This month has been a wild ride for Kevin and me. The nice thing was we had a wonderful visit with his cousin and her family last week here at the house. Kevin fell in love with one of her dogs. Every time I turned around he was hugging her. Just wish I could have gotten a picture of them. At the same time it was a stressful time and I think it started before the visit. There was one day I had Kevin home from school and we got to lunch late (late for Kevin is after 11:30 am). It was 1 pm by the time I got to the point that we could have lunch. Well, I took him to Sunrise and he started to have a meltdown just as we sat down. The owner got some French fries right away for him and that seemed to help him to settle down for the rest of his meal. Then two weeks ago we went out for a late breakfast, but Kevin had already had his first breakfast that morning, so I was very surprised that he was having issues. He just seemed to curl into himself and started sweating. We were headed to my mother’s house to pick her up and I told them to all go on without us. I stayed at my mothers with Kevin hoping he would be fine after lying down for a little while. As it turned out I had some Gluten Free Cookies with me. He was all curled up and clutching his hands really hard. I gave him the cookies with some water and about 10 minutes later he relaxed and was fine. First thing I thought was maybe he is having problems with hypoglycemia. He had blood drawn the week before and I was waiting to hear the results on the tests. He had to go for his follow up with his neurologist the next day, so I couldn’t wait to see how they came out. That morning he had a meltdown at the doctor’s office just as they wanted to take him back to the room. I told them what had happened the day before and one of the nurses got him a Coke to drink. A few minutes later he was fine. His doctor was thrilled with how well he’s doing on the Gluten Free diet. She couldn’t get over the fact that I didn’t have to call her all summer. If you’ll remember summer is a hard time for him and I usually end up calling her for help with his medications. She said she could see a difference with him while we were there, so that was refreshing to hear. The sad part was his labs tests were not back, so she said to stick with the Gluten Free diet and also following the Glycemic Index diet. That was a good idea at the time, but the glycemic index diet is so new that most of the foods in the US are not on it. I asked on the online group I joined if anyone else had issues with Hypoglycemia. I had a couple of women say that they do or one of the children has had problems with it. They advised that I load him up on protein in the morning and that way he can handle the carbs in the afternoon. We also were giving him either orange juice with sugar or a soft drink when he seems to be having a problem along with a protein of some kind. Well, the test results came back. His Cholesterol, Triglycerides and the A1C for Diabetes all came back normal. His neurologist suggested having him see his primary care physician, which is where we went this morning. I ended up buying a Glucose monitor over the weekend that had 10 test strips in it and was able to monitor his levels on Sunday and this morning. After going over those readings with his primary physician she said he is not Reactive Hypoglycemic. I was surprised and asked why is he better after getting some sugar in his system? She didn’t have an answer, but she had blood drawn for his thyroid and said she wanted to go over his medications with his neurologist to see if there is an issue with one of them. I did ask her at one point what she thought of the Gluten Free diet and she said she is a big supporter of the diet. She feels it should always be tried. That was good to hear. She did say that even if Kevin was hypoglycemic I was already doing what she would advice anyway. So we’ll wait to see how his thyroid is doing and I’ll be surprised to find out that is an issue for him. I just think he needs a boost every so often and eating more than just 3 times a day, which is what we already do here anyway.
Skating! I almost forgot. Kevin’s brother and I went to watch him skate for Special Olympics. He got the gold for the 30m straight line dash. I was so proud of him and watching him skate was the most thrilling part for me. He isn’t fast, but he can skate.
