Where is your trust?

Whooping Cough

Three weeks ago I woke up with a startled sound from my four month old.  She was struggling to breath in a coughing fit.  I propped her upright and slammed her back because she sounded like she was chocking.  Over the next few hours these fits occurred every 15 minutes so I decided to take her to the ER.  Selah is our fourth child and I had never had any baby turn blue in the face from coughing.

            The doctor walked in the room and told me it was sleep apnea even before examining her, the whole experience was a disaster and left us with more questions than answers. They tested for RSV, Covid the works and even her lung x ray came back clear.   The next day I consulted our pediatrician who was also completely baffled as to what the cause was. During the day our baby was totally fine but at night she would have these terrible spasms.  On the third day I woke up from a dream and heard the word Pertussis.  I immediately called my doctor and she confirmed  my heart sunk. 

            As my baby got sicker I began to research everything I could find about Whooping Cough.  Basically if its not caught before the severe symptoms begin to present theres nothing modern medicine can do, its to late for antibiotics and they often can make the situation worse.  The infection just has to run its course. 

We started with our usual go to’s for illness.  We mixed up teas of yarrow, elderberry, echinacea, hot steam, diffusing oils, chest rubs.  Homeopathic would take the edge off but they would only last 2-3 hours.  Still she got worse.  Finally I found a protocol using high levels of vitamin C to over saturate and push out the infection.  I consulted the doctor and with her guidance we began dosing Selah with 1000mg of vitamin C three times a day but it is so hard to get that much vitamin C into a breastfed baby.  She started to show improvement but I was exhausted, overwhelmed and without many options.  I debated on bringing her to children’s hospital but I was told by my doctor there wasn’t really anything they could do for her because she was strong enough to fight it.   It was also at that point a family friend introduced us to Colloidal Silver in the nebulizer and between the two treatments she finally started to stabilize.

You might be wondering what all this has to do with farming and why I’m writing on this topic.  On the farm we not only focus on nourishing food and traditional skills but all of that is centered around health and wellness.  Up until this point I had no idea what whooping cough was.  When you search online you will find information from the CDC about the vaccine and how deadly the infection is. I also found an article published the day after my ER visit stating that Whooping Cough infections were on the rise in NYS this year and that many vaccinated people were still getting sick.  Our doctors were unable to treat us and said that it just had to run its course.   I had to dig deep to find any mentions of treatment options and many didn’t work.

I’m writing this article for all the moms who like me may have never thought they would be affected by whooping cough so that you aren’t blindsided like I was.  Our experience with whooping cough has been so hard, its brought us to our knees every day begging God to heal our sweet little girl.  Even though shes on the mend three weeks later she still wakes up every hour with coughing fits and spasms that are terrible to witness. This is projected to last months. So what have we learned?  It is vital that your family have a health plan.  What do you do when someone gets sick?  Who and what is your trust in?  Why didn’t we learn from COVID that modern medicine doesn’t always work, that healing is more about supporting the bodies immune system that was divinely designed to fight and heal.  We cant live in fear. I believe we serve a living God who is a healer. Sometimes its not instant, it’s a process.  My trust is in Him above all things.

As always we are happy to be a resource.  We don’t have an instant healing solution but we are happy to share our experience.  Feel free to reach out anytime.