Chewy boy!

Hello, all!

So, it's been almost a week since I posted anything...let's see what I can come up with!

I went and picked Ben up a little early from school Wednesday after a "blow-out" diarrhea episode. Let's just say they had to put a whole new outfit on him, including socks. :o( His booty was red and he was a little fussy, but otherwise fine the rest of the evening. That night though, he woke around midnight SCREAMING! He hasn't done that in so long, I didn't know what to do! It took about 15-20 minutes to calm him down and get him back to sleep. He was restless the rest of the night, so I decided to keep him home Thursday. He was fine all day, just a little fussy here and there, probably from being sleepy. No red booty, no more diarrhea since.

When we got home on Wednesday after the boom boom episode, I noticed that he ate the strawberries I had packed in his lunch. He used to eat strawberries fairly regularly, but hasn't had them in a while (began refusing them a few months ago.) We just started reintroducing them last week. Wednesday was the second time he actually ate them. I went back in my journal and looked up the day last week he ate them and guess what? "Diarrhea, red booty, didn't sleep well!" None of the symptoms were as bad that day, but he hadn't eaten as many that time around. So, while his tests show no allergy to strawberries, he obviously isn't tolerating them. I'm thinking maybe because they are really high in phenols?? Not sure, but we will not be trying those again for a while!

Subject change!

Thursday, my SUV stalled out on me at a patient's house. Luckily the HHA had jumper cables and got it running to get me home. We attempted to take it to the shop yesterday. We got half way there and it died...right in the middle of Lewis Ave.! Luckily, Jeremy and Ben were in the truck right behind me so Jer pushed me into a parking lot and we called for a tow. The guy came within minutes and all went well after that ($500...but it's fixed and back home!) Anyway, Ben was so good through the whole experience. He got out of Daddy's truck without fuss and sat on curb with me waiting for the tow truck. When it got there, I said "look, it's a tow truck like Mater!" He was SO EXCITED and fascinated by the process. It was really cute...until the guy tried to take off with Mommy's car. He didn't like that so much until he realized we were going to follow along. Then, he was ok. :o) Anyway, I told that story because I am so proud that he (1) realized and paid attention to what was going on the whole time, (2) tolerated an "out of the ordinary" experience very well. There was never really that fear of "how is Ben going to deal with this." He just seems to roll with it now. Very good, very exciting for us!

Another subject change!

Yesterday we noticed Ben chewing on his hands and shirt a little. Today, he has done it A LOT...to the point that he was still trying to chew on his fingers while he was eating dinner! He has also been visually stimming a lot again. I was getting a little nervous, until I reviewed some info on the B-12 shots. Apparently, when the nerves in the mouth start to regenerate, it causes a tingling sensation in the tongue and cheeks. A natural reaction to this is to chew/mouth things. The other sensory processes also kind of "wake up" and become more aware of stimuli in the environment. This can be a little overwhelming at first and can cause and increase in stimming. So, I suppose this is all typical for this point in the process (he is about 5 weeks in.) According to Dr. Neubrander (the B-12 guru), these "tolerable" side effects typically start dissipating about 2 months in, and should be completely gone by 6 months. So, we'll keep an eye on it for now, and hope it is a sign of good things to come!!

One last thing...

Monday we are meeting our social worker at a county preschool class for observation. Boy, I hope we like what we see! That would be nice...free preschool. I'll keep you posted. That's all I'll say for now as I start getting anxious when I think of "after CHIP," and I don't want to feel that way right now!

Well, I am being paged from the up stairs! "Bmama Bmama!" I better go see what he wants. Jen and Noah will be here in a while to play.

Hope all is well your worlds!

Love,
Julie