Occam's Razor

So I'm a real big fan of this principle which comes from a 14th Century English guy, William of Ockham. Basically, what he said then was that the simplest solution is usually the one that is right so let's try not to complicate things too much. So as much as I am SO GRATEFUL for the amazing care that has been given to my Grace and so many amazing things have been done to help her, I am still reminded day after day that at the end of the day, you have to be your own best health and wellness advocate. In some ways, like in disease prevention, I just feel like our medical system falls way short. I've always felt this way as I once went back and forth through the medical system with my own problems and after about 6 years of being misdiagnosed and not helped, I think I figured it out on my own. It was a "simple solution" but one totally missed by the many doctors I went to. Anyways, so sometimes I get confused at why doctors don't promote more natural, obvious solutions to problems. Like for instance, when Grace came home, for the first month she had a lot of blood in her stool. A LOT. It was visible and even when it wasn't visible she tested as very strongly positive for blood. The doctors tested her for things like salmonella, E. coli, and parasites. Now I'm thinking if my sweet girl who has been in a sterile hospital for 3 months has parasites, then we got serious problems with our hospitals. So using my simple brain, I am thinking, well, she had 6 weeks of chemotherapy not to mention heavy doses of strong antibiotics for weeks on end to keep her "well" so I'm thinking things in her GI tract probably are a little on the upheaval side. Let's do probiotics. So I went and bought powdered probiotics specifically for babies and started putting it in a bottle for her. Bingo. Within a week, our county nurse came and tested her stool. She was amazed. The blood was all gone. Our pediatrician keeps telling us what a great job we are doing with Grace and he seems a little amazed at these simple solutions we are using and that scares the crap out of me! I am thinking why didn't someone else think to do that? Obvious solution, right? I just think pharmaceutical drugs are thrown at us and kids way too much. We had a problem with Grace's scar. It got red, started swelling up, and filled with pus but it was more inflamed rather than a true infection. The first thing the doctors wanted to do was start her on antibiotics and I said, hey wait a minute. Is there another way? We just got her bloody stool issue cleared up. So starting her on antibiotics wasn't exactly what I wanted to do. So we tried.... Diligence. For weeks, we have diligently put antibiotic ointment on her scar, keeping it dressed in sterile gauze. After about a month, her scar is completely healed. No infection. No problem. My mind keeps running back to my first ultrasound where they said all looked good. This was way back when I kept gaining all this weight (i.e. now I know it was fluid because Grace's right kidney wasn't exactly working because of the tumor). I thought I must be having a huge baby! Anyways, I distinctly remember the technician saying this...."Well, the baby is measuring big but mostly because the abdomen area is measuring large" Well, knowing what I know now I'm thinking yeah, ya think it was large? There was a giant tumor in her tiny little belly. Sometimes I just think the medical field fails us and I wish I had been a little more skeptical then and a better advocate for myself knowing what I know now.