Thursday, October 27, 2011

Since I seem to be on a picture kick....

I took this picure right after I tucked Dominic in last night.  You wouldn't think, looking at it, that the bed was SUPER crowded, as you only see the heads of his Large Mr Bear, and his ghost.


This is what the BED really looks like. (What you don't see in this picture is the Egg shaped rock that he tucks lovingly under Mr Bears armpit every night)


Most nights a fair number of his "friends" end up pushed all the way down to the bottom of the bed or on the floor, but he will not settle down for sleep without being able to cuddle them all.   (side note, yes, those are Dora sheets.  he LOVES them, and tells me all about the puppy (there's a puppy on the pillow case with dora).

I mentioned this habit at one point to Alpine and they offered to give us some tools to help him not need his animals to go to sleep, but honestly, this is the LEAST of our concerns around Dominic's behavior, and frankly, its JUST CUTE.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Its a Soup kind of day.

It snowed today!  Not the foot that was forecast at one point, but a good 5 or so inches.  Here's the deck.


So Dominic asked for SOUP for dinner tonight, since its snowing. Normally around here that means Chicken Veg soup.  So instead, I made soup with Italian sausage, brown rice, mushrooms,  zucchini (yes, from the garden that've been happily in the fridge), and a handful of froz carrots/broccoli mix. Homemade turkey stock. 
He likes it. :) Check it out:

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tuesday.

This post has been percolating.  Its actually 3 posts I’ve been wanting to write, but have been swamped at work and home so haven’t gotten there.

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I have an online friend who I know from a Moms group.  Not specifically a autism group, its not all kinds of people in it.  But there’re definitely those of us with SPED kids. Her 9yo has Autism and a seizure disorder.  They’ve gone the route of NeuroPsychologist instead of Biomed/ABA that we have. (as always, no judgement here, everyone does their very very best for their kids).  So her kiddo has been on risperdel, prozac, seizure meds, assorted mood stabilizers.  For the most part until recently those’ve been all he needed and  he’s been in a special school to deal with behaviors. She’s been concerned lately about his behaviors, loss of overall cognitive skill,  and believed that maybe he was emerging as bipolar on top of the ASD and seizures, mostly because of what she verbally described as manic.

Then she posted a video. Which I have her full permission to share. 

Her son’s behavior is not that far off of Dominic’s when he’s in a full yeast flare.   I deal with the lack of eye contact, the multiple repeating of requests, the having to work through a brain fog and babble pretty much every day.  Certainly not all days are as extreme as her video, but getting that kind of behavior out of Dominic wouldn’t phase me.  I have different tools to deal with it than she does, and Dominic weighs about half of what her son weighs, so he’s physically easier to do hand-over-hand with.  But for all of you, this is a quick glimpse of what our days are like.  

Can you imagine when the 1 in 110 children with Autism – children who at age 6 and 9 and 18 (that I’ve personally seen at Alpine…) have this level of function (or lack thereof) come to adulthood with these same brain injuries?  There will be whole new industries built around group homes…

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I read this article yesterday. It should be required reading for all parents and parents-to-be.  For me, tho, it illustrates an interesting in between. While Dominic does not have a terminal illness by a long shot, he has a life altering brain injury.  I don’t have to accept that there will be no future for him, but I do have to accept that his future is somewhat undefined right now.  IF we get him more verbal, then maybe he’ll be independent.  But we might not.  He might be one of the 25% of autistic boys who develop a seizure disorder when they hit puberty.  I don’t get to count on him going to prom in high school, or going to college, or even getting a job. Those milestones for us fall in the category of “maybe, if you fix him enough now, just maybe you might get to see that milestone”.  It’s a very nebulous way to live, and its disconcerting, and uncomfortable, and makes other parents uncomfortable to be around – because after all, they still have the comfort of knowing they have those milestones coming.   And if I’m being honest, still makes me REALLY mad.  

And as an aside, from a blog I just linked on my list.  I give you the top 5 reasons you should Never Piss Off an Autism Mom. So so true.
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I have found, through the internet, my best support groups in this journey.  The other moms going through the exact same thing.  And I’ve said it before here, and I’ll say it again – they can’t shut us all up if we shout together.

So to quote from my new friend Kelly  who after I posted on her note "I don't know you, but Thank you", added me to her friends list and said "you know me now"
“Yes, you and I, my friend, are sisters in a sorority. A very elite sorority. We are special. Just like any other sorority, we were chosen to be members. Some of us were invited to join immediately, some not for months or even years. Some of us even tried to refuse membership, but to no avail.

We were initiated in neurologist's offices and NICUs, in obstetrician's offices, in emergency rooms, and during ultrasounds. We were initiated with somber telephone calls, consultations, evaluations, blood tests, x-rays, MRI films, and heart surgeries.

All of us have one thing in common. One day things were fine. We were pregnant, or we had just given birth, or we were nursing our newborn, or we were playing with our toddler. Yes, one minute everything was fine. Then, whether it happened in an instant, as it often does, or over the course of a few weeks or months, our entire lives changed. Something wasn't quite right. Then we found ourselves mothers of children with special needs.

We are united, we sisters, regardless of the diversity of our children's special needs. Some of our children undergo chemotherapy. Some need respirators and ventilators. Some are unable to talk, some are unable to walk. Some eat through feeding tubes. Some live in a different world. We do not discriminate against those mothers whose children's needs are not as "special" as our child's. We have mutual respect and empathy for all the women who walk in our shoes.”


Friday, October 21, 2011

End of week Roundup!

Its been a fantastic week for Dominic.

At Alpine, we had our monthly parent meeting on Tuesday and at that point he was averaging 120 spontaneous mands per day (last month was 80) and 178 spontaneous tacts per day (last month was 98).  So significant increase in verbals, which thrills us.  I've rerun the numbers to include this week and the month is now averaging 128 spontaneous mands per day and 182 spontaneous tacts.

Sentences are coming along.  Every day his therapists tell me about something he put in a sentence of 4+ words.  So we are making progress.   He's mastered following 3 step functional commands with no prompting (this is HUGE).  For example : "go get a paper towel, grab your snack, and sit down".

Behaviors have dropped to less than half of what they were last month, with some days having none at all.  Which is also nice.

Alpine is "fast tracking"  some of Dominics programs (actions, object labels and shapes). What that means is instead of him having to perform the mass trial with the same stimuli at 100% 4 days in a row to call an item mastered before moving into random rotation with it, they are incorporating RR with MT and only requiring 2 days of mastery with the MT. I think. It was kind of confusing when she explained it.  Anywho, it means he'll be able to move through his programs and aquire targets more quickly

The improvements are also holding steady at D11 - he's been hovering ~200 spontaneous verbals per day there.   The other day he did a cute craft - he cut a bat out of construction paper and glued it together.  Given how many months it took us to get his fine motor skills up to par for cutting (really only mastered it a few months ago), we were very impressed.

I have over the last  week or so decreased the level of antifungal dosage from 10TB to 5TB.   We'll knock it down to 3TB this weekend and make sure the verbals hold steady next week, then take it down again.  Goal is to get back in the 1-3tsp range for maintenance.  Then, once we're happy and in maintenance on the antifungal, we are going to trial adding casien back to his diet in the form of cheese, and see how he does with occasional cheese. (he's okay with occasional soy, we've learned).  It certainly won't be a daily feature, but it would be nice to have a little more dietary flexibility.   I'd like to get yogurt in there too.

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Edited to add - Age of Autism article is really worth reading today. Lisa Joyce is a facebook friend of mine in the trenches with a vaccine injured child, and here is my gut level, end of a LONG week, response to this quote from the article linked:
"My friend didn't heal her daughter by trusting her gut or her "intuition," she did it by researching and pursuing treatment for her from the best physicians in the country--real MDs who are treating  "immune compromise" and mitochondrial dysfunction. This family is two years ahead of us on this journey. If given the chance to speak with them I imagine this reporter would surmise that their daughter was probably mistakenly diagnosed and never had autism in the first place.  Because that's what we are told when we drain our 401K's, sell our houses and our cars and live paycheck to paycheck to get our kids better.  It's what everyone needs to believe.  Thousands upon thousands of us just made it all up. No matter how many more seemingly healthy kids get sick.  And die. "

My response is - Enjoy your denial while it lasts my friends. Because autism doesn't discriminate, and you better hope that if its YOUR kid with the next vaccine injury, there are still people available to help you who know things to try.  Its not just the doc's who think outside the box who're be hunted down... its the FDA regulating nutritional supplements, its the HBOT places being closed down... and on and on....

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Generalization is cool. And other Updates.

Last night we had a babysitter for the first time in months so that we could go on a date night.,  (Hockey!  Dinner!  kid free!  It was fun)

We've had this particular babysitter coming over for years.  She's awesome.  Normally Dominic cries when we leave and is then just fine for the remainder of the evening (drama boy and all).  Last night... I was going over food options in the kitchen and he came up first  to Dad and then to me, gave us both kisses, said "bye" and walked off.  All three adults looked at each other slack jawed.  This is a first.   Julie told us when we got home that he'd been extra chatty with her (more than ever before) AND she also got snuggles, which is another first - normally he ignores her.

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The grant application went into the mail yesterday as planned. They will make a decision by December 15th. 

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I've been working on weaning Dominic off of Melatonin at night.  Its one of those neurotransmitters that a healthy gut produces on its own.  Dominic's been taking supplemental melatonin for years now or stayed up and partied until very late.   We're now 2 nights in a row with none at all. 

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Does anyone else's child like to snack on freshly roasted turkey?  We are cooking the last of last years turkeys from the freezer today to make room for fresh ones when they go on sale soon, and I roasted two small ones overnight.  I shredded the meat, and Dominic got a fork and helped himself.  at 10 in the morning.  Goofy boy.  At least its healthy.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Early morning reflections

Several times in the last couple of days I've found myself telling other moms - the ones who came before me on this Warrior Mom path - how proud I am to be standing next to them fighting this battle for our kids.

And so I thought I'd share some of what is going on in the world

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Jess over at Diary of  A Mom shares the difference she's making in Washington DC, at both a high level and down on a personal level for the family of one soldier who has a beautiful daughter with autism.
Here's part1
Here's part 2
She's been to the White House, she's gotten to speak for those of us so deep in the trenches we don't have time to think about the political arm that could help.   She picked one thing she could do for one person to change their situation. And then SHE MADE IT Happen.  She's a rock star!

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Over at Age of Autism, Julie O talks about what i call :"being out" and answering the questions that come as a result.  This was my comment on her post
"Its because of the Warrior Moms like you that the rest of us have a path to follow.  If you kept your mouth shut and didn't let us know how you got here, we'd think we are alone.

And we are not alone.  Not by a long shot.  There will come a time - and its coming soon - when they will not be able to deny our voices.  And then, then they too will work to help the children they've damaged.

I have started getting to the point where i dont' tear up immediately when we talk about my son's regression.  I've started being able to tell people that xyz is something they need to get looked at further.  I've started answering the emails people send from my blog asking for help.   Its because of the ones before me, because of YOU, that i have the courage to do this.

So thank you.  You make me proud to be standing next to you.  "

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Lin Wessels travels with her family to ANY and ALL political rallies.  Here's a video of her sweet 9year old ASD Son asking the hard questions to MIchelle Bachmann.  He worked so hard to be able to ask them.  Lin is one of my facebook friends, and she is a tireless advocate for her son and our community.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Sometimes perspective is interesting.

As part of the Grant we're applying for, I asked our program coordinator at Alpine to write us a letter.  Its amazing to me how much he's grown in their eyes in the time he's been there...


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October 12, 2011


To Whom it May Concern:

I am writing to recommend that Dominic be considered for an ACT grant to fund additional ABA services. His parents have been privately funding his services at the Alpine Autism Center since June 2009 (a cost of $2,300 a month).

When Dominic started services he was four years old. He engaged in a wide variety of inappropriate behaviors which greatly interfered with his ability to learn. He would not sit and attend to instruction for more than a few seconds at a time and his challenging behaviors occurred across a variety of settings and tasks. Dominic also had very limited language: receptively he could only identify around 25 objects and expressively said around five words. Furthermore, he exhibited delays in academic, social, motor, adaptive, and cognitive skills.  

We began implementing ABA programming for 15 hours a week during the school year and 35 hours a week for two months each summer. During the past two years, Dominic has made tremendous progress with his language, behaviors, and other skills. His inappropriate behaviors have decreased significantly and no longer have as great of an effect on his acquisition of skills. Additionally, he will now spontaneously request and label items and frequently uses 2 – 3 word sentences. His articulation was poor before and he was extremely difficult to understand, but he now speaks clearly enough to be understood by both familiar and unfamiliar adults and acquires new words each month. Dominic’s academic skills have improved dramatically as well, and he is now able to label body parts, colors, shapes, upper and lower case letters, some numbers, and can rote count to 10. Socially, Dominic has also made significant gains and will now engage with peers, make eye contact and direct simple requests at them.

Based on the progress Dominic has made in the past two years his parents want to continue his services for as long as possible. Their insurance only covers 60 visits a year and they are left to pay the remainder themselves. This grant would help ease their financial burden and allow Dominic to continue to grow and progress. Thank you for considering him.  

Not giving up the battle. (re Insurance Age cap)

As you all know, one of the biggest issues we’ve got going for us is that my self funded insurance policy through a major corporation has the following verbage in it:

“The following conditions have a combined therapy maximum of 60 days per calendar year for applied behavior analysis (ABA), physical, occupational, speech and cognitive therapies and are covered through age 6 only:
    Infantile autism.
    Development delay or cerebral palsy.
    Hearing impairment.
    Major congenital anomalies that affect speech, such as, but not limited to, cleft lip and cleft palate.”

Nuance:  the only ICD9 diagnostic code that exists for Autism (infantile or not) is 299.0.  299.0 is a mental health diagnostic code because autism is diagnosed in the DSM-IV.  The above verbage is from the MEDICAL coverage section of our policy.

At our last parent meeting at alpine, our coordinator mentioned that she went to a conference where the financial lady from CARD  mentioned that there was some federal legislation that forbade  age capping.

So I got her name and I called her this morning.

Apparently, The "Federal Mental Health Parity Act of 2008"   basically says that you cannot have any limits on mental disorders that you don't have on medical disorders. For example, no insurance company would  age cap childhood leukemia treatments.

and since Autism is 299.0, which is a Mental Health dx code, in theory it falls in the bucket covered by this act, even tho ABA therapy coverage levels for autism are  listed under our Medical portion of our insurance.

As part of my recent adventures in Grant Writing, I had reached back out to HR senior management within my company to both get a current summary plan description AND to find out if they’d made any changes since I last worked with them, in March.   The woman I’d worked with is no longer with the company, and the new guy I have for a contact was actually surprised by both the age limit AND the number of visits per year.  He was also befuddled at 299.0 being a mental health code since our SPD has it under medical.

He’s reaching out to the policy people at Anthem.

I think there’s hope that we’d get the age limit lifted.  Which would be AMAZING.  And it would mean that we could breathe again, and that I wouldn’t HAVE to grow all our veggies next summer (unless I wanted to), and I wouldn’t have to continue to obsess over the grocery bill (even tho I’ve gotten REAL good at couponing). 

Then after the age limit, we’ll work on the number of visits per year.

I don’t think this is going to change our plan to move to full days at D11 in the fall, unless something miraculous like unlimited visits comes out of this – io which case we’d probably switch Dominic to full days at Alpine for ever.   That would shock me.

So for now, this is just potentially a good thing.  The contact at CARD did say that they’d had people take their insurance policies to court fro this, and win.  But  it depends on if corresponding MEDICAL diagnoses have equal age limits.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

So much fun at the pumpkin patch!

First off, the pumpkin patch is NOT actually a pumpkin patch.  Its a big field up in Black Forest where they have "fall" activities.  (the pumpkins came on grocery store pallets.  Go figure)

Here's our fun:

First, we went sliding down a giant slide on top of a pile of hay bales.   Over and Over
Fortunately, we were among the first people there, so there wasn't a line and Dominic had a blast!


Next up, We investigated a large, red tractor.




Then it was time to crawl through the tunnel that feeds the hay bale maze.  Fun times:








Then, on to the Hay Bale Pyramid, Where he climbed up and JUMPED!




From there we went on a hayride, and then hit the livestock.  He got to pet and otherwise ogle: chickens, ducks, bunnies, sheep, a goat, and some alpaca's.  That amused him greatly.




The last thing we did was play in the giant corn box.  You, like a sand box, only with dried corn kernals.  Bonus, at the end of the day, they could feed it to the chickens!  It was a sensory seeker's heaven!   The interaction that Dominic had with his classmates was really nice to see.  Not only did he hold still long enough to let them cover him up in corn, he played with them for a long time.



He had a wonderful morning.  The ironic part is that while D11 went this morning, Alpine is going this afternoon.  So I fully expect him to be exhausted (and cranky) when I pick him up in an hour.

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For those of you playing along from home, not only have we kept the high verbals at both D11 and Alpine this week (~200 tacts / ~ 135 or so mands), Dominic's incidences of stim's and behaviors has dropped like a rock.  Its been a very good week in both locations.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Saturday happenings

We woke up to snow today.  It was just 80.  I harvested the last of the zucchini's and pulled all the tomatoes and peppers off the vines on Thursday.  Freaky Colorado Weather.  (No accumulation, but it was lovely, wet snow for a few hours this morning).

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Dominic was so excited by the snow that he wanted to go play.
"Mittens!"
"Use all your words please".
"I want mittens!"
"Here you go, have fun"

And out he went.  I watched from the window as he promptly took off the mittens to better catch the snow.  10 minutes later he came inside shedding outerwear, and disappeared downstairs. Came back up in different pants. i later found slightly damp jeans in the laundry.  Apparently they were offensively wet.
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We went to the store today! The one with the carts he's too big to sit in AND the gummi bears he urgently needs immediately.  He did AMAZING.  He pushed the cart for me.  He was patient while we had the butcher package up the nitrate free breakfast sausage, and when we made it over to the eggs, he pointed up and clearly said "COW" (there's a mural.  With cows!).  He was even just fine while I searched for tortillas (seriously, by the cheese?).    This is huge.  This is the store where we've had major meltdown/elopement when I didn't immediately get him a package of gummi bears.  or worse, didn't get him bears at all.   I actually have gotten to the point where I dread shopping in the places where the carts are too small for him. Containment is my friend.   So this was exciting.
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Shanti has a toy he's in love with.  Its one of those pesky dog floss braided ropes things.  Dominic had a BALL playing with the dog and his toy today.  It involved Dominic putting the toy out of Shanti's reach, and Shanti standing up and giving him a little push on the chest.  Which sent Dominic into gales of laughter.  Then  he'd run, and Shanti would chase herd him along, while barking.  Tonight after bath, Dominic went to where Shanti was power napping, grabbed his snoot with both hands and kissed him.  Then he said "Good Night Shanti".  Clear as a bell.
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We found mysterious glitter in the downstairs bathroom. Specifically large amounts on Rod's towel.  Closer look revealed a trail of glitter leading to Dominics bedroom.  He'd broken a snow globe that I got him a few years ago. :( .  But he tried to clean it up. We're actually shocked he didn't cut himself.  I have no idea when he did this as he was upstairs the majority of the day.  He loves the whole snow globe concept, so I'm not suprised that he got to it.  So much for the almost to the ceiling curio shelf being out if his reach. Kiddo is growing like a weed.

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Thanks to a number of you, I now lust after an induction stove.  Apparently they are not only truely safe (the top doesn't actually get hot, it uses a magnet technology to only head the pan.  So there would be NO burning of small fingers or setting of fires), they are faster than gas in response time, and they are far more energy efficient because only the pan being used gets hot.  Bonus, I'd be able to us my cast iron!. I find find myself reading reviews of them, and compulsively price checking.  I actually have found some floor models for about half of MSRP, but we'd have to find someone with a truck and drive to Denver.   Its pretty far out of the budget right now, but shares top billing with seed starting grow racks for any extra left from tax refund next spring.
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I'm working on applying for a grant to pay for more of Alpine.  Actually found the first potential grant source that we aren't automatically excluded from due to income.   Getting all the paperwork sorted out for it and hope to mail it next week.  Not holding my breath because I'm sure they get a TON of applications, but it would be awfully nice.
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Dominic's verbals were high again at Alpine on Thursday, but there was no session Friday due to an inservice. Since we dont' carry a clicker to count verbals, I can only tell you that subjectively, it seems like he's been chatty.  And focused.
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You know those rubber chickens that are dog / kid toys?  Dominic has one, and he has removed the head and feet from it (apparently he climbed to the scissors at some point, because its a clean slice), and he has been carrying around a decapitated / defooted rubber chicken today.  And the head.  He held the head in his other hand.  Go figure.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

On not getting excited.

One of the things that I tell everyone who comes to me about BioMedical interventions for ASD diagnoses is don't get excited. 

There is no one protocol that helps all children. There is no magic bullet that works for this. 

One of the reasons is that ASD is not an actual MEDICAL disorder as currently diagnoses.  As currently diagnosed, an ASD diagnosis is a matter of certain social / developmental milestones either missed or hit and then lost.  Its very nebulous.

But the question becomes WHY was it missed, or in Dominic's case, why was it hit and then lost?  What physical / neurological event happened to either block that developmental door or close it.  And that mystery is what parents of autistic children seek as the holy grail.  If we can answer that question, then we can maybe find a way to treat our kids "co-morbid" medical issues, which could maybe, hopefully clear up the diagnostic criteria that landed us in this position anyway.

Another reason not to get excited is this is a marathon, not a sprint.  If you get excited and treat it like its a sprint, you're never going to make it to the end with all your faculties intact.  Maybe your child won't either because you snapped.

How many BioMedical things have we tried here to mitigate Dominic's downward spiral that were huge disappointments?  Just off the top of my head:
Chelation therapy (OSR, DMPS, NDF+, Chelex - they all caused horrid reactions)
The Biofilm Protocol (which got us 9 months of HORRIBLE daily diarrhea)

Then the list of things that have been our bigger helps, some of which we are still doing - Curcumin, Cytoflora, HBOT, ABA Therapy, high vitamin A protocol..

We still don't get excited though.  Because the other shoe might still fall.  But it probably won't.  It feels like we've had a major shift.   He's generalized the 25+% verbal improvement to D11 all three days this week.    And today... today Dominic had what  Alpine described as a "phenomenal" day.

Mands: 159
Tacts: 268
One non compliance. No stims.

(thats 90 more tacts than his previous high.  Mands are the second highest ever)

Since you're going to ask, yes I think this shift is related to the Colloidal silver dose.  I think we've made significant headway against whatever crud (yeast, bacterial, or both) has been having a party in his gut.   And now his gut has started to produce some of the neurotransmitter hormones necessary for pathways to be created in his brain.

Its coming.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Tuesday!

First things first - this afternoon the area general manager for Red Robin called and fell over himself apologizing.  He agrees with us that what happened was not blatent disregard for an allergy alert (which was all over the ticket), it was the kitchen not catching a dish that was still dirty after running through the dishwasher.  He is sending us a GC for the cost of our dinner last night.  He specifically asked that we just notify management when we show up next so they can make sure everything is perfect, so we may do that. (we may just sit with our regular servers and make sure they know whats going on.  We were not with our regular girl last night as she was not in). I got the distinct impression that the kitchen was going to get reamed. (as well they should).  Going forward, we';ll be inspecting things very closely before Dominic eats.

All that aside - he's had more poop today than usual, but it hasn't been runny as expected (granted, I did add extra bentonite clay last night and we did an extra epsom salty bath in an attempt to mitigate the reaction).  Behaviors have been FINE (only one small non compliance at Alpine, and that was during peer play when they were doing a non preferred activity).

and speech...

has been high again.  D11 was 185 unprompted - so higher than anything except yesterday, which was 208 (prior to yesterday he'd never been over 152).    Alpine mands were 145 and tacts were 168, so we are maintaining the noticably higher rates we started last week.  Which is really interesting.

We're going to stay at the 5TB of colloidal (down from 10TB) for another week, I think before i start dropping it.  With the speech shift I really feel like we may've made great gains against fungus.

I also need to start dropping the mB12 dose down since behaviors are clearing up (with the addition of Travacor, Jr).  i will start that tonight, I think.

Its like a chemistry experiment every night. Fun times.

Monday, October 3, 2011

uhoh... this may make tomorrow unpleasant:

Here's the letter i'm sending Red Robin regarding the early birthday dinner we just went out for (my birthday is next week).  Tomorrow will be interesting.

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My 6 year old with autism is allergic to gluten, dairy, soy, and peanuts. We made clear to the server, and she put it on the ticket.   We ordered for him the kids burger on the gluten free bun, with gluten free fries and an extra side of steamed broccoli, no butter.

When he was halfway through with his broccoli we noticed something yellow on one of the spears.  it was CHEESE.   after the server specifically noted the ticket with ALLERGY ALERT.  The inside of the bowl had obvious cheese remnants (what probably happened is it was not completely cleaned off before they added the hot broccoli to it, and the broccoli remelted the cheese).

While his allergies are not anaphylactic, this kind of exposure to cheese will give him diarrhea for at least a day.

The manager came by to apologize, but did not offer to take even the side of broccoli off of our ticket.  The server made very clear to the kitchen there were allergies, and she was just mortified with the error.

We are long time regulars at red robin and are not really impressed with how this was handled.  Regardless of their severity, allergies should always be paid attention to, AND dishes should be clean before you put food in them.

Joy, Rodney, and Dominic
domsjourneymomsjournal.blogspot.com

Quick update....

Not only did we have a nice high day for verbals at Alpine (180 tacts, 110 mands), behaviors were good, he had an awesome sentence ("i want to put  turtles in pocket")... and he had the highest unprompted verbals ever at D11 (208.  normally this number is under 140)

 We added Travacor, Jr on Friday and noticed a definate shift in focus and behaviors over the weekend.  for the better.   We'll stay on that, and potentially increase the dosage.

Dominic was down to 1 stool a day over the weekend so i dropped the antifungal from 10TB down to 5TB and we'll stay for a bit, see how we're doing.

We'll see how this week goes...