I'm back from a week on the road.  A little bit sore from the van seat but otherwise filled to the brim with new memories from the state that raised me---Texas.  East Texas.  

My kids got to stay at their grandmother's new homestead there off 59.  She says they kept her hopping but she had a lot of fun with them.  I enjoyed visiting her new place.  They've already planted a garden.  So had my friend from college days.  We visited them in the Dallas Fort-Worth area (where we first met and where she has recently returned).  This has been the perfect spring for planting.  And the wildflowers are the best show I've seen in many years.  The paintbrush were glorious.  We don't have paintbrush where I live now (Alabama) but I grew up with it.  Also, the milk thistle is growing in abundance and extremely tall this year.  We saw them all the way from Texas back to Alabama too.  I'm not sure how to harvest it and dry it for tea but it would be worth the trouble.  Milk Thistle is a very healing herb.  I've used it in the past after the birth of my second son and when my right side hurt persistently.  Milk Thistle finally cured the pain after my doctors couldn't find a reason for it. 

Speaking of cures.  My five-year-old got sick on the way to Texas.  Slowed down our arrival by one day even.  He was miserable in the car so we stopped over in Louisiana.  Knowing how helpful activated charcoal is in the treatment of all types of inflammation and nausea---I decided to ask the pharmacist if they had any for sale.  He directed me to the pet department where they sell granules.  Turns out I like to use the granules better than the powder.  When used in bottled water with a certain type of top---the granules can work to purify the water without being swallowed (tops with a t-type construction).  At my Mom's house we made activated charcoal poultices from coffee filters sewn together after filling with powder (she had the powder type).  These are VERY useful when treating severe abdominal pain we discovered. 

Actually, I've read of reports in the past of people who've used these type poultices to cure abdominal pain.  But, until this week, I'd never seen such a dramatic result from two applications.  My son had been screaming out in pain from his belly.   The first poultice she made was only about 4 inches wide.  He fell asleep after a little while and seemed better but then he woke up in pain again.  Once I returned from my trip back to her house, I suggested we use the coffee filters making the poultice about 4 times as big.  After placing the moist charcoal filled compress on his belly and wrapping it with saran wrap (snugly but loosely iykwim) he was able to relax and fall asleep in his booster seat as we drove to the nearest ER where my sister works. 

Once we arrived, my son was already well.  He was perky and happy asking for FOOD.  The doctor didn't even feel the need to do any workup since he was doing so well.  He joked that when he ever took his kids to the ER he told them that they had better stay sick!  "Not me!" I said.  I'd much rather get my child well before they had to have some kind of conventional medical intervention.   Since the area of his pain had been right over the belly button---that indicated the appendix may well have been the culprit.  I've always suspected the appendix probably operates in a way to help prevent infections that could otherwise arise from the high amounts of toxins in the colon.  Mine's been removed by the surgen who badgered me into allowing him to remove it back in my twenties.  That was before they understood the appendix really does have a purpose.  I always knew it did.  What kind of Creator would design a body with extra unnecessary parts?