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Arete Warriors – spirit, mind, body strong
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She Looked Healthy. Her Bloodwork Said Otherwise.
If you know my Nadia, you know the girl is endless energy. She’s athletic, (too) brave, and always looking for a physical challenge.
Don’t get me wrong, she’s an introvert who also loves being at home. She’s an avid reader, writes elaborate stories, and LOVES to just snuggle.
But as I’ve mentioned before, this fall she missed 10 days of school and over the Christmas break I could barely get her out of her pajamas.
Let me start by admitting this – I secretly admire those mothers who let their kids tough it out. I love the stories of people overcoming hardships when they were young to become the strong, bad-ass adults that they are today.
I often worry my kids have it too easy.
But as I’ve also mentioned, I was miserable for 7 years with unexplainable illness.
I hate fatigue. I despise unnecessary suffering.
Being 12 is hard enough – navigating a tidal wave of hormonal and emotional changes.
On top of residing in a body being remodeled, we’d recently moved from the only home she’d ever known, changed schools, and started a new diving endeavor that takes up 20 hours a week (when we make all the practices).
Because of all this, I did wait longer than I would have otherwise. “It’s just stress.”
“She could be growing.”
“Maybe it’s puberty.”
But she became less excited about diving, asked to leave Parkour early more than once, and after finding her on the floor (above pic) one morning too tired to continue, I had had enough.
A few details that are important to this story:
Nadia has never been a good sleeper. She will sometimes still come into our room at 2am complaining that she has not gotten to sleep yet. 🥺
Hypothyroidism runs rampant in my family so I have been watching for the symptoms since my kids were born.
On top of my family’s history, Ali’s side has Hashimoto’s.
I used to sell nutritional supplements. I am a huge believer in filling in our nutritional gaps, especially for a girl who’s love language is SUGAR.
I feel like I have been chasing Nadia around her whole life, begging her to take her vitamins.
As far as her enthusiastic relationship with sugar, I’ve gone through seasons of just letting her have it, hoping she’d realize on her own that it didn’t feel good to consume so much.
Then I’d go back to policing it since she clearly wasn’t capable yet of using good judgement. 🤨
Everyone has an opinion on this one and I tried them all.
I’d been leaning to the side of letting her be the boss of her body when we finally got the blood work done.
Let’s Prepare – the warm up
Her blood work came back with MANY “areas of opportunity”.
Her A1C (a measure of your average blood sugar over the last 3 months) came back in the pre-diabetic range. 😳
As my sister (a teacher) pointed out, this is probably far more common than we think since it is not often tested in kids.
We quickly began reigning that in after Nadia heard the news. She knows what Type 1 Diabetes means and she was scared.
I’ll open myself up to being judged for this, but I was ok with that. 😬 I needed her to WANT to change her behavior.
I noticed an improvement in her from this adjustment alone, but she also had some low thyroid numbers that I was eager to tackle.
It took a while to get in to the doctor as it was holiday (and flu) season, and a few days more to get the meds on board, but 3 days after starting the thyroid meds, my baby girl was making a strong comeback. 🥳
She was also low in Vitamin D (common), magnesium and zinc. This one annoyed me as it was VERY avoidable 🤨 but she has now learned from someone other than mom why the vitamins are important and although I still ask every day, she’s getting better at taking them.
Lastly, there were some markers suggesting toxicity of sorts.
Nadia has never been real “regular” and has complained of tummy aches since she was old enough to communicate it.
Again, I’ve been chasing this girl around her whole life with remedies… I’ve tried fiber, probiotics, more water, magnesium, child’s pose… you name it.
But Nadia is fast, busy and hard to catch (and convince). And sometimes, I would just run out of gas and give up.
Do you feel me mama? Sometimes, we want it more than they do for themselves and it’s an exhausting game to play.
Let’s Work – the exercise
Nadia’s health is private, but what we learned from it shouldn’t be. If our struggle can help even one of you out there, it’s worth sharing.
I really do believe in learning from others. Here is what I (re)learned.
Trust your instincts. No one knows your kids like you do. No one knows what they NEED like you do.
It’s exhausting but be the advocate you need to be to make the necessary changes. I’d complained about ALL these issues before to her general doctor. It wasn’t until we went to this integrative medicine place that they actually cared enough to dig for the answer.
We are mothers and we know A LOT, but we don’t know EVERYTHING. Maybe you need to recruit some help (outside professional voices).
I had actually considered and attempted to employ every potential solution that was eventually needed.
This feels good AND bad.
I get to say “I told you so” and my ego feels all sorts of validated, but I had not in fact been able to implement the actual solution without the help of professionals.
As I’ve mentioned before, as frustrating as it is, our kids sometimes need to hear it from someone other than us.
Our kids need the same foundational health habits we do, but they don’t yet have the self-awareness or logic to self-correct.
We can wake up after a rough night and say, “Okay, bedtime needs to be earlier tonight.”
Our kids are still learning to connect the dots. Depending on their age, they’re not great at recognizing or communicating, what their bodies are asking for.
And yes… it feels unfair. Managing our own health is hard enough! Now we’re responsible for theirs too?
Not forever.
The goal is to teach them how to manage themselves.
Natural consequences are great teachers, but learning happens faster when we pair the suffering with open conversation. We want to help them notice cause and effect so they will be motivated to pay attention and make better choices on their own.
I’ve always taught Nadia to say, “I’m the boss of my body.” But truly, I still boss a lot. My goal is to work myself out of this job.
Reaching our full potential is difficult work mamas. Feeling GOOD makes it a little more attainable.
