Thursday, January 5, 2012

Where do I begin?

Not really sure where to start here. I guess I can start by stating my purpose for creating this blog. The purpose is: Jack.


Jack is my brilliant, handsome, energetic, kind, creative, always curious, and sometimes naughty eight-year old son. He has had tummy issues for his whole life and other sensitivities - we call him our "sensitive little Jack".



About a year ago, he started getting sick to his stomach more and more often. Not the gagging sensory issues that he had as a little kid, but really painful tummy issues that resulted in him spending hours upon hours (or so it seemed) in the bathroom. It would come and go - he'd be sick every morning for a few days and then fine for a week or more. Then sick again. A typical morning routine went something like this: 1. Wake up. 2. Spend an hour on the toilet. 3. Vomit. 4. Spend another hour on the toilet. The sick spells became more and more frequent, he was missing school, and we headed to the doctor to see if we could find out what was wrong.



Our family doctor (whom I LOVE, by the way) listed a whole bunch of things that could possibly be causing him to get sick so often. Her best guess was that he was either constipated or had a nervous stomach. We were sent on our way with instructions to keep a food diary and have a series of abdominal x-rays performed.



Jack did not like the gown he had to wear for the x-rays, but he did enjoy getting to see his bones.



As it turns out, he was not constipated. Nor was there anything in there that shouldn't have been. So we started eliminating certain foods from his diet in hopes that we might be able to find out what was causing him to be sick. We started with dairy. Not dairy. Then we tried soy. Not soy.



It was right about this time that I posted something on Facebook about Jack being sick. I don't think I added any details - just a general kind of complaint that we were having trouble figuring out what the problem was. Several friends emailed, asking about it and I explained with much detail what his symptoms were and what we had tried. Then the phone rang. It was the phone call that would turn our lives upside down - or right side up. Maybe both?



It was a friend who I hadn't spoken to in years and years and she wanted to know if we had tried eliminating gluten from Jack's diet. She said that his symptoms sounded just like hers and eliminating gluten may be the key. We talked for several hours and then I spent another several hours online looking up key words like "celiac" and "gluten-free". The next day I spoke with Jack about trying a new diet where he wouldn't eat anything with wheat in it. I gave him some examples of things that contained wheat - you know, pretty much all his favorite foods... bread, crackers, cookies, doughnuts. He made a few faces and said, "Mommy? Let's think of something else."



Later that night, as he and I sat on the floor of the bathroom with a puke pan and a damp rag, he changed his tune. "Let's try this new diet," he said. And so we did.



Jack gave up wheat the next day and the change in his health was almost immediate. After one day of not eating wheat, he woke up in the morning and exclaimed, "I didn't throw up today!" Not only did he stop throwing up every morning, but his sppearance even changed! His skin has better coloring and the dark circles under his eyes disappeared.



Going gluten-free has not always been easy for him. He's an eight year old boy - which means he wants to eat the things that his friends are eating. At first, he was so limited in what he could eat because *I* was so limited in what I was able to prepare for him! Slowly, but surely, I am learning to cook the foods that he loves in a way that they are safe for him to be able to eat. And slowly, but surely, he is learning to like new foods that don't contain any flour at all. There have been disappointments along the way, but there have been triumphs, too. And THAT is what this blog is for. To document both the disappointments and the triumphs and to learn from them both.