Hello again and thanks for joining me for this week's post. Although I will still be sharing my RA story. I wanted to start sharing with you some of the things that I have learned along the way regarding health and wellness, because that is the primary focus of this blog. Today, I'm going to focus on one of my favorites, honey and cinnamon. I've done some research and found that honey and cinnamon have a lot of benefits. I don't just use this combination for my RA. It has many uses. I'm including a link to a site that describes the various ailments that it treats ( http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/honeyandcinnamon.html ). I love to use honey and cinnamon when my son T.J is coming down with a cold. When I first notice that he is coughing or sneezing, I mix 1 tablespoon of lukewarm raw honey with one teaspoon of Ceylon cinnamon stirred in a glass above a pan of boiling water until it is a liquid or syrup. Then I spoon feed it to him. He loves it. I give it to him every evening right before he goes to bed until I see the symptoms go away. I also use it for myself and my husband when we start to feel like we are getting a cold. We don't even use cough syrup anymore, because the honey and cinnamon does the job. I also use cinnamon and honey for my RA. It is a great anti-inflammatory and it also helps with the pain. I take one teaspoon of cinnamon and two tablespoons of honey in hot water twice a day. I have definitely seen a difference with my RA since I have started taking this mixture over a year ago.I just want to point out that this is only a part of the regiment that I take for my health and is not a miracle cure, but it is quite effective when used correctly as a part of a balanced diet. On a side note, I get my raw honey from Whole foods and from Ohio Honey Co. (http://www.ohiohoney.com). For my cinnamon, I use the Whole foods brand of Ceylon cinnamon. I look forward to sharing some of the other things that I have picked up during my journey. If anyone has any questions or would like to discuss or share their stories, or just have a comment about my post, please feel free to share. I would love to hear from you!! As I have said before this isn't just about me, but about everyone. There is also a link include on the blog now to sign up for it if you would like to follow it and I send updates weekly through Journey of Wellness RA Facebook page. Thanks for all your support!!
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Today is Thankful Thursday and this week in honor of our anniversary, I chose to highlight my husband Todd. I am truly thankful to the Lord for meeting my God-fearing, incredibly smart, caring, and mechanically inclined best friend.
.Hello again family and friends and thanks for joining me for this week's post. Your continued support is appreciated. I'm posting it a little later than I wanted, but things have been busy.Yesterday was my wedding anniversary of 14 years and I thought that it would be fitting to share our story. Picking up where my last post left off, even though at this point in my life I didn't understand what God was doing, I put my trust in him and focused on the ways that he was working in my life. I became active in church and was elected the young people's president and started working with the youth at the church I attended. I also received my minister's license during this period of time. The more that I focused on God, the less frustrated that I was with my situation, because I knew that it was in God's hands. I started to fill that I had a purpose in my life. Even though I was still learning to deal with my RA diagnosis, it was no longer the primary focus of my life. It was during this period of my life that I met my husband Todd. I met him at my older brother Tony's wedding. We talked and became friends. As our friendship grew, I decided to tell him about my RA. I was hesitant to tell him, because I felt that it would change the way that he saw me as a person. I was relieved once I told him, because it didn't change his view of me at all. In fact we started dating and around nine months of dating, we got engaged. We knew in our hearts that we were meant for each other. On September 16, 2000, we became husband and wife and together we continued on this journey. I'm grateful that he is a part of this journey with me and it had to be God that put us together to handle the things that I have faced with my RA. I just wanted to tell Todd that I am thankful for all the things that you have done and the support that you have given me throughout this journey. You rock babe! :)
Hey my peeps!! A little throwback Thursday love for you, a picture of my family. My brothers Kevin, Johnny, and Tony (from left to right) who helped raise me and my twin sister Melinda (far left) when my mother Priscilla Williams passed away when we were around five or six years old. A HUGE thanks and much appreciation from the bottom of my heart for making sure we were always taken care of !! Decided to start my first tradition for my blog and call it Thankful Thursday, where I call out individuals who have made an impact on my life and say thanks.
Hello family and friends. Thank you for joining me again. I would like to start off by telling you about how I was first diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and how it affected me. My blog will not specifically focus on me and my RA all the time, but I felt that I needed to share my story, so that you would understand my perspectives and what prompted me to make the changes that I have.
I used to run track when in junior high school and I was injured. I was running a relay and towards the end of the race, I stumbled and fell on my knee. I don't really remember all of the specifics of that event because it was so long ago but that was the beginning of my issues. I remember waking up one morning shortly after that event and my right knee was swollen and I couldn't really walk on it. I went to the emergency room and got it checked out. There was fluid on the knee. The blood work determined that I had RA. I wasn't upset at the diagnosis, but it was difficult, because I had to get around with braces and crutches for a while. As I was on the braces and crutches for a while, I wasn't sure what my future held. Being a teenager you don't realize the kind of affect that it will have on you as you get older, and you don't think that when you receive a diagnosis like that, that it will be something that you'll have to deal with for the rest of your life. At that time, I thought that it would get better. I still wanted to participate in sports in high school like volleyball and basketball, but I ended up going to a vocational school and taking up clerical classes. After high school, I worked in retail as a cashier and in sales. Working in retail, you generally stand a lot and can be on your feet for extended periods of time. My left knee started to have issues. I was depending on my left knee so heavily after the accident that most of my weight was on the left knee causing injury to it.The insurance provided by the companies that I worked for was not great as I only worked part-time. I was not able to afford the prescriptions that I needed and I had to rely on Aleve and other over the counter remedies. These remedies took away the pain, but only for a short period of time. It would treat some of the symptoms, but not really the disease. It was getting harder for me to get around. Harder to do the things that I enjoyed. I was beginning to feel frustrated with my situation. I started to pray about the situation and question God about what was happening to me. In my prayer time, I started to realize that what I was going through wasn't about me. God gave me the strength to push through the pain that I faced everyday, so that I depended on him more than I ever had before. This was the beginning of the journey that I didn't realize that Lord was taking me on. Hello, and thank you for joining me on the Journey of Wellness. I was inspired to start this blog by my desire to reach out to others to make positive changes in their lives and health and in my own life and health as well. I have als
o decided to share this first post with my Facebook family and friends, so that they will be aware of my new blog (Journey of Wellness). I would like to share my life experiences with having Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) and what I have learned to be a light to others and to encourage others to make changes that they may not have considered or have been putting off whether they have this disease or not. As I sha re with you, if you have questions or would like to share your experiences with me, please feel free. (We are in this together) Since I am new to blogging, I am going to try to post on a weekly basis and I am going to start from the beginning of my story. Revealing little by little how my journey has encompassed the mental, the spiritual, and the physical aspects of life. I will share with you scriptures that have helped me through some of my harder times. The things that I have learned through trial and error as well as the things that I have picked up in my research. I pray that you will join and support me on this journey. |