An Introduction

I started this blog with a very specific purpose. To keep my family and friends updated on Jack's condition and treatment and to hopefully provide some support to someone else that might be going through the same thing.


My son Jack is 27 months old. He has the brightest blue eyes I've ever seen. He is loud and active and a little crazy and the sweetest little boy on the planet. He is crazy about cars and Cars and anything on wheels. He could watch Despicable Me or reruns of the Imagination Movers all day long. He's into everything, loves to climb and dance and laugh. He does the Hula and goes crazy at the end of Despicable Me when Gru dances. His best friend in the whole world is a giraffe puppet named Theodore. He currently refers to him as Dude and they do everything together. The only thing that my little man doesn't do is eat.


Jack was a perfectly healthy newborn. Born at 40 weeks and 3 days, he was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. He hit all his milestones early and we started him on solid foods at 3 and half months. He was curious and willing to try anything. I have video of him eating toast at 5 months old. He liked everything except green beans and peas. He was awesome. At the time we were living in Germany. Three thousand miles away, back home in Frederick, my Mom was fighting cancer. As soon as we had Jack's passport I started flying home for 6 week increments. After every flight Jack got an ear infection. A week of antibiotics would clear it up and he'd be back to normal, until December. We flew home on December 27th, 2009. Within a week of being home, his normal ear infection hit. But this time it was bad. Bilateral. He was in a lot of pain and started refusing formula and food. It lasted over 3 weeks. He was on 3 different types of antibiotics by the time it cleared up. After that he refused to eat solid foods. He was 8 months old.


By the time he turned one, we had gotten him to start trying bites of Stage One baby food. In addition to his food refusal, he started having terrible temper tantrums. He'd scream and beat his forehead on the floor. They would last for 30 minutes or more at a time. At his one year well baby, we brought up this new behavior and were told that it was because he was a boy and that he'd grow out of it in a few months. He never did. Fast forward to now, 15 months after his one year check up, we've been seen by ENTs, Allergists, Speech Pathologists all in the hopes to figure out WHY he doesn't/won't eat.  He's in weekly Occupational Therapy for his eating, bimonthly Speech Therapy.


Two days ago I took him to be evaluated by the Feeding Clinic Team at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore. After watching him eat and throw tantrums they are testing him for Wheat, Soy, and Dairy allergies and for Celiacs Disease. They recommend that he be admitted at part of their In Patient Intensive Feeding Clinic, for 6 to 8 weeks. In addition to that they referred him to be evaluated by the Neurobehavioral Unit for his temper tantrums and head banging. He'll be evaluated to see if he is on the Spectrum and has ASD or perhaps just has PDD-NOS.  As of now we're soaking it all in.


I think this is a good start to this. I don't want to be too long winded but I'm hoping that this gets everyone up to date with where we are and some background on what we've been going through.