Slipping!

I slipped. I ate sugar, just a little bit but eat it I did. It's amazing how just one taste will get you back to craving it again.

We'd gone out and I hadn't planned my eating. I should know by now never to do this as I always end up in trouble. We've just been so busy with Jonah and I have again put myself last. I had eaten a really good breakfast (vegetable omelete) but suddenly it was 4.30pm and I was getting dizzy. I hadn't eaten another thing ALL DAY! That is so unlike me, I am a firm believer in six small meals a day and I usually only miss one, if any.

So here I was in Coles, about to crash into a hypo. I felt that familiar disorientation feeling and started to sweat profusely. Classic hypo symptoms. What I needed was sugar and now. Problem when you are having a hypo is that your brain is starved of sugar so you don't generally make wise decisions. This was no exception!

I went to the lolly aisle and grabbed chocolate. Chocolate is full of sugar but it's medium GI so it doesn't get into your blood stream fast enough. I should have gone for the jelly beans.

The chocolate didn't work fast enough and I was getting worse. At least my brain had enough sense to go for the next best thing after jelly beans, juice! I grabbed a large breakfast juice and drank it without coming up for air. I knew now that even though I felt like death was fast on my badk, I'd had adequate sugar and I didn't need any more. The craving for a cherry ripe was really hard to thwart lol.

The juice had given me an immediate sugar hit so after about ten minutes I started to feel much better. The chocolate held me up until I was able to get home and cook dinner. Unfortaintely my body had had sugar and it liked what it saw!

The next day the cravings were strong. I really wanted more. I tried to justify it that I could have just a little bit but I knew in my head that it was the wrong thing to do. Come night time I was almost climbing the walls again. I had no fruit in the house exept for some frozen berries so I couldn't even get a healthy fructose hit. I was within seconds of sending Darling Husband out to get me some chocolate...

Then I remembered, I DID have some fruit in the house...banana! I chopped some up, mixed it with some weet bix and it was bliss! The perfect sugar hit without feeding teh addiction. It worked, the cravings were gone and I was back on track.

I have also had my first sugarless coffee. I'd given up coffee back in September in a bid to cut down my sugar intake. I could not drink coffee without sugar and for those who know me, using any kind of sweetner is never going to happen! So I just had to stop drinking coffee altogether. I'd tried cutting down and just having one sugar but I hated it, it just wasn't worth drinking the coffee when I didn't enjoy it.

So, I gave it up. I had two coffee's over Christmas but didn't enjoy them without the sugar. Yesterday I had a coffee with no sugar and I realy enjoyed it! I'd planned to try it with glucose but I forgot to take it with me. I am still shocked. I never ever thought I could enjoy a coffee with no sugar. It just goes to show how much I depended on the taste of sugar to make things palatable. Now that I'm not longer relying on the taste I can enjoy foods for their own flavour, not the mask that sugar coats them with.

Kicking the Wolf.

The wolf came to see me in a dream about two weeks ago. He was preceeded by a gunman who was chasing me through the house, only one step behind me as I ran for my life.

The gunman was after me, the wolf was stalking Jonah.

Kicking the Wolf.

Relief.

It's over, the MRI is done and again we wait. We also had some chromosome tests and more blood work done while he was under the general anaesthetic. Our appointment was for 11.30am with admission at 11.00am. We arrived half an hour early and went straight through admissions and into the MRI rooms. Jonah was under the anaesthetic by 11.15am, much sooner than I had anticipated!

He had to fast for 6 hours prior to the procedure so this morning when he woke at 3am I kept him awake. We played for an hour and I turned on the TV and all the lights so he'd think it was morning time. At 4am I fed him a bowl of weetbix and mashed banana and kept getting him to drink water. The poor little thing was wondering why I was chasing him around trying to shovel food into him LOL.

At 5.20am he fell asleep in my arms after having a big breastfeed. He was so full he could harly move lol. When he woke again just before 9am I knew he woudln't be starving. We headed off to the hospital at 10am, stopping for petrol along the way to drag out the time. The waiting room had these amazing panels on the walls that had all manner of things to flip turn and spin. Jonah loved it!!!

We're home. He's safe and fast asleep in my bed. I am off to snuggle up to him soon. I will be starting another blog with this journey in it. I want to keep is separate from our general blog because we're so new into this journey I don't want it to completely take over and I need to keep references for later on as he progresses through his surgery.

Keep an eye out for the new home!!

Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning Jonah has his MRI. They are looking for some conditions that mimic autism and/or cause the same symptoms but also have other componants. His EEG is booked for March 12, so by the time we get back to the developmental paed on March 18 we will have our answers.

It's moving fast. For that I am grateful, we're not left languishing in a system we can't control. But I'm scared too. It feels like it's all getting out of control, going too fast.

I'm finding it hard to look at Jonah and remember what it was like to not know this, to not look at him and see Jonah and autism together. I want to go back a few weeks ago where I looked at him and saw only Jonah. I've already forgotten what that's like.

So hard to say.

I hate that I have to do this post. I have not wanted to say anything until we were sure and until we had some answers but today any hope that it was all a bad dream were dashed.

Jonah has been gradually regressing and losing his ability to comminucate. Today he was given the preliminary diagnosis of Autism.

We saw our regular paediatrician on Monday. He evaluated Jonah and put his cognitive, social/emotional and fine motor skills as that of about an 8 month old. He sent us to an emergency appointment with a developmental paediatrician. That appointment was today. The Dev Pead is certain Jonah has autism. She said she never gives the diagnosis on the first visit because she needs to rule out other causes but if she were to go by what she saw today, he'd definitely get a positive diagnosis.

She has booked Jonah in for an MRI, en EEG and numerous blood tests. If they are clear then we get the positive diagnosis of autism because there is nothing else causing the regression and the other traits he has. If they are not clear then we're in serious trouble. These tests are to rule out 'more sinister' conditions. Unfortunately now, Autism is the good outcome, the best one we can hope for.

My baby has autism
My child is autistic
I have an autistic child
My son has autism
Jonah is autistic
Jonah has autism

Whatever way I say it, it just doesn't sound like the words are coming from me, or that I'm talking about MY child. Not my child. My child isn't autistic, he doesn't have autism.

I just cannot get my head around this.

The Blogies. I haz one.

I have been awarded the most awesome of bloggy awards..."The Blogie".

And as you can see for your very own eyes, it truly is an awesome sight.

And it's MINE! (But I must pass it on)

I was awarded this most wonderful of blog awards by the very funny, clever and awesome Jen over at Jemikaan (<-- If you click that Jemikaan dowhacky there it will take you to her blog!)




In accepting this award I must thank those that have bought me here. Blogging is something I love doing and it still astounds me every day that some of you out there actually drop in to read this crap that I dribble. I've lost a lot of followers since blogger sliced and diced my old fiveby40 blog into nothingness but it's good to see you all trickling back in, and not to mention the new faces too!

I want to pass this Blogie on to special folk out ther in Blogland. I do love each and every blog that I follow but there are some I tend to click on a little more than others and I think it's because these particular people really do 'get' me. But I do love youz all :D

Kakka She's just such a darling heart. I always know she's out there reading and being so unbelieveably supportive of me. She's been watching my journey of Jonah's pregnancy, the aftermath, the fitby41 blog and even now she's still there cheering me on. She has an awesome blog that is just straight from the heart. I always feel so calm after popping in there for a read. It's like going into a quiet room for some time out lol. So Karen, please accept this Blogie as a token of my thanks.

Danni Over at 'Ramblings of a Mama' has a great versatile blog, always interesting and funny. Danni and I have known each other since Paige and Sam were babies and we keep trying to catch up but it just never happens! This year, Danni....this year!!!

And although there are at least 20 people I want to pass this on to, I am just going to pick one more....

Sunny Side Up .Kirrily's blog. Just go there, read a few posts, and you'll know why.

So you three...step up and grab your Blogie!!

My Pet Peeve

Nutella.




This stuff ^^ it's truly horrid. How any parent can justify giving it to their child is beyond me. Even before I became a fructophope I still knew Nutella was not a food any child (or adult for that matter) should ever be eating. People, it's a jar of sugar and fat. Before you even see a hazelnut you have to get past 85% sugar and fat. That's right, there is almost 55% sugar in that jar and 30% fat, that's almost 85% sugar and fat alone.

It's not food, it's poison dressed up as a chocolate spread.

The first month.

So the first month of being sugar free is over. I'm over the worst of the cravings but I do get the 'urge' now and then. I think it was be like nicotine. When you give up nicotine you get over the cravings but the desire for it does come back now and then. You know it's not strong enough to make you succumb but it still pops up.

That's the way it is with sugar. Usually it's a visual trigger. We were shopping one day and I walked past the biscuit aisle. Biscuit aisles have Tim Tams in them. When I saw them I really wanted to eat one but I didn't crave it. It just would have been nice. Walking away was easy and as soon as I was out of that aisle I'd forgotten all about them.

Official weigh in has me three kilos lighter. It's not a huge amount but it is the first time since September that my weight has gone down instead of up. In september I gave up coffee and took up hot chocolate. I ate way more sugar than usual. It is also the month that soft drink (or soda) starts to go on special in readiness for Christmas and we were buying it. From September to the end of December I drank a lot of sugar in the form of hot chocolate and soft drinks. My weight went very slowly but very steadily up. I put on about 8kg in that time. Given that since I gave up sugar my weight has now started to come down, and it's 3kg down I think we can safely say that weight loss is due only to giving up the sugar.

I have actually been eating a lot more fat than ever before too. I've switched to high fat everything and I don't scrimp. And it's true folks, if you eat fat in your diet you will eat less. Fat triggers your brain to know that it has eaten and you feel it. If there's sugar in as well as the fat it seems to have the oposite effect and you need to eat more to feel full. Fat on its own is much better.

So, no change in exercise, increase fat intake, drop sugar = a 3kg loss. I think this no sugar gig is working.