CORDYCEPS - Can this fungus help elders with dementia and middle aged women with hot flashes?

I'm not really sure how I came across CORDYCEPS. I know I read about it on the internet when I was researching dementia and diabetes.

The totally cool thing about CORDYCEPS is it's a mushroom... oh, I love mushrooms. I could tell stories of when I was a little kid and walking through Harold Parker State Forest with my dad looking for wild mushrooms.

Ok... I'm telling the story. I'm feeling nostalgic. Must be the bottle of wine that I just consumed.

Back in the 1960s and 1970's my dad was alive. He was big on family and sticking together. He preached this to my siblings and me constantly. I can remember like it was yesterday, him saying to all of us, "your family are your only friends. stick together." I was an impressionable kid who thought my father was freaking God... I took his words literally.

Hey siblings and cousins, aren't you glad I took him literally? I love you guys. Ok, the wine is definitely kicked in at this point. Can you feel my big hug going out to every one reading this post? Thank you! Here's a blast of love.

Let's go back to 1968... little Susie is walking through the woods with Ed, my dad. Wicked awesome guy. I carried the paper bag and he carried the little paring knife.

(Dad in Harold Parker, he just found some lilacs and was bringing my mom a bouquet of flowers.)

Along our walks, he always encouraged dreaming. He'd tell me great stories about our family name. We were Catholic, I went to Catholic school... he told me that we were Jewish. The story my dad told me was pretty cool. It made me so proud to be a Jarmulowicz.

My dad told me that our family ancestors were Jewish. They were all in some persecution camp together, chained together with holes in their wrists. One day, the Jewish chain gain escaped and ran threw the Black Forest. Somehow they got the chains off their wrists... I never asked how, I just thought this was so darn cool that my ancestors escaped!

They all somehow ended up in Turkey. My father told me that they ended up in Jarmulo, which meant "the beginning of a new life." My entire life I believed this story. I believed that my family were Jewish and we escaped persecution. They all changed their name to Jarmulowicz as a solidarity toward eachother.

I remember telling my nephew Joe the story of our family. We even wrote the story together and he submitted it as a school project. Joe, if you are reading this, do you remember the story that I passed down as I remembered it from Grampy?

Let's fast forward to 1990 something.

My dad has been dead for awhile and I have my entire family up in my little apartment in Nahant for Thanksgiving. We cooked a 30 something pound turkey that Ann raised up in Maine. Oh, turkey's are nasty, didn't feel bad eating it. The turkey barely fit into my apartment sized oven.

Jay was there... my dad's only living sibling.

Jay, is super Catholic. Now, she makes up rules as she goes along. It's pretty funny.

Anyway, at this big family gathering I was talking about the story that my dad had told me over and over again when I was a kid. I loved the story.

Jay shattered my beautiful picture that my dad had so eloquantely painted for me over the decades.

She said, "That's not how it happened! The Russian soldiers knocked door to door and asked every one their names. Our name was Heklefsky (or something like that) The soldiers were checking doors for the Jews and making them go to war and fight."

So... my dad totally knew how to tell a story. Jay, she now denies everything about our Jewish heritage.

Who knows the truth. I love my dad's story so I'm going to keep on believing.

Ok... that's just one story my dad told me. Often he would tell me that I could do anything that I put my mind toward doing. He was a brilliant man. I'm fortunate that he went back to school to get his GED when I was 10. I loved studying with him.

He taught me how to see auras. I remember him lining us up along the white wall in our dining room and making us visualize our auras moving. He instructed all of us to watch for the aura and say where we saw it moving. I loved this "game."

Mushroom picking, it was a fun time for me. I got to know my dad. I was the perfect age... very fortunate. I learned the importance of family from my dad.

Dad died in 1979 from Pancreatic cancer (was in HFC?) I promised my mom that I'd take care of her when she was an old lady. I was 19. She never believed me.

Fast forward to today.

My mom has been living with me for 11 years. Her health sucked for so long. None of us ever expected her to live so long.

I studied all sorts of alternative healing and used it on myself and my mom.

Now... my mom has a problem with dementia episodes. Me... hot flashes at night.

I found this fungus, CORDYCEPS which is from China. I found a supplier in the US - Aloha Medicines (love the name) and ordered some. I'm going to see how it works with hot flashes and if it helps the people go away that my mom sees.

It does help lower blood sugar and cholesterol. More and more I'm beginning to understand that low Blood Glucose and Cholesterol are important to keep the "people" away.

As I was researching Cordyceps, I found this YouTube video. I thought it was so darn cool... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCOQ0VU24xw

What is Cordyceps Sinensis? You can read more about it here... looks like it's natures Viagra. Seriously, I am beginning to realize more and more that everything we need to heal our ailments is found in nature. Everything begins with food.

My dad and my Babci tried to teach me about mushrooms as a kid. I tried to learn but I was such a little kid. Every mushroom looked good to me. Babci used to peel the skins off the red mushrooms. Sponge mushrooms she loved to dry and then would cook them at Christmas time. Then their were these woody looking mushrooms in a golden color that were prized, she called the opienkeys (not sure how to spell the Polish word.) Marty always found the cluster in the woods, he walked with my mother and always "won" the quarter from Babci.

Mushrooms are awesome. I love how they are interconnected with the trees. I wonder if the trees are the antenae that attract whatever needs to be healed on the planet and brought forth into mushrooms?

I do remember a special mushroom my brother Ed (God rest his soul) shared with me and then we went to see "Ghost Busters." I never laughed so hard. My brother moved to the other side of the theatre because he didn't want anyone to know that I was with him. True sibling love.