Office Visit Update!

My apologies for the long delay between postings! Dear Son has been doing amazingly well over these past few weeks. As I mentioned previously, I started Dear Son on Now Foods Organic, Virgin Coconut Oil in mid/late October to help prevent colds/flu/pneumonia and also to give him energy. Within four weeks of starting the coconut oil (1 tsp/day), Dear Son was no longer sleeping when he was at school. As you may recall, he was only able to attend school two mornings a week since his severe illness in 2009. He had been sleeping and needed to rest at school. Now, he his happy and fully engaged at school. When he arrives at school, everyone asks if he's in the building and if he's there, lol. Of course, he loves the hoopla surrounding his arrival. He especially likes it when they cook at school, even though he can't eat.

Essentially, what they do is they select a recipe, gather all of the kids around the table and then go through the ingredient list, add the ingredients, letting the students help as they go. Dear Son likes it when they make anything with flour in it, since he loves it when they toss it a bit and things get a little messy.

With eight weeks of starting the organic, virgin coconut oil, Dear Son began to move his legs and feet. He started trying to kick the Christmas tree a little bit before Christmas. After his hospitalization and being on the ventilator with the H1N1 in 2009, he was not able to move his legs, his feet or even a toe. It was as if he was paralyzed since there wasn't any movement at all. Now he can use both feet. He can use his feet to turn the recliner around, he can lift his feet off the floor as in trying to kick something and he can use his feet to rock himself in the recliner.

Within 12 weeks of starting the organic, virgin coconut oil, he was back to his old self. He could hold his head up again. If you remember, in nearly every picture from his Make a Wish trip and even thereafter, his head was always hanging down. He wasn't able to hold it up. Now he can sit up straight in his wheelchair and hold his head up. He laughs a lot more and likes to play again. He vocalizes more and is more affectionate. He is able to move his arm better so I can wrap it around my neck and he can give me a hug. He can squeeze his arm enough for a hug. The best part is that he is able to enjoy life again. I came into his room the other day to get him up. He had been sleeping a while and when he heard me, he had this huge smile on his face with his eyes still closed. I came up to him and started rubbing his arm and back asking him if he was ready to get up and he opened his eyes and was smiling.

When we took him for labs last week at Big Academic Medical Center, he was able to sit up straight in his wheelchair, hold his head up tall, look around and even made eye contact and smiled at me from about 30 feet away! It was wonderful to see! He's been growing too. I think he grew another inch or so in the past month. His torso no longer fits on the length of the bed pads so I am guessing Dear Son is really getting up there now. I am estimating he may be around 6'2" or even 6'3" tall. His teacher thinks that is a pretty good estimate as well.

Recently, I read an article which may explain in part why the organic, virgin coconut oil is working so well. I am not implying that it has cured Dear Son of his progressive disease in any way, but rather, it is an excellent tool in keeping Dear Son healthy and keeping respiratory illnesses away. Dear Son can't cough or clear his airways so respiratory diseases for him are life threatening . They have told me he will die of pneumonia. By using the coconut oil, along with using his nebulizer once a day and general good care, he is staying well. He has not had one cold, one infection of any kind. Any time he sneezes or sounds like he is wheezing, I give him a tablespoon of coconut oil. I mentioned previously how I used it for him when I talked about how we were staying well this winter with one of those items being the organic, virgin coconut oil.

In this article, a physician, Dr. Mary Newport, Medical Director of the Neonatal ICU in Spring Hill Regional Hospital in Florida, had a husband suffering from Alzheimer's disease. When the traditional Alzheimer's medicines failed to help him, she began to research the mechanisms behind Alzheimer's. Essentially what she learned was that with Alzheimer's disease, the brain's principal source of energy is impaired (brain cells utilize glucose made from the carbs we eat) and without fuel, these begin to die. The alternative energy source, or ketones, can be produced by the body naturally, when it's deprived of carbs. She discovered that the alternative way to produce ketones is by consuming oils that have medium chain triglycerides (MCT). Coconut oil has MCT and when the oil is digested, it's converted into ketones via the liver. She then went on and learned the following:

"that the ingredient in the drug trial which was showing so much promise was simply MCT oil derived from coconut oil or palm kernel oil, and that a dose of 20 grams (about 20 ml or 4 teaspoons) was used to produce these results. When MCT oil is metabolized, the ketones which the body creates may, according to the latest research, not only protect against the incidence of Alzheimer’s, but may actually reverse it. Moreover, this is also a potential treatment for Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), drug-resistant epilepsy, brittle type I diabetes, and type II (insulin-resistant) diabetes."

This may explain why coconut oil is helping Dear Son. Now I am using a very small dose with him, only 1 tsp. per day plus extra when he symptomatic.

Aside from Dear Son feeling and looking better, I should mention that he still struggles with seizures (I am not implying in any way that I used coconut oil for seizures, just to be clear.) I talked to neurologist about this today however the labs looked good so we will keep his meds at the same level and continue to use his vagus nerve stimulator as needed.

But the best news of the day was that the doctor is allowing Dear Son to attend school three mornings a week! I contacted Dear Son's teacher prior to our office visit to see how he was handling school and to get her opinion on whether or not she thought Dear Son could manage another morning at school or to see if she thought he should go longer on the days he went to school (meaning a full day). She thought another morning would work better for him.

In other news, I'll try to post a bit more frequently. I have been a bit torn over the blog lately. Essentially, I've been wanting to write about a few different things, organizing, cooking, homemaking, etc. versus blogging mostly about Dear Son. I've struggled changing topics a bit and with regards to organizing; I've been reluctant to write about that since that is my business and essentially my organizing tips are really my intellectual property so to share all of my organizing doesn't make sense from a business perspective. Regarding Dear Son, I've done some more writing and am thinking about seriously putting together a book. Some of the topics I am writing about fill up more than a post or two and would be more appropriate in a book. I am thinking instead about some e-books for topics related to organizing and organizing for special needs.

I have also been adding quite a few items to my Amazon store that is located here. Essentially, I've added a lot of gifts for special needs children as well as kitchen items and green cleaning items. It's still a work in progress and I'll be talking more about it as the weeks go on.

Coming soon though, will be my kitchen reveal. I've made some cosmetic changes to my kitchen and will be posting those in two to three weeks or so as well as talking about my philosophy about decorating and how what we eat and how we cook impact our health and are equally important when decorating and homemaking in general.

In the meantime, I'll probably try a few different post topics over these next few weeks. My biggest struggle is time since I only have two mornings a week to myself when he is at school and most of the time I am running errands. This past year has been the hardest for me, not only from the lack of sleep but from performing 24 hour a day care without much of a break. Thank you for being so patient and continuing to check in.