Moose Droppings

Happy New Year!

If you are uncomfortable discussing human fecal matter, then you won't want to read this post. Another point of view: You probably take a dump excrete solid waste at least once per day, so just get over yourself and read onward!

Many of you know that Wife and I have had Moose on a couple of experimental dietary interventions designed to help persons with Autism Disorder. First was a gluten-free/casein-free diet (GFCF) that eliminated all wheat and dairy products. Next was a more restrictive diet called SCD, or specific carbohydrate diet; this one eliminated EVERYTHING (I'm not kidding) except meats, some nuts, fruits and vegetables. Wife has written much more about these things in her blog. Also, she did a FANTASTIC job making much of Moose's food from scratch for the past year. God bless her.

Many children with autism also suffer from physical issues affecting the gut, so these kids tend to be irritable, gassy, just a mess. Moose never had those symptoms prior to starting the diets. Instead, he was just sort of spacey. But in December of 2006, we were finally making progress with potty training, and physically he was really doing quite well.

And then we started these diets on January 1, 2007.

Where most of the success stories heard discuss how kids with lots of diarrhea and gas see vast improvements very quickly, our Moose ended up getting diarrhea for the first time. It got to the point where we actually went BACKWARD from having him in training pants to being back in Pull-ups. He couldn't control the defecation, and we couldn't keep up with keeping those pants clean (our water bill literally doubled one month with all the extra laundry we were doing to wash those training pants...again, I am not kidding). It was not fun, especially for Moose. However, we didn't want to leave the dietary stones unturned. We felt it was necessary to stay the course for several months and see if the diet would eventually have an impact on his autism symptoms. Well, ten months later, he still had diarrhea and was still in Pull-ups at age six. He made vast improvements in his speech and general awareness of the world. However, those can be attributed to increases in the Verbal Behavior method of training kids to speak along with periodic injections of Methyl B-12 (yes, we inject our child every three days. No, he no longer cries. In fact, he actually helps us to administer the shot now). According to pre- and post-tests of the yeast and bacteria levels in his blood, the diet has done absolutely NOTHING to help him. In fact, the yeast & bacteria levels were slightly elevated after 9 months on the diet.

Over the past month-and-a-half, we've slowly pulled the plug on the diets and had him eat 'normal people food.' Last week we re-introduced wheat for the first time in about a year. Moose didn't excrete any 'solid' waste (not that diarrhea is solid, but you get my point) all day Thursday AND Friday. Hmm...

Late this morning I was practicing the piano. Wife hardly ever interrupts me when I'm playing piano. But out of the corner of my eye I saw her standing there, holding a full diaper (folded up). And over the rather loud passage I was playing, I heard her yell, "It was NORMAL." I stopped playing, and my jaw hit the keyboard, right on the C# (now I'm kidding). The first time he craps in 48 hours after a week back on wheat products, the kid takes a regular dump.

So, once and for all: the diet is not a silver bullet for all kids. It works for MANY, and I don't deny the good improvements that thousands of autistic persons have gained on this plan. It just doesn't work for our kid.

But saying "the diet doesn't work for Moose" is like saying "hiking a mountain doesn't work for a fish." The fish still swims really well! Well, in the past month, Moose has been interacting with us in ways he's never done before. He cried when his relatives left our house after Christmas. Cried. That means he felt a real emotion! Also, he hugs me now instead of just going limp when I pick him up. I grew accustomed to my child not really giving me much affection in return; I didn't take it all that personally. But now he hugs back. Amazing. That's not something I could teach him. That's something he just does now. And it all started when he started eating food again. People food. We can attribute recent improvements in his behavior to being OFF the diet. Not the reverse. Amazing.

Fine by me! We'll take it.

Cafe morning

After a quick doctor visit (my lungs sound "good!"), I went to a Starbucks here in SCT to do a little reading. Just couldn't face the on-campus office today first thing. I'm really glad I did: I cranked on an article I've been meaning to read for a while. It was a study of people writing dissertations and finding their accademic identity (academic ID is the point of The Study and may trickle into the diss as well). Basically, I feel very much as a member of a community of others struggling to find academic identity in this hazy dissertation world. It was a helpful perspective, and it will also lead to another couple of articles to read. Yes, the never-ending web of reading. At least it was productive for a change.

It was really good to get back to a cafe again for a change. I've been boycotting my regular cafe lately because...oh, have I mentioned this?...THE PLACE IS CLOSING. I'm so mad. They're not closing entirely for low revenue, they just want to open another branch of the food co-op in its place (the food co-op owns the cafe). It's one of the better restaurants in town, so it was a sad day earlier in the summer when it was announced.

K, bye. Off to a meeting.

Back to it

I'm finally feeling better. We went to the local farmer's market yesterday morning, and I was still a little bit loopy. It was my first time out of the house in over a week, except for two trips to the doctor. I enjoyed seeing a variety of people, sights, sounds and smells, but afterward I needed a nap. After the nap, though, I felt much better. We even had a few friends over for dinner (Thai food take-out - yum), and much fun was had by all.

Today was church, again my first time in a couple of weeks, and that was good. Had lunch with a friend, and then just had an easy-going afternoon here at Chesterley. I'm needing to clean up the office/prison again so I can have some sanity, but frankly I'm doing more work at my campus office these days for it to really matter. Perhaps it's time to close up the home office/prison and it turn this room into a guest room or library something.

Tomorrow morning the plan is to hit the campus office by about 8:00 AM and spend three hours on The Study for The Article. I think I'm still on hour 3 or 4 of the 8 that DC is allowing me to spend on it before submitting it for rejection, I mean publication. If I can knock that out early this week, then I'll feel that this last week of summer was spent wisely. I can then focus "only" on the diss when classes start up next week.

Perhaps the energy of others starting up their classes will inspire me to get cranking on my work? Perhaps, but I've gotta tell you my perspective has changed. The motivation isn't something so worthwhile anymore; I'm now doing it for the money. Time to buckle down, finish up student life, and move the hell onward.

Quick makeover, I guess

Well, I converted things to the new Blogger Beta because I wanted to use the labels. It went pretty smoothly, but one can't yet edit the html code of the page itself, so I'm unable to customize the florid picture at the top. That's OK for now, but when fall comes I'm going to want something else up there. I may change templates, but I've liked these colors and the layout for a while. Not sure about that just yet.

The labels are going to be fun. If the list on the right gets too long (scroll down a little), then I'll just delete it and just keep going with the individual labels in the posts. I've gone backward in time and labeled the posts from this month only. I don't have THAT much time to spend on this blog! :-) I may label a few key posts from the past hither & yon.

If anyone has thoughts/comments on this stuff, lemme know. I'm declaring myself only at the "advanced intermediate" level (a throw-back to Red-Cross swimming skills levels at summer camp), so am certainly open to advice on this sort of thing.

Heath update: the fine motor skills are working fine, e.g. I can type, click & drag. Obviously. Now, gross-motor is another story. I'm in my office now at home...how long will it take me to walk down the 7 steps to the kitchen to get a refill on water? I'll let you know next week when I return to my home-office desk. Haha.

Renovation in progress

What better task to keep the brain active when sick than to tinker with my blog site? Especially when there is no physical effort involved.

You'll notice that the blog is looking rather "basic" at the moment. Bear with me, I've switched to the new Blogger mode for now. I may revert, but I sorta doubt it. I've been waiting for a handy way to have category labels for each post, and Blogger finally came through. I'll bring back in some of the elements I've lost in the transition as soon as I can. Also, there will probably be a few new things showing up here & there as well.

Description of the sickness: I have pneumonia, just like I wrote about last. Nice fucking way to end the summer. It was diagnosed Monday morning, and the fever FINALLY went away yesterday after five nights. It's been a royal pain in my ass. I now have a good word from the doc that I'm improving, and she gave me a handy, and ENORMOUS, inhaler that will help me pull through just fine. Wife has been her angelic self, which is wonderful. I need to find a way to give her a vacation.

Bring on a change of season into autumn - I'm ready to move onto something new.

Sick

I am not one to complain about being sick. In fact, there have been times this past year or so when I've been sick, and I didn't feel a need to share it on this blog.

I don't think I've been as sick as I have these past 48 hours since I had pneumonia during my freshman year in college (um yeah, that would be 1989). I've had a fever since Friday afternoon (around 102) and what feels like a chest cold. Perhaps a recurrence of pneumonia? Sort of doubt it. But it's the type of fever with body aches throughout the torso, making me freezing, and then later I, frankly, start so sweat like a pig. None of this feels so out-of-the-ordinary: I'm reminiscing back to the bout with pneumonia and what seems like countless other childhood illnesses. I have found that I'm not very good about staying in bed for long periods of time. It's driving me nuts. However, Wife has been her usual wonderful self, bringing me things as I need them. I'm on a regimen of acetaminophen and ibuprofen alternating, along with my regular allergy decongestant which I'm convinced has been the ticket to keeping this infection from spreading into my sinuses, which is good. And this is probably way too much information.

I'm very current on the news thanks to the Cable News Network, and I've been watching Digital Video Disks on my Dell Inspiron 600M laptop personal computer, upon which I type this post now. My wireless internet access throughout the halls of Chesterley has helped me keep in touch with the rest of the world, so this is good. I'm missing a couple of fun events today, including a potluck lunch at our church and trip to Large City to the North to get Moose's hairs cut. I'll live though this, but wife is trying not to tell me how nice the weather has been this weekend and how much fun she's had hanging out with a couple of friends yesterday afternoon. I know better, though. I'm missing the first "nice" weekend in months, and this sucks! Also, I had a date with a friend to sit in the campus office all day yesterday and crank out dissertation prose. Another weekend shot to hell.

Am feeling a nap coming on. More later...