Forever Guessing

While we have more answers after GAPS than we do prior, there are still some times we have to just shrug and move on. Sometimes we just have no idea because there are too many factors. This time we are forced to stop and figure it out.

Last week Ellie had a fever and developed respiratory problems. She is still recovering. I blamed the pork. Then I thought it might be the elk broth which I had assumed was safe. Then her older sister got croup, and the age old question 'is this her first confirmed virus' surfaced again.

Investigation revealed the elk came from a ranch where they were supplemented with hay over the summer by staff. Stupid hay. Hay is an undefined combination of grasses used to feed animals. Hay is not a specific type of grass. Hay could be corn, or who knows what else. Stupid hay.

So now we wait for the symptoms to go away, and try to make a decision: retry the Elk or move on. Retry Elk and she fails shows us it was the elk, and will free up quite a bit of freezer space. Retry Elk and pass, and she has had her first confirmed virus, an amazing reassurance that her immune system is healing.

Normally the decision is not that hard. One wonderful thing about GAPS is that we generally don't talk in terms of food fails anymore. Instead, we say she isn't ready...YET. This time the decision feels different because she is begging for food and I want to get a move on. And we don't normally have hard respiratory reactions like this. In fact, this is the first since starting GAPS, which petrifies me that corn is indeed the culprit.

Corn. The one thing that may never go away.