After a tough 3 months (yes, 3 months!!) battling a seemingly never ending cough and runny nose, Min woke up on Sunday morning without a sniffle. Miraculously, no sniff, cough or sneeze this morning too. I can’t believe we’re finally in an illness free home for 2 days in a row.

On the other hand, her constipation is back. She only does a bowel movement every 6-7 days lately. After treating her cough acutely, now that I’ve started her back again on her constitutional remedy today I hope that she’ll start having normal bowel movements again.

But even though she’s been on acute remedies, we have seen other improvements as well. Min is now willing to take showers. What’s the big deal you ask? Previously just the sound or even the mention of a shower instead of a bath will set her off screaming. Not easy when we’re travelling and there’s no bathtub.

We also noticed a decided improvement in Min’s fine motor skills. From seemingly out of nowhere, she started writing and spelling her own name. Her handwriting, drawing and colouring skills improved amazingly in the past 2 months. She never showed much interest in writing, even her colouring was merely scribbling. Before, she couldn’t understand a single written word. But now with a bit of prompting, she can read simple words.

Her teacher also asked us if we did any extra coaching at home. I said no and asked her why. The teacher remarked that Min is very good at math for her age group. In fact, she enjoys her number work. She finishes her worksheet quickly compared to her classmates and even asks for more number work to do. Best of all, Min will now wear other clothes rather than just strappy dresses. She’ll even wear trousers now!

And as for May, you probably know of her struggles with fine motor skills and writing in particular. Writing is always much harder for her. May’s reading skills are beyond her age group, however her handwriting is below par. She tries hard but you can tell that it’s very challenging for her. The girls started classical homeopathy end of March, as you can see the difference in her handwriting is amazing then and 2 months later. In March, her handwriting was very poor and I could see the eraser marks where she had to correct her work again and again. Her handwriting, drawing and colouring was not up to par compared with other 5.5 year olds in her class. But by the month of May, you could see a much more confident and legible handwriting. Her drawing and colouring had also matured. All the credit goes to homeopathy and May herself.

In June, May wrote about the rainbow experience from our Tioman holiday. Please see here. Her teacher remarked that she did this independently. It was all her own sentence construction, writing and spelling. She even drew a photo of that happy time.

Since I started May on a test dose of yet another new constitutional remedy on Friday, she did 3 BMs in 3 consecutive days. Woo hoo!! Alas, it was just a temporary reprieve. For today, May started to complain of a sore throat. She also said she wasn’t feeling very well, her eyes and ears were sore too.

I checked her temperature, yup it’s 37.3 degrees Celcius, same as yesterday. Usually her temperature is 35-36C. I decided not to be too alarmed last night. But today, I can’t deny it anymore, much as I wish too. With a torchlight, I looked down her throat. Oh dear, her tonsils were swollen, red and inflamed. No wonder she complained of sore throat. She was lying down quietly watching tv, she looked tired and ill. She says the right side of her throat was more painful.

I immediately sent off a quick email to Michelle our homeopath in Australia. Hoping that she hasn’t left the office yet, that perhaps she’ll still have time to check her email and reply to us. In the meantime, I was debating of whether I should go rogue and try to find a remedy myself. As you know, it’s not in my nature to sit and do nothing. Most treatments and remedies still requires time and patience for it to work and I’m guilty of jumping the gun too soon at times. But May was in pain and I couldn’t stand by and not do anything.

So I searched my homeopathy books and the internet and I decided to try a particular remedy. I had a homeopathic kit at home and there are several good homeopathic remedy finder tools online that I’ve used a few times with good results. Nonetheless, it does not replace the help of an experienced homeopath.

Nat Mur was the suggested remedy so I gave May a dose. There didn’t seem to be any changes an hour later, but then homeopathy can work almost immediately, not at all or sometimes even days later. I looked down May’s throat with the torchlight again, it was still inflamed and swollen. Her throat and eyes were still sore. I needed to find an acute remedy now.

Thank goodness, Michelle replied in 2 hours. Based on the symptoms as well as her understanding of May overall, Michelle recommended Lycopodium 30C instead. I immediately gave May a dose. Wouldn’t you believe it, within 2 minutes, my little girl was jumping up and down playing with her sister!

So I asked May how her throat feels now. She replied “It feels better now” as she was dancing along to the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. When I checked her throat, her left side has reduced by 50% and her right side have gone down by 25%. She’s back to her usual upbeat cheerful self and chatting away. Earlier, her throat was too sore so she didn’t speak much. May is such a good girl, she’ll patiently open her mouth and stick out her tongue. Before, there was no way we could ever see inside her mouth.

It is disheartening that every time we try to treat the girls constitutionally, they always get yet another infection or illness which we had to treat acutely instead. But I’m so happy that we have seen many other improvements. Best of all, for the past 3 months we have not had to resort to allopathic medicine generally. Though when Min’s cough was at it’s worse, I was tempted to get back on the pharmaceutical train. Let’s hope May’s sore throat will blow over soon. And I sincerely hope Min’s bowel movement will get back to some semblance of normalcy now that we can finally start to treat her constitutionally. Hopefully, the runny nose and cough will stay away for good.