Zombie

5/5/11
The painful thing about speech gains is that when there's a regression or something is wrong but you can't identify it, those negatives are magnified a thousandfold. Today Nikko was very, very spacy. He was "out" of it. Eyes a little glazed as he sat at the kitchen table. No speech unless prompted, but had a few moments where he would repeat song lyrics. Almost in a zombie state. He didn't eat breakfast well, lunch was slow, and at dinner I had to pick up his fork and feed him ravioli. He got up from his chair to look into the hallway at our bedroom door, then go back and sit down again. He looked at me at times. He looked THROUGH me most of the time. Where did my Nikko go? I couldn't get much out of him in the way of tickles, either, which is not a good sign. He didn't show any physical discomfort, didn't go run off straining to have a poop, didn't hold his tummy or his head or his hand to indicate pain. This is the toughest part of being Nikko, not being able to communicate.

Did I mention my theory a few days ago about grapes? He was acting really stimmy last week out of the blue and I wondered if it was something he ate. Through research and great help from online friends, I found out that grapes have phenol in them. Phenol and other things like food dyes can cause stimminess, uncontrollable laughter, and the zombie state. There are so many other things that can affect behavior as well. Like bananas. Yikes! But since I eliminated the grapes, and the last banana he had was two days ago, I am wondering what is triggering this negative behavior. Could it be the fruit snacks from a few days ago? I would think that ingesting an irritant would cause an almost immediate reaction, not one delayed for days (although it would take days for the offending ingredients to leave his system, I'm told). I am just at a loss at the moment because a few days ago Nikko was laughing and bright and cheerful, and right now I've got a zombie boy. It's breaking my heart that I can't pull him from this.