Tuesday, March 16, 2010

TS and Gratitude

I'll be honest. Gratitude is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Tourette's Syndrome. I'm still angry my son has to deal with this, still baffled as to the best way to help him through life, still wondering what the future holds. However, this week I realized there is one big thing to which I owe TS a lot: diet. It is/was because of Jeff's struggles that I first started really looking at diet, first started learning about additives and questioning ingredients and just really thinking about what we were putting in our mouths. Sure, I'm not perfect now - I don't eat nearly as cleanly as I would like; I still crave fast food and chocolate and all that jazz. But without my son's struggles, I never would have heard of the Feingold diet, wouldn't have known gluten and casein might be big deals, wouldn't have guessed to trace aggressive behavior to red dye 40. Wouldn't have gone to the Breadbeckers seminar and learned about milling my own wheat and the vast health benefits one derives from that versus the dead flour used in commercial products. Wouldn't have searched out raw milk. And mostly certainly wouldn't have tried to eliminate artificial stuff from the diet. *I* am benefiting from these changes. My family is benefiting from these changes. And they wouldn't have happened if my son hadn't had struggles early on. So do I want him to have to live with Tourette's and Asperger's? Of course not. But am I grateful for the nudge to a much healthier food direction? Most definitely.

1 comment:

  1. I feel the same way about PCOS. That was my impetus towards a cleaner diet. Just as a side note in that direction, have you looked into hormone free meats/eggs/milk and "live" food (yogurts, kefir, sour dough)? I'm on the verge of thinking that those diet changes may have contributed to this completely unexpected (and "normal", for gosh's sake) pregnancy.

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