Frustrating week and then...A HA!

Alec had just finished a really long stretch of bad days. That means that he has been very foggy, with constant rambling from tv shows and his favorite robot toy dialogue, without any sense whatever. Very little eye contact. We had lost him again.

Matt and I constantly ran through what he has been eating and couldn't find the food we suspect to be causing the problem ... corn. Typically, he may have a bad day and then several good days, but this stretch had gone on for over seven days and we were tired and frustrated.

At one point, I held Alec tightly while he rambled his nonsense and looked him in the eye and said "I'm coming for you, Alec. I'm going to find out what this is and I'm going to bring you back out of it." It was a terribly frustrating week. Matt and I were both depressed.

Then, around 4:30 p.m. last night, I went to give Alec some pretzels. The same pretzels he has been eating about two bowls of every day. I looked on the label and there it was... corn starch!

Alec has been eating some corn-free pretzels. Matt had picked up some Snyder's buttery pretzels at the last visit to the grocery store and didn't realize that they included corn starch. Our little boy had been eating plenty of them each day. A ha!

I gave him a bit of an enzyme capsule (mixed in his 100% juice). In just a few hours, Matt and I were leaving Alec and Elise with our babysitters to go to our Bible study group and when Alec looked at me leaving (he's very attached to me... I was afraid he would throw a tantrum), he smiled and said "Bye! See you later!" and he ran off to play with the sitters.

We have our boy back! At least for now...

In two weeks, Matt is going to a Great Plains Laboratory lecture here in Charlotte. The following day, Alec will be tested at their clinic for food intolerances and mercury poisoning. Matt and I hope we will find some proof of our suspicions the allergies are contributing to his autistic symptoms.

In other notes, the Charlotte Observer did not respond in any way to my email to them requesting that they investigate and publicize the proposal to change the early intervention program for 4 year old kids like Alec. (See the letter in the previous post.) Sadly, neither did any of the newstations. I guess the issue of providing quality early intervention services for ASD kids is not much of a story for them. Again, frustrating.