Frequently Asked Questions

Time for another exciting episode in the Adventures of Naturopathic Medicine. When I see my lung specialist in December, I don’t know whether I’ll be bringing him a disease-free patient, but I’m confident I’ll be bringing him a less exhausted one. Some days I even skip my nap like a grown up. And I cough only enough to know I’m not home-free yet.

There are a few questions I get asked a lot, about the food plan. Being three months in hardly makes me an expert, but here are my answers.

“How do you know you’re getting enough protein?”

I’m getting plenty of protein from beans and nuts, but did you know spinach, mushrooms, oatmeal, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, and many fruits also provide protein? I didn’t, but it makes sense when you remember the strongest animals on our planet are herbivores. Where do they get their protein?

“What about calcium?”

Spinach and other leafy green vegetables are loaded with the stuff.

“Are you going to be on this diet FOREVER?”

Yes and no. I’ll be on it until I’m either well or I give up, whichever comes first. But honestly, I’m enjoying the food and how it makes me feel so much I can’t imagine ever going back, at least not totally.

“So...what DO you eat?”

Lots of salad, stir-fry, and soup. Admittedly, some days it seems every dish I make uses the same ingredients, but in different proportions with varied methods of preparation. Breakfast is homemade granola or cooked oatmeal loaded with extras and topped with almond milk. Snacks are fruit, veggies, popcorn, or unsalted tortilla chips with hummus, bean dip, or guacamole.

“Isn’t it hard?”

I got through the first month by telling myself, “If you think of this as food, it’s going to be hard. But if you think of it as medicine, it’s wonderful.”

I got through the second month by reminding myself I’m the only one who can choose what goes in my mouth, and everything I put there holds power. Will I give my body something it has to fight against or will I give it something to make my body say, “Yes! I can work with this”?

In my third month, the cravings for meat, bread, sugar, coffee, and cheese became increasingly rare. I can walk into Sobeys and just enjoy the bakery smells—like flowers or perfume—without wanting to eat it.  It really does get easier—but not without God’s strength.

“Do you ever cheat?”

Yep. I’m attending a wedding this weekend and intend to eat whatever’s offered.

I’m not making this up.

Daily, I drink what I affectionately call my pond scum. It’s made from running one apple, three carrots, two celery stalks, and five large leafy greens through the juicer. My favorite leafy green thing is Swiss Chard.

On Labour Day, I realized I was out of pond scum and needed to do some juicing. I had all the ingredients except the chard. But the stores were closed, and the next day was going to be busy so I thought, oh well. Guess I’ll survive a day or two.

Then I went outside and Linda from across the back fence, who had earlier offered me zucchini, said, “Oh, hi Terrie. Sorry I don’t have any zucchini for you today after all. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in some Swiss Chard?”

I can’t pretend to understand why God takes care of these crazy little details while sometimes the big things appear to drag on forever unaddressed. But I do know this: you can’t tell me He doesn’t have a sense of humour. (And thank you, Linda!)

PS. Congratulations to Barb Knott of Portage who won last week’s free book draw.

Why Dyscalculia is easier to spell than 2045739418

Are you in the habit of dialing all ten digits for local calls yet? Me neither. No matter how painlessly MTS eases us into it, I don’t think it will become habitual until long after it’s absolutely required. 

It has always been cause for a party when I dial a phone number correctly on the first try, even with only seven digits. Now I must remember ten? Somebody shoot me.

I’ve long held the opinion that there are three types of people in the world: those who understand numbers and those who don’t.

Words make sense. They mean something. Numbers are like ancient hieroglyphics—meaningless without an interpreter. My brain contains memory space for precisely three phone numbers, and right now that space is occupied by home, work, and 911. I consider it God’s good humour that landed us the simplest-to-remember phone number in the history of the world nearly 30 years ago. We dare not move. This probably explains why I don’t own a cell phone, too.

As for calculators, I can punch in the same column of numbers three times and find three different answers. I just keep at it until I get the same number twice and go with that.

When my friend Gayle told me there is a name for this mathematical deficiency (Dyscalculia), I felt so much better. It always helps to give your problem a name.

You can imagine the trepidation I felt when I learned the Continuing Education program I’m working through for my job included two Accounting courses. I left them for last. Last fall was time to tackle the first, and I looked for excuses to procrastinate. But with the two courses offered alternate years only and time running out, I dived in.

I studied like crazy. Saturday mornings were spent banging my head on the kitchen table with textbooks, computer, pencil, and reams of paper spread out before me. I did every exercise and some of them twice.

Yes, there were tears.

Lucky for me, I married a genius. He helped me figure out a couple of problems when I had no more hair left to pull. When even he found them puzzling, I felt much better.

It didn’t hurt to have our own Nettie Neudorf as the instructor, either.

When my grade came back from U of M in the spring, I nearly flipped. A-plus! Now there’s a number I understand.

Was it a mistake? A fluke? A miracle? I’m going with that last thing.

This month I’m embarking on the second, still more challenging Accounting course. If I make it, I will graduate in May with a Certificate in Manitoba Municipal Administration. Having not graduated from anything since high school 147 years ago, I am pretty pumped about this prospect. Already considering what I’ll wear. Is that counting my chickens before they hatch? If so, I’d better count again.

Here’s what I do know. This column is #52 in my second year of writing it, which makes it an anniversary and time for a give-away. If you would like a free, autographed copy of Chicken Soup for the Soul: Married Life! email me at terriejtodd@gmail.com with the words “Book Draw” in the subject line. (I wrote one of the stories in this book.) All email senders’ names will go into a draw and one will be drawn on Monday, September 17, at 3:00 PM.

Just my way of saying “thanks for reading.”

On Becoming a Grandmother

In honour of Grandparents’ Day this weekend, I’m sharing a story I wrote upon the birth of my firstborn’s firstborn.

I thought I was prepared.

I was a mother, after all. I already knew what it meant to love someone so much it hurt. I understood the old adage that to be a parent is to walk around forever with your heart outside your body. I had written in my journal, revealing all the emotions I’d discovered tag-teaming in my heart: happiness, melancholy, anxiety, joy, anticipation, worry. I had seen the ultrasound pictures. I’d crocheted a soft, fuzzy blue blanket, patiently undoing all my bungled stitches and doing them over so it would be a perfect square. I had memorized the verses in Psalm 139 that tell how God wonderfully forms us in our mother’s womb. I had prayed daily for this child and for his parents since I learned of his existence. I had written letters to his mom and dad, assuring them how proud I was of them both, how they would be excellent parents.

I’d prayed for myself, too. I’d wrestled with the idea that I was going to be a grandmother. Shouldn’t I be wiser first? Or sweeter? Or at the very least, a better cook? How exactly did one cram for this event? I had even admitted to myself that I would soon be sleeping with someone’s grandfather. That idea took a little getting used to, let me tell you!

I had bragged to my friends. I had celebrated with my mother. I had gifted my daughter-in-law with maternity clothes and bought the most irresistible little stuffed puppy for the baby.

The day he was born, I rode along with his other grandparents to the hospital to meet our mutual little descendent for the first time. We were told to wait in the hallway while the nurses finished up whatever they were doing with him and his mother in the room. Given the hospital rules, I fully expected my first sight of my little grandson would be in his plastic baby bed and I was prepared.

But when I turned around, I instantly knew that no amount of groundwork could have prepared me for that moment. Instead of the expected baby bed, I was beholding my own firstborn carrying his firstborn in his arms.

Keegan and Me on the day he was born in 2007

I came unglued. Part of me was carried back 26 years to the day I first laid eyes on my son. But those 26 years had passed in an instant, and here I was looking at the next generation, with the same dark skin and the same head full of thick, dark hair. He was beautiful and I was smitten. I didn’t even try to check the tears running down my cheeks as I held him in my arms and hugged his dad as tight as I could with the baby between us. What a cherished moment!

This little boy is now in Kindergarten and has two little brothers. Every day brings new adventures, new things to learn, new memories to make, and new opportunities to wonder at the marvelous work of our Creator. These little guys have taught me that sometimes stopping to watch ducks is more important than getting in out of the rain. They’ve uncovered my own impatient ways, the ones I thought I had overcome but now realize the opportunities to demonstrate patience have only become less frequent. They’ve reminded me that time spent cuddling a sleeping baby in a rocking chair trumps pretty much anything.

Most of all, I’ve come to realize that no matter how hard I tried, I could not have prepared to love someone so profusely, or to learn so much from someone so small. 

Happy Grandparents Day!

Your Worship, Let the Record Show...

With fewer City Council meetings during the summer months, I play catch-up in my job at City Hall, tackling tasks there isn’t time for the rest of the year. This summer, I’ve been working my way through Council minutes of past years, updating our resolutions list to improve efficiency.

Portage la Prairie City Hall

If you think Council minutes are not riveting reading, think again. Didn’t you always want to know which company won the bid for the supply of Hydrofluosilicic Acid in 1999 or who applied for a variation to allow the construction of a deck in their backyard in 2001?

Once in a while, I come across a tidbit of information in these public documents that is interesting only in hindsight. Go back far enough, and you can see where grants were approved for renovations to buildings that no longer exist. You see names of Council members and citizens who have died. You see the names of people who worked hard to develop our library, our arts and sports facilities, and so on. Their names stay on record.

In the Bible, there’s a cool story about a king who can’t sleep one night and asks for these types of records to be fetched and read to him. I guess he considered them a sure cure for insomnia. Instead—surprise, surprise—he discovers a good deed done for the kingdom but gone unrewarded. The king promptly sets out to rectify the situation. Mordecai is rewarded and the story’s villain is justly humiliated, all because the king decided to read those records late one night.

I keep hoping I’ll come across something cool like that in the City’s council minutes. I could go to Council and say, “Looky here. In 1981, Jerry Maksymyk single-handedly diverted an army of man-eating lobsters away from Portage la Prairie and saved the whole town from a certain and gruesome demise. Overnight. With nothing more than a homemade dulcimer. While wearing only pajamas.”

And Council would erect a 7 foot tall statue of Jerry and his dulcimer in the centre of Heritage Square for future citizens to admire forever. Children would ask, “Was he really that tall?” And parents would solemnly nod. Eventually, the Legend of Jerry Maksymyk would circle the globe, and we’d all enjoy a holiday every year on Jerry Maksymyk Day. Someone would write a musical called Jerry and the Incredible Carnivorous Crustaceans. It would have its world debut at the William Glesby Centre and young performers all over the planet would vie for the role of Jerry. Council might even spring for some new jammies for Jerry.

Just an example.   

               

Ever wonder what it might be like to have such a record of your own life? Every choice you’ve ever made, forever engraved with the date and either “Defeated” or “Carried” stamped boldly on the bottom? It could certainly settle a few arguments. Get you out of some pickles. Maybe even win you some rewards. 

Or not.

Believe it or not, such a list exists, and I ain’t talkin’ Santa Claus. It includes things you’ve forgotten and things you wish you could forget. Things deserving of reward and things you’d give anything to erase from the record.

There’s good news on both counts. But don’t take my word for it—I’ve been known to make stuff up. Grab the nearest Bible and check out II Corinthians 5:10, Psalm 130:3 & 4, and Romans 8:1 & 2.

It’s in the record.