What a Difference a Week Makes!

Last week was a rough week. Mostly for Kaden, but we all felt it. It started on Monday, he did not have a good OT session. He was all over the place, and Mundi was having a hard time getting him to be interested in anything other than pushing his lawn mower and all of his other "safe" escapes.

Kaden knew it was a bad day, as Mundi left Kaden gave him a look like "i'm sorry, I know today was not a good one" and he waived. It is always a bummer when he doesn't have a good day in therapy. It isn't fun for anyone....Kaden, the therapist, or us. His energy level continued to be all over the place and we felt him slipping into his own little world more and more as the day went on. I kept telling myself he is just having a bad day, after all he is human and he is 2!

The next morning, speech was even worse. There was mostly yelling and a lot of tears...which is extremely hard to listen to as a parent on the other side of the wall! He struggled all day just as he had the day before, only his energy was getting more and more intense. He did not want to nap, didn't sleep well that night, and finally I said to Dave, "ok, it's got to be something we are doing with his food to see this drastic of a change in such a short time."

There was only one explanation. Someone had told me that there is a digestive enzyme called "No-Fenol" that we could give him and it would allow him to have salicylates. I asked his nutritionist and she told me that they work SOMETIMES, but not on all kids all of the time. So, of course we tried it (against our nutritionist recommendation) with the high hopes that he would magically start being able to consume all of these fruits and veggies we have been avoiding. We got him to start taking all of his supplements in about 3 ounces of orange juice every morning. We felt like we conquered the world....we had FINALLY found a way to give him his supplements. We started this on a Friday, and Monday was his first bad day. By Wednesday we decided to take him off of the orange juice because that was the only salicylate we had added back in and it had to be the reason for his behaviors. Sure enough, we stopped giving him the orange juice and all of the sudden Kaden is in a calm-alert and Thursday had an amazing day at speech.

From Thursday on, things got better. We transferred Kaden into his toddler bed Thursday night, and he slept in it all night! He woke up at 6:30 and came and got in bed with us. Normally, he would wake up at 6:30 screaming in his crib until we got him. I can only imagine how much less stressful this is for my little man. He has slept the entire night in his bed ever since!

Thursday afternoon he had a great day at speech....one of his best so far! He was making new noises, and eye contact with his speech therapist like never before. Friday morning he was watching tv on the floor with Dave, rolled over and said "dad." We were so excited!

This morning I heard Dave down stairs with him, he would say "dad" and then Kaden would say it back to him. They must have went on like this back and forth for about 5 minutes, it was the coolest thing!!!

Within a week we are back to seeing progress, which is so exciting. It seems so crazy to me that the smallest amount of orange juice can make such a difference, but it really is the only explanation! His little body is just so sensitive, and it is becoming more and more clear that the salicylates have a huge impact on his behaviors and his ability to be in a calm-alert.

We will be facing some changes in the next couple of weeks as we iron out some kinks in Kaden's schedule and a add a couple of new therapists to "Team Kaden." We will be switching to a speech therapist from the Swain Center here in Santa Rosa, and in two weeks Kaden will get to start working with a new ABA behavioral therapist who we have been waiting patiently for. Lucky for us, we get to continue working with his same OT and he will continue to attend his sensory class at Early Learning Institute in Rohnert Park. All of the other changes are good ones, and we are excited!

We will keep you all posted, I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July weekend!