You haven’t heard from us for a while. We have been submerged. Health protocols of Dr. Mark Hyman. Owen has been dragged along with his mother and father into a new world of vegetable and fruit smoothies, serious water consumption, and relaxing Epsom salts and baking soda baths.

Generally speaking, over the years anything that one member of the Simons family has explored has impacted the rest of us.  Things I tried out for Owen’s health always tended to trickle over into the way I cared for the other kids, to Bronwyn and Freya’s annoyance. Wellness initiatives I began for Oskar or Edward have ended up changing how I eat, and helping me. The positive thinking philosophy The Secret that Scotty brought home with him was usefully deployed for parental sanity. And when Daric left Rich Dad Poor Dad by financial guru Robert Kiyosaki lying around the house, it resulted in our garage apartment and a new revenue stream. We are just those kind of people — not as skeptical as some – willing to go boldly into new protocols. And drag everyone else along for the ride. 

Owen is happy to have PGX packets added to his ever expanding collection, and he has taken to salads with great interest. Smoothies and hot baths are always fun. But detoxing isn’t always easy.  And it isn’t always pretty. 

Detoxing Owen is uphill work.  Just for starters, remember his love of plastic and tubbing. Turns out that not only is a nice hot bath filled with plastic not a brilliant idea for detoxing a body (since the warm wet very likely accelerates the release of chemical substances by one, and their absorption by the other), but turns out the tub itself could be releasing lead. Yes, lead. I assumed a porcelain tub was dah bomb for chemical stability — I had been worried about our acrylic tub! For whatever reason, some makers of cast iron porcelain tubs incorporate lead into their manufacturing process. Madness. Idiocy! So now you know. Aren’t you glad? Another thing to worry about. There are kits that can test your tub for it. Maybe I will buy a lead testing kit.  Maybe I don’t want to know.

It turns out that the real uphill work of detoxing may not be physical. Even getting a sluggish bowel functioning is easier than decreasing STRESS.  Or, to be more accurate, moving of bowels seems to be Owen’s particular detoxing challenge, but removal of toxic levels of psychic stress and worry from my life/mind is my own. How much does a breast cancer survivor want to know about the possibilities for toxicity in the environment? Or how many more wonderful plant products should be consumed to boost the body’s ability to fight cancer?  Whether the concern is improving mental function (and that means bowel function, they are deeply connected), or fending off diabetes, or beating cancer’s recurrence, a person can only eat so many kale salads and veggie smoothies, or swallow so many supplements. My research and reflection over the past weeks shows me one thing:  the most toxic thing really has to be anxiety — that is to say stress, and its buddies fear, tension, and anger.

Well, Owen has me beat for coping with stress. He does not do stress, as far as I know.  Maybe I cause him stress. But at stressful moments, his natural reaction is to laugh. And aggravating as it is for me in that moment, laughter has to be a far healthier reaction to the poop of life than anger and frustration.

Last week I caught Owen listening to French President Emmanuel Macron. I had been busy finishing dinner and getting it to the table when I looked up to see Owen on pause, all movement stopped. He was listening. His whole face lit up into a grin. Of course I stopped everything too, to try to hear what he was hearing.  President Macron was speaking English with a heavy French accent on the National Public Radio news. As far as I could tell this cracked Owen up. His eyes twinkled, his face grew bright, his laugh was infectious. Owen has always loved accents. And here was this guy, sounding like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast, right in the middle of Mom’s radio news! What a hoot! 

I don’t think Owen is Nationalistic, but his uses as a diplomat for peace could be limited to his capacity for infectious laughter. Maybe that would be enough. It is very healing.  And it is when I sit down to write about my life with Owen that I most benefit from the laughing, able then in reflection to see what is delightful or life-giving in what was just maddening or aggravating before. So maybe the best detoxing for me is here, at the keyboard, searching out the words to describe the essence of my life with Owen for you.

Namaste, dear readers. Here’s to your health.