Two children, three days, four nasty bugs

Naturally, the doctor prescribed antibiotics.

Without even taking swabs.

So today, buoyed up by an intense, burning desire not to have to cash in the abs script, I bought a juicer.

Breville Juice Fountain Plus. Wanted one for a long time but until today, it was off the spending list.

In our home I have many things in my arsenal. I have arranged to have the rest of the week off work to care for my sick children and we have a warm house with plenty of clean towels and linen. I am the person who the children call for when they are sick and the second person they call for, their father, is home as often as he can possibly manage. I have fresh fruit and vegetables and now with my whizzy juicer, can whip lots of fruit and veges into easy drinks for persons with sore throats. I have vitamin C, echinacea, various multivitamin concoctions, grapefuit seed extract, tea tree oil, colloidal silver, coconut oil, manuka honey (new to my arsenal today). The children are asleep now and I am hopeful (for all of our sakes to be honest) that they will get a full night's sleep. That certainly could not be said of the last two nights.

I even have rooster stock. Last night I made leek and potato soup with my rooster stock and it even felt nutritious as it slid down my throat. Small step back that the smallest person wasn't eating anything, but 24+ hours on, that is changing slowly.

I've learnt the hard way what antibiotics can do. I will never forget laying in my bed almost unable to move, with my tiny daugher beside me, wondering when I would ever look after my four year old son myself again. I've learnt through long research about a lot of diseases which are related to immune dysfunction, and found it a little chilling how many I have had experience of. I've read the scientific literature on the correlation between the number of antibiotic treatments a person has had and their likelihood of developing cancer.

I have observed the powerful hold which the pharmaceutical industry has on what we hopefully call our medical system.

I don't claim to know even one tenth of the answers to questions about what health is, and I know I could yet decide that we have to use antibiotics this week after all.

Not yet though, and not at all if my careful strategies and the strengths of my otherwise well-cared for and very much loved children prevail.

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