Everything comes down to poo… (a Nathan update)

So far, we have removed gluten, casein (dairy), egg, soy, oat, peanut and almond from Nathan’s diet. We are also limiting apple and rice. He is getting only a very small amount of processed foods at this point (I haven’t quite been able to give up his morning dry cereal… I am open to suggestions for breakfast). Nathan continues to improve slowly, but I am not confident that we have found all of Nathan’s allergies quite yet. Yesterday, however, Nathan said TWO WORDS (“hi” and “no”). He babbles nearly all of the time (he had previously been COMPLETELY silent) and we have had brief moments of eye contact. Toe-walking has decreased. I feel like if we can get rid of all the “bad” foods and heal up his little tummy, we may have a good chance at restored language. Today for the first time EVER, Nathan had a normal-looking stool. It seems Scrubs had it right all along…

I happened to get Nathan on video saying “hi” while he was playing in the tub. He was being so happy during bath time which is kind of rare. The thought occurred to me to get it on video because I remembered after his regression thinking I wished I’d gotten more video of him being happy and talking and whatnot… in case he never spoke again. I grabbed the camera to catch him smiling and splashing in the tub and he just happened to surprise me with one beautiful word. So glad I listened to my mommy gut and got the camera when I did!

We’re still working on getting additional testing done for allergies and some other stuff. Additionally, I’m also getting Liam tested for allergies since these things usually run in families and I’m curious to see if some of Liam’s self-limiting of food could be due to food allergies and just generally not liking to eat because food makes him feel yucky. So that’s what’s going on around here! Thank you for all of your concern and prayers. We know we are well-loved!