Yesterday I went to Whole Foods - my moment in the sun - Don watched the boys because I had to do some serious grocery shopping.  And wouldn't you know - I left my darn wallet in the shopping cart.  Not just in the cart - but outside in the cart in the parking lot!  I didn't notice until I got home - sped back there (20 minutes away) praying I'd find it.  My life flashed before me - credit cards to cancel, a new drivers license to get, cash gone, gift cards gone, a Costco membership to renew, on and on  and on.  "Why didn't I photocopy everything in my wallet like they said to do on the news?!?"  I ranted to myself.  It will never be there.  I'm doomed.  I ran into the store - searched everywhere - got every employee to search with me - and I was told at the end, "sorry - we'll call you if it turns up."  I said, "if it's not here now I doubt it will be."  I knew my fate.  And it was my own fault.  Isn't that the WORST!?!  I skulked toward the exit when one stock boy said, "did she say she lost a wallet?"  I turned...."YES!"  He pointed to the lost and found drawer.  DUH.  It was opened to reveal my precious, beautiful, blessed wallet!  I hugged him - all 5 feet of him with his long hair, ear piercing that was the size of a hubcap, stubbly face...I didn't care.  Suddenly my world had gone from black doom to bright sunny skies.  I skipped out of Whole foods with a new lease on life.  Amazing how much we take for granted the conveniences - like having our wallet.  Man was I happy.  Still am every time I look at it! 

We had a good weekend - only 1 horrible seizure - the rest were little ones.  Whew.  Watched a video and ordered pizza friday night after the boys went to bed.  Saturday Don ran 14 miles in preparation for a marathon in Bellevue coming up.  I went to a nutritionist about Cody.  Then Don went to our church's Men's Steak Out where the guys eat lots of meat and talk about guy stuff.  My brave friend Kim invited me and the boys over during the Steak Out and she made me a yummy steak dinner too!  Sunday I paid bills, did laundry, cleaned, you know the drill.  We all do it usually one of our weekend days.

But back to the nutritionist.  I'm always fascinated by what I learn.  She works in tandem with the DAN Dr. (defeat autism now) we see.  They both dovetail a biomedical approach to helping kids with autism (but the approach really helps any child with health challenges.)  She's helping me renovate Cody's diet based on the Dr's findings through testing Cody's hair, blood, stool, and urine.  Today I finally finished the last test and sent it in to the lab.  Urine to test Cody's "peptide" level, and ION levels.  Whatever those mean!  So far we've gotten the results back from the food sensitivities test.  Cody's got a sensitivity to avocado, oats, peanuts, dairy, sesame, ...and a few others.  Of course many are what he eats every day which the nutritionist said is common...these kids develop an intolerance to the staples in their diets.  Interesting.  One of the side effects of Topamax is weight loss and Cody is a string bean already so I shared my concern with her - I pump avocados into him hoping to fatten him up and now I need to pull back on them.  She had a great suggestion - a smoothie with a high calorie protein base, a scoop of almond butter, some banana, some flax seed - and that's way more calories than an avocado.  Of course you can add or switch whatever else you want.  We're also eliminating all dyes, additives, and preservatives from his diet - at least as much as I can.  I can't be completely militant but I can do my best.  We talked about kids like Cody with neuro challenges and how sensitive their systems are because their brains just don't regulate their bodies very well.  They often have digestive problems, sleep trouble, eczema, get sick alot, etc.  So the best approach (which makes total sense to me) is whole, live foods - avoiding anything processed, packaged or canned.  It's a tough calling given how little time I have to plan cooking and grocery shop.  But I'm doing a lot better - she encouraged me to cook for the whole family - and have the whole family eat this way.  So I've been making crock pot meals with a meat, veggies, handful of frozen spinach, and some kind of sauce or base.  We eliminated the supplements that have red dyes, or other dyes - and she gave me creative alternatives.  For instance I used to give him a Gas-X pill every night (which has food dye & sugar) because he has such digestion problems.  She suggested activated charcoal instead and it works like a charm!  I used to give him a laxative which was chemical based and she suggested ground flax seed instead - works great.  So I'm slowly converting him to a pure diet - in an effort to help his little body and brain as much as I can.

We also talked about a low glycemic index diet for Cody because seizures and sugar are not good friends.  She told me glycemic load is what to consider, not glycemic index.  Interesting.  And with a food that's not low glycemic load - you can partner it with a fiber or protein and it will metabolize the carbs more slowly thus making it's glycemic load lower.  Who knew?  Well, I guess a lot of people already know all this stuff.  I didn't - at least not in great detail. 

His ABA therapy incentives are treats like granola bars which I felt pretty good about but she pointed out that each one has 6 grams of sugar.  She suggested alternatives like little pieces of strawberries or a tangy potato chip -- even fruit based sorbet -- and it worked out great today!  I have so much to learn.  So often when you have a sick child you run around like a chicken with your head cut off - between Dr. appts, development sessions, research, seizures, etc...who has time to think about changing the child's diet?!?  But it's important so I'm chipping away at it in small pieces.  

So if you have an autistic child or one with epilepsy and are reading this - I highly recommend checking out a DAN Dr. and nutritionist combo to try to get your child's diet as pure as you can.  Fill their diet with nuts, berries, whole grains, fresh fruits & vegetables, and cut down on meat because animal proteins are hard to digest.  Now mind you I only am attacking this now - I couldn't have done all this in the throes of Cody's diagnosis.  You do what you can, when you can.  But if you're in a place to attempt it - it can only help.  My DAN Dr. is also an MD which was important to me.  Some are just ND's which is fine - but with kiddos who have such complex neuro issues - I felt I wanted the added assurance of and MD as well.  We see Dr. Philip Ranheim in Lake Stevens for our DAN Dr. and Kimberly Mathai in Seattle for nutrition.  She's super smart about the GF/CF diet and about kids with seizures.  She even had some good small hints like that Cody wans't getting enough fiber...and that I needed to quadruple the amount of fish oil I was giving him.  Labels are really misleading when it comes to supplements.  She gave me a better idea of how much calcium, fish oil, etc that he really needs.  One thing I'll be interested to see is the report about his stool samples.  They test for a bunch of stuff - but lots of kiddos with autism have issues with yeast and candida - which could be part of his digestive issues.  So there you go, for what it's worth. I think it's all worth doing but it does require some effort.  But I will say it's gotten me cooking healthier for the whole family.  I can honestly say Casey - in his almost year of life - has rarely eaten anything that's not organic.  That feels good....really good. 

So to come full circle - that's why I was shopping at whole foods - to get some "whole" food!  And I'm staring at my wallet lovingly as I write this - hoping we never part again!

with love,

shawna