Long Day
 

I've been saying for years that we need to get the stepkids tested for celiac. My stepdaughter is diagnosed ADD and severe social anxiety, with additional symptoms not yet categorized, but in the words of her psychiatrist, "heading for a major personality disorder." Meanwhile the stepson is a classic picture of Asperger's, but his mom isn't interested in getting him evaluated at all, even though his OCD is debilitating at times, because she's afraid he'll just end up on a cocktail of meds like his sister. Of course they already eat gluten free at our house, and we only see a small fraction of the symptoms their mom complains about, except on the days when they've just come over (part of which is also just due to better parenting, but still.) Getting them tested would only be for the purpose of convincing their mother that this was a real and necessary thing for them.

So finally, I did it. The kids understood what we were testing for, and every night since the blood draw my stepson added a fervent "and please don't let me have celiac" to his nightly prayers. He's the picky eater who does just fine at our house, eagerly asks for more veggies, but has his mom completely snowed, eating almost nothing but chicken nuggets and fish sticks when he's with her.

Unfortunately for him, God didn't listen. The nurse called this morning to let us know that the stepdaughter has IgG antibodies but not IgA, meaning intolerance but not full-blown celiac, while stepson is sky high in all four metrics, a guaranteed case of the disease. We broke it to them gently, but he still sobbed for an hour. After that, I had to have the phone conversation with their mother. She knew that we had done the test, and results were imminent, but she still didn't take the news well. You could tell she really wanted to blame me for this upheaval in her life, even though I obviously didn't give it to him, and possibly even saved him from an early death of colon cancer. She kept saying, "I'll deal with this when I deal with it, and don't expect that to be anytime soon..."

I think she'll come around sooner than she thinks, because she's always been one for martyrdom, and this is one more way she can show everyone how hard her life is. And if she doesn't, hey, maybe Mr. Clod will make a new push for custody, if she's refusing to treat a documented medical disease. That's not really an ideal scenario in my mind, but regardless of what she thinks my motives are, I do genuinely care about these children and their health. I won't pretend (to you guys, anyway,) that I'm sad about the results, but that's only because we already knew how much better they both do on the diet, and now we have the justification to force the issue.

It's amazing how many people have celiacs. Quite a number in my family do, and many more are intolerant to gluten, and don't get started on lactose!

I'm sure their mother will be fine in the end, and the kids will benefit from knowing more about what makes them feel bad or good too. xxx

Damn, Texas Supermom strikes again. :notworthy

Well done Clod!

exactly.

Clod, you've done these kids a hell of a service. You've changed their lives - for the better b/c NOW that they know something is 'wrong' it can be fixed!

Knowing the diagnosis is half the battle.

Good for you, woman.

It's like you have 5 kids. Your own, your step kids, and your husband's ex-wife.

Well this could be the more kids you had been debating getting.

Is there a small part of you that thinks, "Ah ha! it's not my crappy DNA that is at the bottom of this."?

I know that would be my first or possibly second thought.

I wish I could send that mom on a slow boat to China for you.

Oh, we've already concluded that he and I each contributed half--the kids with just his genes are symptomatic, but passable, only the kids with both our genes are (were :)) severe. I'm sure it doesn't seem like it to you guys now, but I know I had Asperger's when I was younger, and still see the world differently than most people today, I was just lucky enough to develop really excellent coping skills thanks to two friends who lovingly saw me as their "project." It's one of the reasons I'm so damn good at understanding what's going on inside their heads. :)

Crummy news Clod.
But as you're smart enough to say yourself, it was there anyway and the results just confirm it.

I like your analysis of Mom. Something she can beat a drum about to draw attention to herself. She has no idea how lucky she is to have you in her children's lives.

Pretty irritating morning with Mr. Clod today. He told my stepkids that he would eat gluten-free with them as a sign of solidarity (though his wording made it so that he didn't actually promise to eat that way when he's at work, or when they're not with us,) so now he's jumped in with both feet like it's a fun game. I warned him beforehand that the kids were going to cry when we told them, and he didn't believe me. Even now, after three separate crying spells from the boy, he keeps casually bringing up how they can't eat certain things anymore, without understanding that it is sad and hard for them.

This morning, Mr. Clod tells Stepson he can have Crispix, even though I'd told him last night they have gluten, because he'd looked at the ingredients list and it was fine after all. Stepson is thrilled. I have to pull out my phone to prove to him that NO, the "malt flavoring" is barley malt, and that means gluten.

A spat ensues about how he does not magically know everything there is to know about this stuff just because he's finally decided to start paying attention, and since I teach fucking classes on it maybe he should at least check with me before he completely countermands what I've said and gets the poor boy's hopes up. Meanwhile he resents the implication that he is not smart enough to do this, and that he must defer to me on everything dietary in origin...

ANYWAY. It's fine now. A learning moment for him, but at the expense of the kid's fragile emotional state. Everyone will live...

That sounds like normal husband wife interaction to me. Dazza and I bicker like that from time to time over what's best for the kids, particularly Max. This being my third time round, I feel I have a bit more experience about deciding what will work best, where as, this is Dazza's first time, and due to his upbringing has no personal experience to bring to bear either. Sometimes he likes to press the point though, so we argue.

I always win in the end though...cause I'm a winner like that. :right:

I've learned the woman is always right

You are wise, grasshopper.

Mr. Clod. Aptly named.

Ah.
An "all of a sudden I'm interested" moment.
They occur across every relationship, even extending to work colleagues.

Sorry that Master Step-Clod was upset by it.
Many more to come I expect, but every one a learning experience and hopefully one more ticked off the list.