It's that time again...

an update on Zane. Fortunately this one should be filled with mostly good news. I'll start with the best news first. Tomorrow will mark 3 weeks without any seizures whatsoever!!! I realize things are still so very unpredictable but I can finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. I attribute our recent success, to the diet. Perhaps in Zane's case it just needed 3 months to really work its' magic.

The last time I took stock, (October) my heart skipped a beat every time the phone rang while Zane was at school. I always feared it would be the school calling to say he had hurt himself as the result of a seizure. Nowadays I rarely think of that when the phone rings. If they were to call with such news I would be caught off guard. That is how much things seem to be returning to normal around here.

If I were to guess what one thing Zane misses most in the way of food, I would say ice cream cones. Perhaps it's because what we now call "ice cream" is not at all like real ice cream. And he hasn't had any cones to go with it. I look forward to the day he can have one again. We'll go someplace special and let them pile it on a mile high. I can see the photo opportunities now.

Speaking of ice cream, I thought I would share some pictures of my ice cream making process. I begin by using our Ketogenic Calculator on the computer to determine which meals Zane will be eating for the week. I make a list of meals with their cream and oil amounts since it varies depending on what he is having. I go in the kitchen and tear off strips of masking tape to be used as labels. I write what the meal is and the appropriate amount of cream and oil. For example, bologna is what he takes to school everyday and it is 39 grams of heavy whipping cream and 13 grams of oil.

I stick the tape on the side of the container and weigh out the cream.

All the containers go in the freezer with only cream in them for about an hour. The oil mixes in better if the cream is partially frozen.

So when the hour is up, I take them all out and add the appropriate amount of oil.

Then they get lined up assembly line-style where I add the artificial sweetener, food coloring and Bickford Flavorings. All of those things are just a few drops so there is no need to weigh them. Recently I have been making lemon, raspberry and vanilla flavored ice creams.

With my hand mixer, I go down the line and mix them until the cream and oil are well blended. Sometimes they separate before freezing and I have to mix them some more. But that is usually not the case.

They go back in the freezer until mealtime.

This particular batch was enough for 6 days. But I have since started making them for 7 days at a time. It pretty much eats up half a day so it's nice to make a big batch all at once.

Zane has gone from eating "french toast" every morning to having toast with butter, and string cheese. He still has to eat some butter straight because there is too much for his little square of toast, but he doesn't seem to mind the butter as long as it is melted. Other meals he eats regularly are bologna, cheeseburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken. It all sounds like normal stuff for a 4 year old. But his meals are anything but normal. I think they are feeling more and more normal to him though, and that's all that matters.

He is doing an amazing job now with his diet. He really seems to understand why he is eating what he eats and how important it is that he doesn't deviate from that. I'm very proud of him.

He has been napping regularly at school, until this week. I think he only napped one day this week. I'm not sure if that is a fluke or if he is just not needing them right now. Despite the lack of napping he has been in relatively good moods after school. It is like night and day compared to how he was behaving after school the first few weeks of the year. Man, those were some rough times. I don't even like to think about them. That is true for many other parts of this entire ordeal.

We watched First Do No Harm over the weekend, finally. We got it from Netflix two months ago but didn't have the courage to watch it. As far as movies go, it's nothing spectacular. But it is about a family that essentially went through the same nightmare we did with Zane. It had a happy ending but it was painful to watch. I had tears in my eyes most of the movie because it hit so close to home.

I think it is safe to say I have suppressed a lot of the details concerning Zane's epilepsy and just how bad things got. I'm thankful that a lot of it is documented here in this blog. I just re-read some of my earlier posts on the subject and found it difficult to revisit. There were days I wondered if Zane would ever return to his normal self. And watching him deteriorate right before our eyes was so painful. I'm putting those memories right where they belong...behind us.