Going Vegan

"Eat your vegetables!" "Eat more fruit!" "You should have at least 5 - 8 services of fruits and vegetables a day." I have heard such things from Deborah (and my mom before her) for years now. She has always liked her veggies, even eating nothing but veggie meals such as sauteed spinach with mushrooms and onions served over rice or couscous. But I have to admit that my son and I have been a bad influence on Deb. We would plop down a sack full of Burger King burgers, hand Deb her obligatory salad and begin to chow down. Deb would inevitable sneak a peak at our fat, juicy burgers and ask for a bite. Extra crispy fried chicken was an extreme temptation for her. However, her routine has changed over the last month or so, and it is now Deb that is doing the influencing in regards to diet.

She has been about 99% vegan for about the last month (she still accepts a fork full of tuna salad occasionally.) And she has been increasing going raw vegan. One huge factor is keeping fresh fruit and vegetables in the house so that we can juice them for breakfast and sometimes after dinner. While I am nowhere close to being vegan (sorry PETA), I have eaten more vegetables and fruit while assisting Deb with her diet than I have in years and I can feel the difference. And somehow, getting five servings of plant life in an eight ounce glass works out better for me than plate fulls of the old green leafy.

I highly recommend to anyone to get there hands on a juicer to put some pep back into their diet. Twenty minutes, including veggie prep and clean up and we are juicing fresh, high quality juice. Our favorite combination right now is carrot-apple-ginger, but the list includes all kinds of combinations of celery, spinach, broccoli, radishes, and tomatoes.

Deb is also always finding raw veggie recipes, some of which are quite tasty. My favorite is a date paste that consists of blending a few dates, some raw cashews and water until smooth and serving over fresh fruit (strawberries, blueberries or mango, to name a few).

We have also recently had a raw cucumber "soup" (it was more like puree), that was made of celery, cucumber, avocado and olive oil.

Speaking of avocado, homemade guacamole is fantastic. Just blend a couple of avocados with tomato, onion and garlic. It is delicious and you save the $7/lb. that it cost in the store.

The funny part is getting my 13 year-old son to do his part and drinking the juice (not the Koolaid!) You would think that we were asking him to chug a beer the way he turns up his nose and makes faces at it. But even he is coming around.

Deb's digestion has been helped tremendously by her diet, relieving a lot of the aches and pains that sometimes accompanied meals full of saturated fats and cholesterol.

There is a movie coming out called "Food Inc" about the industrialization, profiteering, contamination and cruelty in America's food industry that I think will make a lot of people rethink their food choices. Maybe after I watch it, I'll go vegan myself. Until then, I have the perfect voice of food conscience right here at home.

Read and let there be no doubt left in you ... Deborah McCreath Akbar is healing NOW! I know that I have talked here about her legs moving, twitching or squeezing, but I have just witnessed the most definitive movement yet from her legs since we began this quest for a miracle. While sitting in her wheelchair (for now ;) ), her left leg spasmed forward off of the footrest. She reflexively pulled her foot back toward her footrest; we've seen this before, especially while in Dr. Issam Nemeh's office. This time, I encouraged her to keep going, to pull it all the way back. Slowly but surely she not only pulled it back to the footrest, but slightly up and all the way back to sit securely in place with no further spasms. We looked at each other in awe, as if looking to confirm in each others eyes what we both had witnessed. We shouted for joy and prayed further in gratitude for this major step.

We had been discussing some serious emotional issues and challenges and were praying deeply about them before this incident happened. We had been so involved in our conversation and prayer that it was about 3:30 a.m. Believe it or not, I had been telling Deb that all of the work, emotional and physical, that she needed to do in order to walk, had already been done. This was in response to being told on various occasions that this or that issue needed to be resolved in order to walk. One person would say she needed to work on forgiveness, another would focus on gratitude or banishing fear. All of the advice was good and helpful for Deb's personal development, but I reasoned that not everyone who could stand and walk was the picture of perfect emotional health and balance. I knew how much work Deb had done on herself and securely felt that she deserved to see progress, both inwardly and outwardly, from it. When God wants something to BE, IT IS, regardless of circumstances!

Our faith is being rewarded. Last night was just the beginning, stay tuned. Miracles are happening NOW, people.

Share the Joy (Happy Anniversary to Us!)

Deborah and I celebrated our wedding anniversary this week. There was time to reflect on all the challenges that we have faced over the years and it seems that with every new challenge, we learn more and more about each other and about ourselves.

We took time to reminisce this week about how much our lives and our beliefs have changed since we first met. It seems to me that it really has been one big, continuing journey.

While Deb's health has had a major impact on everything we do, there have been plenty of challenges and triumphs that were totally unrelated to her physical condition. There were the different parenting styles we brought to our blended family. There were differences in religion and cultural backgrounds that had to be reconciled. (With much patience and soul-searching, our views have both evolved to be much closer than they were in the beginning.) Sometimes, it's a wonder that we ever stayed together long enough to grow together. We did and it looks like we have as much growing as ever yet to come.

Wayne Dyer once said that your soul mate is not the person that you agree with 100% of the time, because no growth comes from that situation. He said that your soul mate was a person who could push your buttons to help you learn lessons that would ultimate help you to be at peace. If Mr. Dyer is right, then Deb and I are the very definition of soul mates! ;)

¡Te amo mucho, Milagro!

It will be four years this July since Deb quit taking prescription drugs of any kind! Hooray, Deb!!!

At varying times, she had been prescribed 12 different medications for everything from muscle spasms, bladder control, depression, lung capacity, recurring infections, and of course, pain.
She began looking for alternatives to prescription medicine after suffering chronic digestive side effects from taking the medications. Actually, half of the prescriptions were given to alleviate side effects caused by the other half.

We would visit the emergency room at least twice a year because of the pain it caused. The last time, when Deb insisted to know what she could do to stop this cycle of frustration once and for all, the doctor simply replied, "I don't know."

So, in typical Deb fashion, Deb set out to find the answer herself. She tried enzymes, herbal remedies, massotherapy and changing her diet. She wound up with a combination of the three that would alleviate the need for the prescriptions and their side effects. Her diet now consists of mostly vegetables and fruit, minimizing meat, salt or anything fried (she has a penchant for McDonalds french fries, though she has been six weeks without those as well.)

Deb found an excellent herbalist in Dr. Susan Deng. Dr. Deng is an Ohio State Board Certified Acupuncturist and Chinese Herbalist who has provided Deb with a customized mixed of herbs which she drinks daily in a tea. Dr. Deng also treats Deb with acupuncture on a monthly basis.

While she does not visit the massotherapist regularly any longer, her last therapist shared techniques with me for helping to keep her legs limber and her back straight.

So I just wanted to take this time to congratulate and encourage Deb on her endeavors to continuously improve her life.

Miracles Are Happening

Deb had a visit with Dr. Issam Nemeh on Thursday. If you recall, he is the doctor who practices Acute Meridian Acupuncture and is well known for the healing services that he performs (

http://www.drnemeh.com/home.htm). We told him about Deb's voluntary muscle movement of her thighs, hamstrings and gluts and he took it all in stride. From his examination and treatment, he noted Deb's increased muscle mass and tone and reflexivity, and he said that there was a measurable increase in nerve activity.

He said, only half jokingly, that he is shooting for her to be walking by July! It is so refreshing and uplifting to deal with a health care professional who is primarily guided by his faith. He is truly doing what he feels God has called him to do.

Dr. Nemeh also reminded us that Deb's healing is as much a matter of our state of mind as it is her of her physical healing. While he insists that her healing is inevitable now, ("It cannot be stopped now!", he said), he warned that the process can be slowed by negative thinking and emotions. His advice was to not focus on the things we see and hear around us, but to keep God in the forefront of our mind. It was also interesting to me that as a devout Christian, he said that people put too much emphasis on what religion someone belongs to and not enough on the persons faith.

It is always a rejuvenating experience visiting Dr. Nemeh and it renews our assured expectation that Deb will be walking again in the very near future.

Just a quick update

Just a quick note to keep everyone informed. Deb continues to make slight movements with her thighs. The movement hasn't gotten stronger yet, but she does it regularly now, everyday she is able to squeeze her legs at will. She will probably be embarrassed that I tell you that she has also started to squeeze her gluteus maximus. Don't tell I told you this, and no, there will NOT be video of that part. I do plan to have video of her legs soon.

DEB IS MOVING HER LEGS!!!

I know it has been almost a year to the day that I last posted here, but do not be mistaken, our hope and our faith have not waned. In fact, I am writing now to share with everyone Deb's exciting progress! She has actually begun to move the muscles in her legs! Very small movements, but very definitely conscious movement. She can just start to squeeze her thigh muscles, bringing her knees a little closer together when lying on her back with her legs outstretched.

Her moving her legs has not been a one time occurrence either. She has moved them about eight times over a little more than 2 weeks.

At first, I was even more excited than Deb was, being moved to tears at the site of my wife beginning to realize results from many long months of effort. At first it puzzled me a little why she didn't seem more ecstatic. She was definitely grateful and thankful to God, just not overwhelmed as I was.

After talking with her about it, it dawned on me, she had always visualized herself walking, and this was just a tiny step which, through her faith, she had been thoroughly expecting. This and the fact that she remembered having been able to walk helped to put it in perspective for her. I, on the other hand, had never in my life seen my wife move her legs at all! It was a first time experience for me, after having believed at one time that this was an impossibility.

Please continue to pray with us for Deb's continued journey toward her goal walking once again.