Day 24 Raw

I caught a cold from my kiddos a couple of days ago, and I've felt terrible. On top of the regular "detox" terrible, and all. Uuuugh!

Our SAD (Standard American Diet) has really got me a-thinkin' today, as we had an incident with our 4 (almost 5) year old son yesterday and today. He is not participating in an all-raw diet, and we have been feeding him the usual stuff that kids these days get. I am feeling really guilty about this now, as yesterday, he started complaining about his pee-pee hurting. Very concerned, I called the doctor, but it was too late to take him in, and they thought it was likely to be a UTI. He was in such agony every time he went wee-wee, it was just awful. I tried to get him to drink lots of water, and it was just such an act of congress to get him to pee...mainly because he was trying to hold it as long as possible because it hurt him so much to go. :( Poor guy!

I got the appointment first thing this morning, and hubs took him in while I watched our other baby. What was super scary, though, was that my 4 year old woke up this morning and felt great - he even said he went potty with no probs, so I asked him to go again so I could see for myself. He immediately started urinating a RED color pee. It wasn't like straight blood, but it was definitely bloody and red. I nearly had a heart attack seeing that, although my son claimed he felt fine and there was no fever, etc. I thought it was going to be a UTI, so I figured it wouldn't take him long to get through the appt and get back home with some antibiotics.

Weeeeell...the doctor actually thought that perhaps the fact that 1) he was urinating blood and 2) he went from being in horrible pain to suddenly feeling better ... well, she really thought it was more along the lines of a kidney stone, as it didn't appear to be a UTI.

Holy crap! He's only four! How is that possible?

Upon looking up kidney stones in toddlers and young children, apparently this is getting more and more common. The main causes seem to be a diet high in sodium (and our SAD diet ALWAYS contains this - everything from canned food and prepared foods, and even common things like peanut butter - which my son practically eats by the pound....!), diets high in calcium, diets high in sugar, etc. In addition, if the child doesn't drink enough water a day (this is something my son DOES do right...he drinks toooons of water each day - he LOVES our reverse osmosis water, and actually prefers that over sodas and juices, etc.), this can cause them, too.

Although we try to get him to eat "healthy", I must admit that we do feed him processed foods. For breakfast, he'll eat cereal (non-sugar ones), a granola bar, maybe a waffle, or something along those lines (never all of them at once...LOL! And the waffles are actually pretty rare...I try to serve up eggs and toast or something more often for the "protein" part of it.). He may snack on nuts or some cheese or something (I like to try and give him a boiled egg at times, too), and for lunch, he'll have wheat bread (still, it's processed!) with peanut butter and honey and some sort of side snack with it...and for dinner, he likes to eat some variation of pasta, beans, potatoes, or something along those lines...and I try to incorporate a couple of servings of veggies in that meal to round it out. But still...they're usually cooked. When he goes to school a couple days a week, sometimes we'll give him a Lunchable (which are ALL loaded with sodium and processed crap!). I limit straight sugar stuff - only for special occasions (Valentines Day, Easter, Christmas, birthday), and if he gets a lot of it (such as the case with Easter - lots of people, including us, gave him a lot of goodies), I hide the bulk of it and ration out to him veeeeery slowly).

He likes snacking on apples sometimes...sometimes will eat some bananas and grapes. I try to incorporate fresh fruit, but it appears I am not doing enough! He is also extremely skinny, and he never overeats.

Anyhow...long story, short...apparently he passed a kidney stone already, thanks to this current SAD way of eating. He's not even 5 years old! Needless to say, MUCHO changes are about to happen with this. I'm not about to stand around and watch his health deteriorate because he's eating the wrong foods (even if those foods are "accepted" as reasonably healthy by SAD standards). The pain and agony he went through broke my heart, and I swear on my life that I will do whatever it takes for that not to happen again. Even if it means telling friends and family to please abstain from giving him goodies and sweets and sugary treats. I'll figure out a way to give him all RAW treats that taste as good or better!

I'm rambling, but it's really made me think long and hard about these lifestyle changes we're making for ourselves as adults. We need to start with our children! I thought I would perhaps be "depriving" him somehow if I didn't feed him what all the other kids were eating, but all I'm doing is giving him terrible health!

Don't get me wrong...he is feeling fine in every other way...but I am simply stunned that he ended up with (hopefully just one) a kidney stone. There are more tests the doctor is still currently running to determine if he is "prone" to developing more kidney stones...although, quite frankly, I don't care if he's "prone" to it or not...we are simply going to change his diet to waaaaaaaaay more healthy changes so that it simply doesn't happen again.

Overall, I'm still feeling crummy. LOL! Still waiting for this raw diet to give me energy and health and feelings of well-being...yada yada. Surely it'll come by the one month mark? Maybe?