Tag Archives: parenting

The toughest day yet

TGIF

I nearly titled this blog “Thank Goodness It’s Friday”, but I don’t think that would really reflect just how testing today has been.  Yes, today was definitely the toughest day of our challenge so far.  Today was the day when Mike and I only ate what M ate, nothing more, nothing less; even down to drinking the dreaded protein shake.  That last was my biggest hurdle.  The Neocate smells revolting when you mix it up and I still remember having some tentative sips when M first started drinking it *shudder*.  But, I promised M I would drink it, so drink it I did.

Ironically, M wasn’t at school today as they had an Inset day leading into half-term.  Nevertheless, I packed Mike’s lunch as if it was M’s and even got permission from the boy himself that Daddy could borrow his lunch-box for the day.  Well, if you’re going to eat like the child, you might as well get the perks of the Star Wars lunch-box as well!  Below are the photos of the treats that were waiting to see Mike through his day:

Star Warspacked lunch

Having M with me for the day has meant that, more or less, I have matched him mouthful for mouthful and at the same times he eats too.  The main difference has been that I managed a sneaky cup of black coffee whilst M had a glass of squash.

M

Me

Mike

Breakfast

           –              –
  • A small handful of raisins

Lunch

  • Crispbreads x2
  • Ham
  • Cucumber (3 slices)
  • Fruit smoothie
  • Bear’s Fruit yoyo
  • Apple (1/2)
  • Crispbreads x2
  • Ham
  • Cucumber (3 slices)
  • Fruit smoothie
  • Bear’s Fruit yoyo
  • Apple (1/2)
  •  Crispbreads x2
  • Ham
  • Crisps
  • Cucumber (3 slices)
  • Olives (3)
  • Fruit smoothie
  • Bear’s Fruit yoyo
  • 2tsp pineapple chunks

Dinner

  • Starter of prawns, salmon & mackarel
  • Marks & Spencer’s Gluten-free breaded cod fillet
  • Chips
  • Peas
  • Corn
  • Carrots
  • Solesse egg-free mayonnaise

 

  • Starter of prawns, salmon & mackarel
  • Marks & Spencer’s Gluten-free breaded cod fillet
  • Sweet potato wedges
  • Peas
  • Corn
  • Carrots
  • Solesse egg-free mayonnaise
  • Starter of prawns, salmon & mackarel
  • Marks & Spencer’s Gluten-free breaded cod fillet
  • Chips
  • Peas
  • Corn
  • Carrots
  • Solesse egg-free mayonnaise

Snacks

  • Nkd Cocoa Delight date bar
  • Fruit Factory Fruit string
  •  Nkd Cocoa Delight date bar
  • Fruit Factory Fruit string
  • Nkd Berry Blast date bar
  • Orgran Gluten-free Outback Animal Chocolate biscuits

As you will no doubt notice, there are a few differences between what Mike ate and what M and I had today.  We had to assume that M would eat as normal and so prepared Mike’s breakfast, lunch and snacks according to an average day in our household.  Who could have predicted that M would decide that he didn’t want breakfast today and had less lunch than usual too.  Nevertheless, despite these minor changes, Mike still had a good idea of how M survives his average day at school.

So, what have I learned from today?  Well, I couldn’t eat the Bear Fruit yoyos regularly nor drink the smoothies, as both were too sweet for my palette.  The Nkd date bar was a revelation as I’m not usually a fan of dates, but enjoyed this far beyond my expectations.  As for the Neocate (protein shake), well, the less said about that the better, though I found it drinkable when flavoured with Chocolate Nesquik.  Mike and M prefer the Crusha Strawberry flavouring, but that was a step too far for me.  Most of all, I have finished the day feeling fairly full which I attribute to the protein shake drunk with dinner.  I wouldn’t want to drink it every day, but I can understand how it leaves M feeling satisfied.

I can’t believe that our week on M’s diet is nearly over and that tomorrow will see the “experiment” come to an end.  It has been lovely to see how excited and proud M has been about us sharing his dietary experiences this week.  He has told all and sundry about Mummy and Daddy eating his food this week and I am so glad that this has been something we could all live through together.  This isn’t the option I would have chosen when we first had M and certainly was never the road I thought we’d be travelling down, but now I really know what a day in M’s life is like.

Day One – Sunday May 19th

Day 1

Today was the first day of our week on a M-friendly diet.  Mike and I were both quite looking forward to the challenge of eating as our youngest does, not least to see what health benefits we gain as the week progresses.  I don’t think it will come as any great surprise to anyone that Mike and I would both like to loose a little weight and this seems like the perfect opportunity to kick-start that whilst supporting M in his daily struggle too.

I’ve spent some time explaining to M what Mike and I were doing this week and think it only fair that I do the same for you. From today to Thursday, we will be eating food that M could eat if he wanted to, but will not be eating necessarily exactly the same meals. For example, Mike and I will be adding vegetables such as mushrooms, courgettes and tomatoes to our meals, knowing full well that M won’t eat them, but that they currently are part of his “safe” foods. Friday will be different. We will eat exactly the same things that M eats, nothing more, nothing less and, at M’s request, we have both agreed to drink his protein shake (Neocate Active) on that day too.

Breakfast was, perhaps, the easiest meal to cope with as, for the most part, it wasn’t going to see any major changes to our usual fare.  Mike usually starts his day with a bowl of cereal, raisins and either coconut or rice milk and as M can eat all of that too, he didn’t need to change that meal at all.  My breakfasts will need a little more adapting as I typically eat fresh fruit and yoghurt or some toast, neither of which fits into the wheat, gluten, dairy, soya and egg free regime.

Lunch was a little more challenging and saw our first pitfall of the week. We headed to Tesco to pick up a couple of their Free-from frozen pizza bases as well as a couple of other free-from ingredients to see us through the week. I was disappointed to discover that our local Tesco appears to have stopped stocking these pizza bases, which are the only ones I’ve found that M can eat as they are egg-free too. I had to make a quick decision and decided to pick up a pack of their fresh bases instead as they contain a little egg, but are safe for G to eat.

Getting home, I made my 1 remaining M-friendly pizza base into a pizza for Mike and him to share and used the smaller, individual bases to make a pizza each for G and me. The ingredients were as follows:

  • Heinz tomato ketchup and Barbecue sauce on the base (though mine had a home-made salsa of chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic, chilli flakes, balsamic vinegar and sugar)
  • Marks and Spencer’s salami slices and gluten-free breaded ham
  • Pimiento stuffed olives
  • Corn
  • Tinned pineapple (though I forego this as I’m not a fan of fruit and savoury together)

G had the same, except without the pineapple or olives and with some goats’ cheese grated on the top.

The pizzas were delicious, but I was soon to suffer the consequences of a very silly mistake.  In my rush to check the ingredients to make sure that we weren’t inadvertently adding anything that M couldn’t eat, I forgot to check for my arch nemesis: potato. Within minutes of finishing my pizza, I started experiencing stomach cramps and quickly realised my mistake. Thank goodness that the mistake was mine and didn’t cause problems for my boy!

An afternoon bike ride and play in the park for Mike and the children followed, whilst I got started on tonight’s dinner. I decided to ease us in gently and opted for something I knew we could all eat and would enjoy – a Roast Chicken dinner. This consisted of:

  • Roast chicken (with enough left-overs for Mike’s lunch tomorrow, dinner tomorrow night for us all and even some chicken soup for later in the week)
  • Sweet potato mash made with Dairy and soya free spread for M and me
  • Mashed potato for G and Mike
  • Peas and corn
  • Carrots
  • Courgettes topped with mustard (just for Mike and me, though M did give this one a go)
  • Gravy made from Knorr chicken stock cubes (wheat and yeast free), onion and a little balsamic vinegar

I even managed pudding tonight and adapted a recipe for Treacle sponge pudding made with rice milk, rice flour, xantham gum, dairy/soya free spread and egg replacement powder and all cooked in the microwave in 5 minutes.  Some custard made from Birds’ custard powder, sugar and rice milk topped it off perfectly.

Today was an easy day for us food wise. I chose to cook things that I knew were easy to ensure as being M-friendly as well as things that the whole family enjoy to eat.  The rest of the week will most definitely be more challenging, but it’s a challenge that I feel I’m up to, after all I’ve been cooking this way for the last 2 years.

Everyone needs a hero

unionjack

This photo of M was taken during our stint at the London 2012 Paralympic Games last September.  It was an amazing experience for us all and one I doubt we will ever forget.  Thinking about the trials and tribulations we face on an almost daily basis, I realise that it really is true, everyone does need a hero.

I’ve yet to find out who M’s hero is, or indeed who G has found to admire, but I know my hero without question – Sir Steve Redgrave.  One of the greatest British Olympians ever, in my opinion, and what is more, he’s an individual with diabetes succeeding in his chosen field.  He may have been diagnosed over 10 years after my own diagnosis, but his determination “[from]…very early on that diabetes was going to live with me, not me live with diabetes” has always been inspirational to me.  Whilst I have never had, nor am ever likely to have, aspirations to be an Olympic athlete of any description, to know that a fellow diabetic, just like Gary Mabbutt MBE, could become a world class athlete is awe-inspiring.

I would love M to have a hero who suffers from the same condition as him, so that he can see that he can achieve anything in life that he puts his mind to.  As a parent, I believe it’s my job to help him build his dreams and see them through to fruition.  Whatever our children choose to be, I hope that Mike and I can support them as they strive to achieve their goals.

Attending the 2012 Paralympics was an opportunity for our children to see that, whatever your disability or difficulty in life, you can become an amazing sportsman (or woman!) and represent your country.  There was a refreshing honesty in walking around the Olympic park, feeling the love and support for these athletes from everyone there and being able to hold them up as potential heroes.  I loved that M and G could openly question what disabilities existed without being embarrassed or hushed for fear of offending the individual in question.  Of course, they need to learn to be tactful, but we need to learn to be honest with them.  If we show embarrassment in our approach to disability, how can the next generation learn to be open-minded?

There is no embarrassment in being a little different from your peers and M will need to learn to cope with the questions and comments that will no doubt come his way as he grows older.  He struggles with dealing with his classmates and will often want to keep quiet about his regular hospital visits, but he does carry on, against the odds.  As he hits his teen years, though not for a long time yet thank goodness, I have no doubt that he will rebel against his condition and the fact that he is different, but as long as I can see him through those turbulent times, I will feel that it’s a job well done.

And who knows, whilst we still search for an EGID hero for M to admire, perhaps he will become one in his own right one day!

D-day

surgery

As we head up to London today for yet another appointment at GOSH, I thought I’d complete the story started in my last blog.

D-day had finally arrived. We got up, washed, dressed and packed up our bags before heading over the road to the ward for M’s scopes. We had a lot of hope pinned to these simple tests and both believed that we would get some answers once they had been done.

When your child faces surgery of any kind, as a parent you are understandably nervous. The medical team at GOSH did their best to put us at ease and to reassure us that all would be well whilst M was being examined. My biggest concern was the anaesthetic. M had broken his left arm in 4 places when he was 4 and had had to have 2 operations to put it back together. Both times he had experienced a noticeable reaction to the anaesthetic used with symptoms of a high temperature, hallucinations and thrashing about as he came round from it. The second time had been worse than the first and I was concerned about how he would react this third time as I had been warned that his reaction may become more severe each time he had to undergo anesthesia. His consultant and the anesthetist talked this over with us and reassured me that they would keep an eye on him.

We went with him when he was given the anaesthetic and this experience hit Mike particularly hard. On both of the previous occasions, only one parent had been allowed to accompany M into the prep room, so I had “been there and done it” before. The sight of M chatting away one moment and drifting to sleep with his eyes rolling back in his head the next, reduced Mike to stunned silence and to something of an emotional wreck. We returned to the waiting area, where the nurse advised us that it would all be over in about 30 minutes, so enough time to go and get a coffee at the nearby coffee shop.

Taking note of my need for a sweet and caffeinated beverage (Vanilla latte!) and his own for some fresh air , Mike and I wandered out into the winter weather and down the street. Neither of us wanted to linger, so we grabbed a coffee to go and hurried back to the waiting room. What happened next was every parent’s nightmare. M did not come out of his surgery within half an hour, or indeed within an hour. After over an hour of anxious waiting and quizzing of the nursing staff, we were finally ushered into the recovery room to see our boy.

The operation had not gone as smoothly as hoped because of the state of M’s insides. The colonscopy had gone well, but when they inserted the tube for his endoscopy, they discovered that his intestines had been badly damaged by the as yet undiagnosed condition and he had bled heavily as they tried to examine and take biopsies for testing. In the end, they had done what they could and had left it that. His consultant was confident that she knew what the problem was, even with an incomplete examination done, but she wanted to wait for the results of the biopsies before confirming her diagnosis.

The original plan had been that M would come round from the anaesthetic, have a small bite to eat, use the toilet and then be discharged by lunch-time. The extended length of the operation and then the extreme reaction to the anaesthetic meant that we’d be lucky if we got out by dinner. Fortunately, Mike and I had anticipated this turn of events, well the reaction bit at least, and had sensibly booked a later train to take us back home.

I dealt with the thrashing, the biting, the uncontrollable sobbing and the screaming as the anaesthetic passed through M’s tiny body, until finally he fell into a fitful sleep. We survived the departure of those children who had been scoped after him and the arrival of those for the afternoon list for theatre. We manoeuvred ourselves, M’s bed and our bags away from the main recovery room to the “spare machinery” room as they needed the bed space for those new patients. And we appreciated the drinks and sandwiches they provided for us and for M when he eventually woke up completely.

As the consultant left at the end of her day, we were finally told that M was going to be discharged and we left GOSH approximately 10 hours after we’d entered it that very morning. Mike flagged down a passing black cab and the cabbie helped us in with our luggage as I carried our suffering and sleepy lad in and onto my lap. We had acquired some additional soft toys on our trip, well every boy needs a gruffalo and mouse to see them through surgery, as well as a GOSH bear for G as a present from our stay away from home and we needed extra arms to manage those without losing them along the way.

Getting onto the train at Paddington felt like no mean feat, but we were reassured and hopeful by our consultant’s assurances that she knew at last what we were dealing with and prepared for our return visit less than a month later.

The countdown begins

As the date for his scopes, endoscopy and colonscopy, approached, and filled with dozens of questions, I read the information sheets sent by GOSH and forum links found through vague internet searches to understand what would be involved. Our trip to London was going to be a 2 night stay and this is where GOSH really comes into its own. They have the most amazing facility for families such as ours with children who need to be there for more than a flying visit and are travelling from outside of the M25. The Patient Hotel is situated opposite the main entrance to the hospital and is free – yes you read that correctly! – accommodation provided to patients and their families who need to stay overnight. All they ask is a £10 deposit for the room, returnable when you check-out and a £10 deposit for the TV remote control, which is similarly refunded.

Each room is large and practical as well as comfortable, allowing for hospital beds or other specialised medical equipment to be reassuringly on hand without crowding the space. There is a large kitchen and sitting room area open to everyone on every floor as well as a pile of menus for the local restaurants and takeaways. When you’re facing the trauma of your child being in hospital for however long, having one less thing to think about is invaluable and knowing that you’re on hand for the hospital, a real god-send.

M was due to be seen for his pre-op first thing in the morning, so we travelled up to London by train the night before, leaving G once again in my Mum’s capable hands. We settled quickly into our room before heading out to have some dinner and then to get some sleep before the challenging days ahead. The pre-op was an emotionally charged occasion for us all. M was allowed to eat breakfast on that morning (Wednesday), but would then be unable to eat any solid food until after his scopes, which were being performed on the following day (Thursday). His bowels needed to be “prepped” for the scopes, so his system was flushed out completed by a series of strong laxatives given in intervals during the Wednesday.

M approached the whole experience with a stoicism that belied his years. He chatted cheerfully to the nurses we met during the pre-op, listened intently when the anesthetist talked about the procedure and refused the “magic” cream to numb his arm whilst his cannula was put in. Armed with the list of the few things he was allowed to consume before his operation and filled with more than my fair-share of trepidation, we left GOSH at lunchtime to while away the hours before bed.

M understood that Mummy would have to eat during his 24+ hours without food because of my diabetes, but he asked Daddy to stick to his enforced fast with him. Mike gladly agreed and the pair of them survived on ice-lollies and fruit juice whilst I enjoyed, somewhat guiltily, the sandwiches and snacks I needed to keep me going throughout the day.

With a long day ahead of us, we prepared as best we could. We know M would experience intense diarrhoea as his bowels were emptied, so we bought some boys training pants to keep his clothes from being spoiled. We also decided to take him to the theatre to see “Stick Man” by Julia Donaldson. This took us into the evening and we finally headed back to our room at GOSH. I had hoped that M would settle to sleep quite quickly, though looking back at it now, I have no idea why I thought that day would be so very different to any other! I think I had hoped that the lack of food since 7am would mean that his body would be tired and push him towards sleep, but instead he and I sat up watching “Monsters Inc” on our portable DVD until at least 11pm.

M was understandably nervous about what was going to happen, though we had taken time to explain it to him and to answer any questions he had. I suspect that his sense of humour was probably what helped him the most, the prospect of a camera going down his throat, but even more hysterically, up his bottom, to take photos of his tummy had him giggling for days and even now, he laughs every time he thinks of it.

By midnight on that Wednesday evening, our room was finally quiet and whilst it took me a little longer to drift off to sleep, we all managed to get a reasonably good night’s rest.

When life gives you lemons…

120907-Lemonade-275x275

…make lemonade. Isn’t that how the saying goes? I have to confess to pondering this one in the early hours of this morning after being woken up by a somewhat distraught M who had just had a soiling accident whilst asleep. He woke me at 3.45am and 2 hours later, my mind was still buzzing and sleep seemed a thing from the dim and distant past. This doesn’t happen very often, but the impact is huge and it got me to thinking.

The impact of M’s condition has been massive on us all as a family and not just on M himself. To anyone who has a “sick” child, you will understand what I mean.

Mike and I have suddenly had to become medical experts in our own rights, despite our alternate careers as an accountant and surveyor, as who else is going to make sure that the best is done for M? I now know so much more about gastro conditions and food allergies than I ever anticipated needing to know. I’ve had to learn coping mechanisms, not just for M to deal with his frustration and anger at being ill, but to help us cope as well. The years of not having an answer have taken their toll and both Mike and I have had to re-learn who our little boy is and what makes him tick. I have to be his first line of defense wherever we are and I’m the one in his corner fighting his cause.

One of the hardest things about this illness is that there are no obvious outward signs that M is ill. He is a slight child and even when seriously underweight and struggling with full toilet-training, he has never lacked energy or enthusiasm for life. He may suffer with stomach cramps and joint aches that would floor most adults, but he just gets on with it. His complaints of aching limbs have been ignored for years as I was guilty of thinking of him as a “moaning” child, but now I know that those aches are very real and extremely uncomfortable whilst they last. He has been living the last 7 years with these as his normal, so he only stops when he’s suffering extreme moments of pain. He had then, and continues to have, the most amazing stamina and a reserve of energy that I can only envy. He is constantly on the go and has never let his health problems slow him down. In very many ways, this is his greatest strength, but also the biggest problem for us.

The lack of obvious evidence of his poor health means that people just don’t understand that he is ill and look at me in disbelief when I explain just how poorly he can be and, to be perfectly honest, I don’t blame them at all. He doesn’t look like a child who eats fresh air and frequently manages on less than 8 hours sleep a night; but he is.

I don’t think that Mike will mind me sharing that he has struggled to come to terms with M’s condition. I have an advantage in that I have grown up living with my own T1 diabetes. I know that these things can be survived and have just got on with it. Mike has found it harder and has longed for an easier fix than the road we seem to be travelling down at the moment. Of course, we now have a diagnosis and that has helped us all. Being able to put a name to the condition, even though it’s so rare that no-one ever seems to have heard of it, means that our fight has not been in vain and we can no longer be dismissed as fussy parents. This is M’s life for now and for the foreseeable future, and as his parents, our job is to ensure that he learns how to make the best of a bad situation.

M has struggled too, as you would expect and his levels of frustration at times are massive. Not only is he restricted by what he can eat and how his body reacts, but he also has to deal with the knock-on consequences. It is no longer possible for him to go home for tea with his friends, attend birthday parties, participate in cooking at school or even have a Christmas or Easter treat, without me having to provide a detailed list of what he can and can’t eat and the inevitable 20 minute discussion with the adult in charge about his condition. We encourage him to have a go at whatever he wants and refuse to let his condition dictate who he is or how he lives his life; and a big thank you has to go to my parents who brought me up with that very same approach to T1D and my life.

He acts out – he kicks and hits and shouts and bites – and sadly the people who have to survive the mood swings are us and G. G has had a hard role to play as the big sister to a poorly child. She worries about his health and I know struggles when we have to disappear off to London for the day for his hospital check-ups. But, she is also a child and has her own challenges to deal with. My children are the best of friends and would defend each other to the end; but are also the worst of enemies. It has become extremely important for us to invest as much time in G as we can and the last couple of months have enabled us to do just that far more than before. She recently took part in a music event organised by the local authority music education department and her clarinet skills were considered good enough to allow her to play with the wind band. This was something just for her and she loved every moment.

She has also been invited to join the local swimming club and that is something we are keen to encourage her to do. There was a point when we wondered a couple of years ago if she’d ever learn to swim, but she is now excelling at it and her teacher invited her to join the Club to see how she gets on. It’s an additional time commitment on a weekly basis for us as she will need to attend at least 1 extra training session a week as well as competitions, but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’m proud of both my children – M for his stoicism in dealing with his condition and making the most of life; and G for her continued hard work at school and at her after-school clubs. She may not like the fact that M misses school regularly to attend hospital appointments, but she admits that she wouldn’t want to have the blood tests and diet that he has. Neither child has an easy cross to bear right now, but I hope Mike and I manage to get it right enough to see them successfully and happily through to adulthood.

Dietary Challenge #1

nofood

The first thing to tackle was the introduction of the MEWS diet into our everyday life. M was a child who loved his food and was always keen to try new things. Having to take out some familiar favourites as well as the trusty fallback of chips was not going to be easy, especially as M would no longer be able to eat his all-time favourite meal:  egg mayonnaise sandwiches!

Consider having to give up eating chocolate, fish and chips, roast dinners, cooked breakfasts and milkshakes to name but a few. That would be hard enough for your average adult to do and yet we were asking it of a 5 year old boy. No longer would M hold the family status of being able to eat “everything”; he was now reduced to having the most difficult and restrictive diet of us all. It is truly a credit to him at how brilliantly he took to this proposal. I think that this is when we first realised just how difficult the previous 5 years had been on him and how unwell he must have been feeling. It was pretty much without complaint that M stoically accepted the dietary challenge and 18 months on, we are still impressed with his positive attitude about it.

No longer could I resort to my freezer fail-safes on nights when time was running short or I didn’t want to cook. More or less every meal had to be cooked from scratch as it was the only way I could ensure that none of the forbidden five made it’s way into his meals and I became an overnight expert in reading and interpreting food labels.

From an outsider’s viewpoint, it’s extremely difficult to even begin to comprehend just how tough our new dietary challenge was. Perhaps the easiest way to de-mystify the impact and adjustments we had to make, is to show a “before” and “after” set of scenarios:

Before   After
     
     
Weetabix   Wheat-free cereal
Milk   Coconut or rice milk
Toast   Rice cakes
Butter   Dairy and soya free spread
Jam   Jam
Biscuits  
Fruit snacks eg. Yoghurt covered fruit flakes   Fruit snacks eg. Fruit yoyos or stars
Fresh fruit   Fresh fruit
Sandwiches   Rice cakes or corn thins
Ham   Ham
Cheese  
Crisps  
Yoghurt  
Mashed potato   Mashed sweet potato
Chips  
Jacket potatoes  
Tuna Mayonnaise   Tuna with coconut cream
Egg mayonnaise  
Fish fingers  
Sausages   Wheat-free sausages
Pasta   Wheat and egg-free pasta
Pizza  
Ice-cream  
Chocolate  

                                                                                   

The biggest problem I had with a lot of the “free from” alternatives offered in supermarkets is that potato flour is commonly used as a wheat-free substitute for flour.  The initial ban on potatoes made this first dietary challenge a real test of my inventiveness and made Google one of my best friends!

I also had to tackle the issue of M’s weight.  He had only been gaining a small amount whilst on his previous “normal” diet and now we were introducing a diet so healthy that he would naturally lose weight on it if I did nothing to counterbalance the lack of fats.  I had to learn to put “added fat” into my cooking wherever possible and M went from having 1 or 2 packets of crisps a week to having 1 a day.  His lunch box at school was now filled to over-flowing with fresh fruit and veg – thank goodness it was the summer and he could have strawberries galore as a treat – and I’m sure could have won prizes for just how healthy it was.  He also was allowed to take an additional snack into school for mid-morning as there was nothing substantial to see him through the long morning session between breakfast and lunch.

Whilst we had dabbled previously with removing wheat and dairy from M’s diet, this was the first full-on approach to tacking his health problems.  Dr Hill was confident that food allergies were a part of M’s illness, though we needed to establish which foods he was reacting to and whether it was as simple as “just” a food allergy.  Unlike the earlier attempts, we were also warned that it could take at least 8 weeks before we saw any signs of improvement.  This small, yet critical piece of information had never been given to us before, but proved vital as it did indeed take nearly 9 weeks until we started to see some changes in M’s toileting habits.

I am still amazed that we managed to go through so many medical institutes without someone thinking to tell us that the process could take so long.  Looking back now, it seems obvious that the food needs to be completely expelled from the body and no trace left behind before the body can start to repair and yet, it had been assumed that we would know that – or perhaps it’s just that the gastro doctors we had seen before had not known this themselves.

By the time we reached September 2011, although we still did not have all the answers, M’s health had improved and we were well on our way to our final destination.

Five consultants, four registrars…and a partridge in a pear tree!

We had reached the end of our patience with the local hospitals and doctors. M had started school the previous September and was doing well, having managed to exceed all expectations and avoid any embarrassing toileting “accidents” during school hours. Things at home however, were not getting any easier.

We had now suffered disrupted nights for 5 years thanks to M’s inability to switch off and fall asleep until past 11pm and he often woke once or twice a night and ended up in our bed. Whilst not every night was sleepless, it certainly felt that way and our sheer exhaustion was taking its toll on the whole family.

Every day was a relentless routine of regularly cleaning and changing M as he suffered from chronic diarrhoea and still hadn’t cracked full toilet training. On the best days, we had to change him 3 times, on his worst, 5 or 6 times wasn’t unusual. We had even managed to blow the motherboard of our washing machine after doing load after load of dirty washing on an almost daily basis.

He continued to eat huge amounts, complained of feeling constantly hungry and relished the fact that he was the only one of the family able to eat everything he wanted – G was still wheat, dairy and oats free, Daddy was mildly lactose-intolerant and I had discovered an arch-nemesis in the form of the simple spud! Meal-times were challenging as I cooked to manage every dietary need, but I look back on those days with fondness now as cooking daily has become even more…well…challenging.

We were also struggling with manic mood swings and temper tantrums that rocked the house when something went wrong. We now understand that M was frustrated with his inability to manage his toileting and this tipped over into every other aspect of his life, but at the time it just seemed like another behaviour that needed to be managed. And no, the old favourite of the star chart, recommended to us by every medic who’s path we crossed, did not help at all.

By May 2011, M had seen or been referred to:

  • 5 consultants
  • at least 4 registrars
  • 2 hospitals
  • 2 GPs
  • 1 school nurse
  • 1 continence clinic
  • 1 CAMHS nurse
  • and numerous other medical staff along the way

Finally at my wit’s end and obviously showing signs of strain, I sat in our GP’s consulting room and asked where we could turn to next. My mother’s instinct was still full force and despite the now numerous diagnoses of toddler tummy and the reassurances that M would grow out of it all, I knew categorically that he wasn’t getting any better and that we were now 5 years on from the initial set of problems.  I will be forever grateful to this individual who had absolute sympathy for our plight and offered to refer us to anyone, anywhere in the country.

With this in mind, we started to investigate where M could go in search of some answers and were pointed in the direction of Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) in London. My Mum had been suggesting that we should go to them for a long time, but I had always ignored this advice, believing that whilst I knew something was wrong, it wasn’t serious enough to warrant a visit to those hallowed grounds. However, every other avenue open to us had been fully explored and when, at our final visit to the local Children’s Hospital, the registrar refused to perform an investigative colonoscopy on the grounds that such invasive intervention was too traumatic and unnecessary in M’s case, I knew we had to take a chance.

Mike contacted GOSH and asked for a name of a gastro-specialist that our GP could refer us to. We had to pay for the benefit of a private referral as a NHS referral could only be done through our local hospital, who still held there was nothing wrong, but we believed that this was the only way to get the answers our family so desperately needed.

Gut instinct

Buffet-Table1

Despite an appetite to rival a grown man’s, M’s weight stuck determinedly to the 9th percentile and considering his complete inability to be successfully potty-trained, this wasn’t really surprising. When I say he could eat as much as an adult, I’m not exaggerating – on one occasion he managed to consume more in a day than a good friend of the family, who had an extremely healthy appetite.

M was diagnosed early on by our GP as having “toddler tummy” and we were told that he would just grow out of it. This was a diagnosis that was going to dog our steps for the next 3 years. At this point, G developed some gastro problems of her own following a bout of food poisoning and another of gastroenteritis, and we established ourselves, as the medical tests proved inconclusive, that she was struggling with intolerances to wheat, dairy and oats. The thought had crossed our minds that perhaps M had similar intolerances, but our attempts to remove these from his diet showed no improvement, unlike for G.

It was armed with all of this knowledge, that I went back to the GP and insisted on a referral to a specialist, having kept an extensive food diary for a couple of months. This recorded not just what and how much M was eating on any given day, but also his sleep patterns (which continued to be poor) and his toileting habits. We also put together a list of our main points of concern. Preparation is key and we wanted to make sure we had a case to put to the specialist.

Our first appointment was disappointing. The specialist listened carefully, nodded sympathetically and instantly agreed with the GP’s diagnosis and left me feeling, once again, a paranoid Mum. He also referred M to the same specialist that G was seeing, in the belief that maybe our children were suffering from the same problem. My gut instinct disagreed and I made my feelings on the matter clear. Although on the face of it, their symptoms seemed similar, there were key differences that I knew had to be taken into consideration.

I have learned that a parent’s gut instinct is possibly the most important thing that any medical practitioner can listen to or, at very least, consider to be as important as the physical symptoms described. I knew deep down that there were something very wrong with my boy, but on the face of it, few agreed. His lack of toilet training was an annoyance we should learn to manage; his healthy appetite nothing of note; his poor weight gain irrelevant as he was growing along his predicted percentile; and his poor sleep patterns the same as every other new parent had to deal with. At each and every appointment we attended with M in tow, he was active, energetic, chatty and showed no sign of the tremendous tantrums he could throw at the drop of a hat at home.

Depending on our gut instincts about M and our determination to find out what was wrong, we kept on battling and refused to accept that it was toddler tummy and that he would eventually get better without any intervention.

Unfortunately, over the next two and a half years, we would need to rely heavily on that perseverance and an inner depth of strength that exceeded what either of us knew we had. We moved from one consultant to another, one hospital to another and even one GP’s surgery to another as we moved house and chased a diagnosis. Finally, in May 2011, we were given the referral that would finally set us on the road to an answer.

The first signs

It’s only now, looking back at those first couple of years with M, that I can so clearly see that all the signs pointed to something being wrong. BUT, as with all young parents, we took the rough with the smooth and just assumed that it was part and parcel of the development process, especially with a premature baby. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but only because it is exactly that.

In the months following his traumatic arrival into our lives, M suffered with chest infections, high temperatures, reflux, high-pitched screams, poor sleep patterns and what I now realise was almost constant diarrhoea. He was prescribed an infant inhaler, seemed to bounce from one course of antibiotics to the next, gulped back infant Gaviscon with every meal and, despite his epic size and weight at birth, stayed at the petite end of the scale. He dropped from the 95th percentile at birth down to the 9th percentile, but everyone assured me that he was healthy and thriving – one doctor even suggested that his weight had been recorded incorrectly at birth and that his massive weight loss and subsequent low weight gain was nothing to be concerned about.

Comparisons between M and G also seemed irrelevant – G was your typical first-born girl. Bright, articulate and not exclusively breast-fed, unlike M who successfully breast-fed for the first 7 months. The health professionals suggested that the differences in weight, appetite and nappies were because he was breast-fed and as M seemed to be a relatively happy baby, I had no reason to question any of the theories behind his small size and constant battles with illness.

It was purely a chance comment by our nanny when M was around 15 months that triggered a realisation that perhaps something was wrong. She had been chatting whilst out at a local toddler group with M in tow, when another mother commented on how many times she had to change M’s dirty nappy. It wasn’t a complete surprise to us when she mentioned that perhaps the 8-10 dirty nappy changes a day in my 15-month old wasn’t “normal” as I had raised a similar concern with our health visitor when M was 8 months old, but it did make me stop and think.

I went back to the local health centre and voiced once again my concerns that 8 dirty nappies a day wasn’t typical and was told to keep an eye on it and to come back in a couple of months and see the GP if I was still concerned. M appeared to be thriving and was growing along his percentile line, so they weren’t as worried as me and I now suspect that this is this time when I first got labelled as a fussy Mum!

Little did I know then, but 7 years on, we now know that I wasn’t just a paranoid or fussy Mum, but rather that there was a genuine medical problem behind our concerns and that really our battle was only just beginning.