Middle Ground

Today brought disappointing news on the chelation front. The latest test results show that the chelating process is not as effective as it was during the first 6 months. It seems he's hit the proverbial wall and now the question is, what do we do about it? We'll have the more formal review w/ the doc on Monday at which time I'll have plenty of questions for him, but in preparation the doc has suggested we look into nutrigenomics as the next step.

Nutrigenomics? Sounds like a mix between breakfast cereal and math class if you ask me.

A quick Google search yields 347,000 results. What? How could I have not heard of this before? Ok, let's narrow that down to only include autism results - we're down to 37,500. Hmm... I should be done looking through all that by the end of the year.

It doesn't take long, however, to see that this approach is, much like chelation, a no-middle-ground approach. You have the biomed camp which is 100% positive about it, and you have the neurodiversity crowd which treats it (and every biomed approach) as akin to child abuse.

I could read all those web pages and I don't think I'd find out much more than that last paragraph said. It's become a war out there between two extremely vocal sides, and there seems to be absolutely no middle ground. Well, here we are. We are in the middle. Who's got the real answers? Is it quackery? Is it a new effective, but as yet statistically unproven, approach? Is it cutting edge or a slippery slope?

Now for more black and white... Has the chelation helped? There is no doubt that Grant is in a much better place than he was when we started. His ability to communicate has increased greatly - both by written word and with his speech. We're still nowhere near conversation, but he is using his words so often now on his own and the list of words continues to grow. His drawing skills have really taken off, and even just in the few weeks he's taken that to a new level. But has it been the chelation? Or was it just school? Was it the diet? Was it the supplements? Nobody knows...

On the home front, the news today was tough as well. Staci and I see things and interpret things in such different ways, with today's news being a perfect example. Staci was heartbroken to hear the results today; she had such high hopes that Grant would be talking soon. I took it more in stride as par for the course; to me, it's just another approach to help get him talking and to help him understand the world around him. We're going to do whatever we can to help him live his life to the fullest extent possible, but the ebbs and flows along the way definitely take their toll. Regardless, we're going to ride it through and we're not going to fall into the ugliness found on either side of the biomed and neurodiversity crowds. It's about what's best for Grant, even when we have to make up the answers ourselves.