Infraction of the worst kind

I had been warned multiple times that this day would come.  As good as Grayson is about knowing which foods he can't have, he IS still just a 5 year old exposed to a lot of different people and foods when he leaves our four walls for school every day.  I was thrilled with our arrangement at his green charter school, because as of right now, everyone brings their own lunch, so I still have complete control of everything he eats while there.  I plan to retain complete control of his food for at least the next few years too, but little did I know where the loop holes could be....and Grayson promptly found them.

Let me go back a few days to some things I began noticing.  In one day, two of his teachers contacted me about "incidents" at school.  There was nothing horrible, but it was obvious that his focus was suffering for some reason.  I also noticed that he wasn't eating all of his lunch, something very rare for Grayson, even when he isn't fond of a food, he will always eat what we send for him.  He may just leave a small morsel behind.  Two days ago, his ENTIRE lunch came home untouched.  He said his stomach hurt.  Hmmm.  He has just gotten over an awful cold and before that, he was sick with the stomach bug, and before that...well, you get the picture, he's been sick a lot, so I immediately thought, "OH NO, not again!!"  That night, same thing, he didn't want to eat, because his stomach felt sick.  He did eventually eat though. The next morning, the eggs he normally loves made his stomach turn and he said he felt like vomiting.  I was sure he was getting sick yet again.  Then something in the universe pointed us in a completely different direction.  My husband had filled his backpack for school and forgot to include his lunch box.  In an attempt to catch the bus, he grabbed the lunch box and ran off after it.  Luckily, in many ways, he did catch it, because when he got onto the bus to give Grayson his lunch box, he was greeted by a nice little surprised Grayson.  He was in the process of eating his friend's lunch.....a BAGEL, probably with butter on it and who knows what else!  Meanwhile, his friend was gobbling down his Redenbacher popcorn, which I am sure he also shared ever so generously.

Suddenly the past muddy months have begun to look VERY clear!  He had been doing SO well for so long and then this sudden Jekyll and Hyde behavior, new sleep problems including bed wetting and nightmares, lack of focus at school, some hyperactivity randomly....but a clean stool test, all had us baffled.  I was reaching at straws and aiming at things in the dark.

Unfortunately for Grayson, we are now forced to tighten the noose.  He was given a lot of trust and freedom, but he has promptly lost that, and indefinitely.  He will now have to ride in the very first seat on the bus and is not allowed to eat anything at all.  In fact, the day we told the bus driver about our new plans, he told us Grayson accepted a bag of popcorn from a girl on the bus.  UGH!  He learned very fast where he could manipulate the situation.  He befriended a generous child, he found where he could sit on the bus to hide and eat....yes, this was calculated, but I do believe it may have started innocently enough with the boy offering him a bite of his snack/food and Grayson accepting then realizing no one noticed or said anything.  Rules?!  What rules?

This is a huge scare, because gluten can take many months (even from a trace encounter) to get out of the system.  We can't afford mistakes like this, his health has been severely deteriorating over the past weeks and months.  In the past, he would catch a cold or a stomach bug and be over it in a day, but more recently, he can't seem to fight anything.  Even now, he still has this awful deep cough (his brother has been over it for days) that was from a cold they caught two weekends ago!  Not like him at all.  But suddenly crystal clear!

I still want to pursue the additional testing and see, if viral issues may still be at play, weakening his immune system, but even more importantly, the updated food sensitivity panel could be very telling, now that he has been exposed to potential allergens.  When a child is avoiding a food, it doesn't show up as a sensitivity, because lack of exposure removes the antibody reaction.  Now that he has been exposed to gluten at minimum and possibly even dairy, if he is still sensitive to them, it should show up on this next test.  So we are going to take advantage of this little blunder and use it to educate ourselves. I have always believed in learning from mistakes and making the best of the situation, what better way to use this to our advantage?  Looks like the boys will be having their IgG food panel testing ASAP!  In fact, I think I will go call now, lol....