Author: Dave

The Ketogenic Diet Is A Family Affair

On the morning of New Years Eve, my wife and I got a head start on our healthy new year resolution and went for a run. We left our son sitting on the couch watching his iPad with my mother-in-law sleeping in the next room.

Over the past few months, my son (who is on the ketogenic diet for epilepsy) has been sneaking food, so we took the precaution of hiding any tempting holiday treats on top of the refrigerator. Before we left, I looked my son in the eye and told him that we would be right back and to stay on the couch. He nodded in agreement and nestled comfortably in to the corner with his blanked.

When we returned, he was still on the couch. When I asked him, he confirmed that he hadn’t moved but he wouldn’t look at me when he answered. I glanced in to the kitchen and noticed that the step stool that we have under the counter had been moved. On top of the fridge, I could see empty containers of leftover deserts.

I looked back at my son and his head was down. “It was me, ” he said softly.

There has been a lot of this lately. He’ll sneak crackers from the pantry or leftover spaghetti from the fridge. A few weeks ago, he took a bite out of a tomato at a grocery store.

I am both heartbroken and frustrated. I’m heartbroken because of how restrictive the diet is for a 9-year old boy who sees the people around him eating whatever they want. As his father, I’m frustrated because his initial instinct is to lie and the foundation of our family is built on love and honesty. But I’m also frustrated because I know I have a hand in making the environment tempting for him by keeping unhealthy food in the house when the stakes are so high. Where a typical kid would just get an upset stomach from eating too many cookies, my son falls out of ketosis which could lead to an increase in seizures.

He’s been on the diet for more than 3 years. That’s a long time, and these recent incidents of sneaking food are starting to grind down my resolve. I’ve gone from thinking that the diet partly helped saved my son’s life to questioning whether it helped at all or if he still needs to be on it with his new medications and his VNS. I’m collecting evidence to support my theory but deep down I know it’s tainted with confirmation bias because I don’t want the diet to be working.

I want there to be an easy way out. It’s would be easier if there were a clear indicator that the diet was making a difference. It would be easier to stop the diet to remove the strain we are feeling instead of figuring out what other modifications we can do to make the diet more tolerable. But like so many things that come with an epilepsy diagnosis, it’s not that easy. It’s also not easy as a parent to feel like your child is missing out on something when his life is already so hard.

But there are things we can do to not make it harder. We can make better dietary choices ourselves and not have the tempting food in the house. We can make a big deal out of eating better and stressing the importance of diet for our health, the same way his diet is important to his health. We can be his parents, and take on some of the burden ourselves to alleviate some of his. Because if we can’t make it all go away, we should at least show that we are in it together.

January 15, 2019
Walking Through The Mud

I’ve been having a hard time finding the motivation to write lately. The thoughts in my head and the words on the page all seem the same as they have been for the past few months. The past few years.

My son isn’t better. He’s still seizing. He’s still limited. He’s still heavily medicated. We’re still dealing with his school and trying to get him an education.

Everything is harder than it should be.

It feels like I’m walking through mud. Every step takes extra effort. Every step requires my full attention. I need to push my hands through the mud to search for my leg that is trapped in the muck. When I find it, I have to wrap my hands around it and pull it towards the surface. The mud resists, not wanting to let go. Even as my leg reaches the surface, the weight of the mud clinging to my legs and shoes threaten to pull it back down. It leaves me unbalanced. Even though it is only inches in front of where I started, I’m forced to push my foot back through the mud to the ground underneath. Even though I know it means that I will have to struggle for my next step, it’s the only way to find temporary stability. Otherwise, I risk falling over and being fully consumed.

The struggle reveals itself everywhere.

Parenting is harder.

There are fewer right answers. There is more uncertainty. There is more acceptance of things that no parent of a 9-year old should have to accept.

Marriage is harder.

We’re in the same stressful, relentless situation watching our son struggle and seizure, but we have different perspectives and have different needs. We’re both trying to be there for our son but we go at different paces and we aren’t always within reach of one another.

Work is harder.

It’s hard to go to work after endless sleepless nights. It’s hard to concentrate on the work when the mind wants to worry about an upcoming surgery or the handful of seizures he had that morning.

Friendship is harder because we’re so focused on the things we can’t afford to ignore that we ignore the relationships we need. Finances are harder because of the mounting costs of medical care, nanny care and tutoring. Diet and exercise are harder because we’re always so tired and pressed for time and it’s just easier to order something from the couch.

But like many families in our situation, we continue to move forward. We keep taking labored steps towards a destination that we can’t see. Because where we are isn’t where we want to be. Because we hope we are heading in the right direction. Because there is no other choice.

The mud is unforgiving, but in those moments of brief stability in between each step, I sometimes catch a glimpse of something wonderful. The struggle has given us gifts. I am a better parent to my son because I can’t take a moment for granted. I am a better partner and friend to my wife because we know what it is like to truly need and love another. And I have brought my whole self in to work and been surrounded by people who accept and care about me. We found understanding friends. And we have learned the value of trying to live the best life we can with what we have.

It’s not always easy to see these gifts when I’m stuck in the mud. It’s difficult to be motivated when everything feels harder than it should be. But I’m doing my best to keep moving. I’m doing my best to learn and to grow and to be a good father, and husband, and friend. Because, really, there is no other choice.

“The lotus flower blooms most beautifully from the deepest and thickest mud.” ~Buddhist Proverb

January 8, 2019
Goodbye, 2018.

Today is the start of a new year. The Earth has made another full rotation around the sun as we hurtle through space and time. Along the way, moments were left behind like discarded Polaroid photographs that littered the void with what was and will never be again.

As the universe continues to move forward, it leaves those pictures out of reach. Except they are more than pictures. They are memories with an emotional connection to people and to a time that cannot be experienced again.

Or changed. If I do try to stretch in to the past, it’s usually to try to hold it and wish I had something different. But that often leaves me feeling sad or empty or guilty.

There are so many memories that I want to forget. I’m afraid if I reach back to grab one that it will pull me back into the vacuum and suffocate me. Maybe that explains why I’ve never been particularly good at looking back.

So I try to focus on the present, except that I’m not always great with that, either. I’m better than I was, but I still miss a lot of what is happening in front of me. Maybe things are moving too fast. Or maybe I do it intentionally because sometimes what I see in front of me is hard.

My son is stills seizing. His anxiety is worse and it is isolating him. The keto diet is particularly hard right now with a lot of sneaking food. The VNS surgery that I resisted for so long has left my son with a vibrato in his voice that occasionally makes him insecure.

But if I could reach out in to space and pull one of those pictures from the past and hold it up to the present, I would see how different this year is ending than the last. I would see how much progress we have made.

We met new people and built stronger relationships with the people in our circle.

We have found a nanny and a tutor that has made our lives better in so many ways.

We had countless examples of people showing my son and our family immeasurable kindness and compassion, from his baseball coaches making him feel like a part of the team to strangers that saluted him when he wore his Captain America costume.

After a long struggle, we have our IEP and are getting the supports put in place to help protect my son and get him the education that he is entitled to.

We were honored by the Epilepsy Foundation Eastern Pennsylvania at their Mardi Gras fundraiser and joined their board to give back to the organization that has given so much to us and others in our community.

We returned to the National Walk for Epilepsy and my wife and I both ran events at the Philadelphia Marathon to raise money as part of the #AthletesVsEpilepsy team.

This blog has connected me with so many people.

And throughout the year, our life was sprinkled with countless tiny, special moments. Like stars shining through the black curtain of space, we only needed to look up to see them. To let them in. And to be amazed by their splendor.

Last year was a year of transition, taking us from where we were to where we are. I’m looking forward to this year as the year that will get us closer. Closer to my son’s seizure dog. Closer to an answer on the VNS. Closer to each other and to the people around us. Closer to who I want to be. And closer to understanding our place among the stars.

I’m not great at looking back. And I’m not always good at looking up. But I want to be.

Maybe that is something to look forward to in 2019.

January 1, 2019
What Can’t Be Undone

The suggestion to implant a VNS was made by our neurologist years ago. But there were still options to try so we held off. Unfortunately, CBD was not our miracle and other medications didn’t help. The seizures kept coming and we ran out of things to try.

When our neurologist brought up the VNS again, I felt the overwhelming weight of the decision squeezing the air out of me. If it even has the potential to improve his quality of life, she asked, shouldn’t we try it? Of course, she was right, but that knowledge didn’t help me breathe.

Neither did having an amazing surgeon in one of the best children’s hospitals in the country. Neither did the love and support of friends who would try to reassure me about how safe surgery and anesthesia are. Neither did my wife who held everything together when I couldn’t.

It wasn’t the mechanics of the surgery that occupied my thoughts. It was the idea of cutting into my little boy. It was the permanence of it all. It was the thing that can’t be undone.

We can wean off a medication that doesn’t work. We can stop the ketogenic diet. If years from now his seizures miraculously go away, we could stop everything and pretend that all the hard things about his childhood didn’t happen. There would be no signs, no trace. I could live in denial about how traumatized I was by this experience.

But the surgery forced me to confront the fact that these things aren’t going away. That the magical, unburdened life I wanted for my son is not going to materialize. That I can’t fix this or make it go away. That this is real, and that the future for him will include challenges brought on by his condition. That I’ve somehow failed him.

From the time the decision was made to the time they wheeled him away hopped up on “giggle juice”, I pushed my feelings down. I was practical but emotionless. I showed up for the appointments and answered the questions as he was prepped for surgery, but I wasn’t really there. I couldn’t be. I had to push it all down just to appear strong enough to make it through.

Even after his surgery was over, I had a hard time being present and acknowledging what had happened. I had a hard time looking at his scars. They were bigger than I thought they would be. Instead of small ones hidden by clothes, they’re long and visible. I looked away. I caught a glimpse of the device itself, raised under the skin and I looked away. It’s more than just being squeamish, it’s a spotlight of reality shining into my eyes and blinding me.

I worry that he’ll think I can’t look at him. I worry that he’ll feel like he did something wrong or that there is something wrong with him that is causing this reaction from me. I’m worried that I can’t get over my own hang-ups and be there for him when he needs me.

I tried to explain to him the feelings I was having but he didn’t understand. I didn’t, either, until I started to unpack them. But I still don’t know what to do with them. I want my acceptance to turn the spotlight that was blinding me into a beacon that brings me to him. But instead, it feels like the light has turned off. It’s not repelling me but it’s also not drawing me in. Instead, I’m left in the darkness trying to find my way.

But I can hear his voice. And I hear my wife’s voice. They’re calling me. And so I’m pushing through the blackness, the emptiness, to find my way back to them. It’s scary and impossibly hard. But I can hear them and they need me. I can hear them, and I don’t feel alone.

I’m on my way.

December 4, 2018
Escaping From Reality

This post is part of the Epilepsy Blog Relay™ which will run from November 1 through November 30. Follow along and add comments to posts that inspire you!

When I was young, I was always looking to escape. I could read a book and see the scenery described on the page around me. I would read Spider-Man comic books and imagine myself, the awkward outcast, swinging from web to web through my neighborhood. And I would get so immersed in a video game that I wouldn’t notice that I was hungry or tired or that the sun was starting to come up and that I had to get ready for school.

My ability for my imagination to transform the world around me helped me escape from the inescapable situation that was my complicated childhood.

My son has that same gift. When we play hockey in his room, I think he sees a sheet of ice, feels the cold air around him and hears the support from his teammates on the bench and the fans in the stands. When we play Avengers, I think he sees our apartment as the city in smoldering ruins and himself as Captain America defending the citizens against whichever villain he has me portraying.

I’m grateful he has that. My son’s childhood is differently complicated than mine was. Where mine was lacking, my wife and I try to provide for my son in abundance. But the challenges that he is facing because of his epilepsy and the myriad of complications that come with his diagnosis is not something we can remedy.

In his imagination, those complications don’t exist. A seizure doesn’t prevent the game-winning goal or take down The First Avenger. The side effects of medication don’t slow down the action or the hero’s mind. Those are things for the real world. Those are things to escape from.

As someone who needed a place to go myself, I’m empathetic and want to encourage the behavior. As he gets older, he can evolve his ability to craft a world to wrap himself in to shape the real world around him. That world is likely to be sometimes hard, sometimes cruel, and sometimes dark. But imagination and creativity have a way of shining a light into the darkness and illuminating the way.

However he chooses to use his gift as he grows up and whatever form it takes, I hope he dares to shine that light on the world. Because I’ve watched it grow inside of him and have seen how it already impacts those around him. And it’s glorious.

NEXT UP: Be sure to check out the next post tomorrow by Glynn Partington at Living Well With Epilepsy for more on epilepsy awareness. For the full schedule of bloggers visit livingwellwithepilepsy.com.

And don’t miss your chance to connect with bloggers on the #LivingWellChat on December 6 at Noon ET.

November 25, 2018