, which smelled awful and tasted barely digestible to Gundi. I told her to get it down her; it is doing you good. With a calm, reassuring and practical manner, the doctor looked his patient in the eyes, examined her tongue, and took her pulse in a variety of ways. He concluded that her system was out of balance and needed adjustment, recalibration. We also returned to a naturopath for homeopathic and energy treatments. My dear big sister in Berlin, also a naturopath, prescribed personalized Bach flower essences formulated from English countryside wildflowers; for Gundi, Rescue Remedy, aspen, olive, Star of Bethlehem, sweet chestnut, wild rose; for me, her carer (yes, carers need care too!), Rescue Remedy, aspen, elm, gentian, hornbeam, pine, Star of Bethlehem. Over a long hot summer during which I pressed on with growing and tending our organic market garden and taking our produce to the city for sale in farmers markets, Gundi began a long recovery and eventually put on the fifty pounds in weight she had lost. We decided to wean her off the strong anti-inflammatories prescribed by her gastro-enterologist to be taken "for the rest of her life". What would you have done?
Pesticides, Food Toxins
When I first came to Canada over forty years ago, I worked first in my cousin's landscaping and lawn maintenance business. I loved it all except the toxic chemical spraying for weeds. In those early days we bought and consumed food that was largely 'conventional', drenched in a chemical cocktail of pesticides, herbicides, fungicides. Organic came later. The fast-consolidating industrial food and farming systems with their processed junk would get their teeth into us first! As Earl L. Butz, as US Department of Agriculture Secretary famously thundered at farmers back in the 1970s: "Get Big Or Get Out". I decided to stay small and carve out a niche, a plan that continues to this day with this latest endeavour!
Certified organic garlic
Turning to Organics
By the time we purchased our farm in the hills twenty years later, I had decided to go all-in by developing a two-acre market garden with greenhouses and by growing and certifying according to organic principles. Pure nutrition came from a simple recipe - sunshine, plus fresh air and wind plus moisture from dew, rain and snow, plus organic glacial-till soil full of minerals. We feasted on fresh arugula, spinach, lettuce mix, mustards, and certified organic culinary herbs such as garlic, mints, basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme....
We ensured a regular supply of local grass-fed grass-finished beef and free-range chicken and eggs from farmer friends. No more of that industrial glyphosate-treated corn, grains, and feedlot grain-fed beef for us! I made herbal healing teas for various uses - digestive, relaxing, uplifting, for immunity support, against infection and winter chills. I even wrote a book around this time in our lives and this organic farming experience. It bacame a memoir entitled 'High Up In The Rolling Hills', published in 2013.
Fresh-picked Tulsi (holy basil), sunflowers, cilantro flowers
Our Medicine Cabinet
Our shelves remain free of any pharmaceutical medications. We remain stubbornly drug-free. Instead, you will find an eclectic array of flower essences, high quality organic essential oils, creams, and salves, dried medicinal herbs, herbal tinctures, homeopathics, vitamin and mineral supplements. The benefit of free drugs prescriptions for seniors on the public health system in Canada is lost on us. The occasional brief winter cold soon goes away with lemon, ginger, honey, hot peppers, and garlic in hot water. In childhood I had measles and chickenpox and, having enjoyed an active, sporting youth with many outdoor pursuits, find I have strong natural immunity. A resilient belief in bodily autonomy and personal informed choice for all stands me in good stead. I believe so anyway. As Eric Idle of Monty Python reminds us (come on, whistle along now): "Always look on the bright side of life..."
Conclusion
I encourage all to find simple natural solutions to health problems. Mother Nature has a truly wondrous and full medicine cabinet. All good things come from the earth, the soil beneath our feet, and the sky above. Sunshine, fresh air, pure plant and animal food, clean water, vitamins, minerals, and shelter provide the foundations to nurture and sustain us in body, mind, and spirit. Personal positivity can see us through many of life's challenges, wouldn't you agree?
