Dr. Chernoff and stuff

The appointment with Dr. Chernoff went well, I think. I asked her what she thinks of biomedical treatments for autism. She seemed open-minded enough about it to satisfy me, and she seemed cautious enough about it to satisfy my husband. She also gave us the names of two nutritionists who can help us put JF on a GFCF diet. I need to figure out whether either one is on my health care plan.

After we left, I started to worry. It's difficult to describe this worry. I guess it comes from my expectations, based on visits to other doctors. When visiting other doctors, we always leave with something: diagnoses, prescriptions, referrals, suggestions, information, or at the very least, reassurance that the doctor will investigate the issues at hand. After the visit with Dr. Chernoff, I started to wonder, what did we leave with this time? We have the names of two nutritionists. That's it. Maybe I'm being greedy or impatient, but I was expecting much more.

We gave her lots of paperwork to look at: JF's school evaluations and IEPs, his allergy test results from last August, and a spreadsheet that I had made. The spreadsheet includes all of his doctor visits (from my records in Microsoft Money and insurance claims), all of his vaccines, and the dates on which he tried each food the first time. For some reason, I haven't managed to include developmental milestones like when he started crawling or walking. But the doctor seemed happy with this spreadsheet anyway. And we promised to ask the neurologist to send her a report. I also gave her a printout of Parent Ratings of Behavioral Effects of Biomedical Interventions (the PDF version).

So I will give her time to read all of this stuff, and wait to see what she does with it. But it would have been nice if she had concluded the meeting with, "I will read all of this and give you a diagnosis/referral/information later." Maybe she usually does say something like this, but just forgot today. Or maybe she did say it, but I wasn't paying attention!

In other news, I went to My Organic Market (MOM) after work today. I spent $59.37 on thirteen items, and all of it was GFCF: Pancake mix, bread, spaghetti, cereal, frozen fruit bars, tea biscuits, candy, DariFree drink mix, margarine, bagels, cookie dough, waffles, and pound cake.

In my mind, there is a GFCF contest between stores, and MOM might be winning. I was able to find only five GFCF items at Trader Joe's, and only two GFCF items at Whole Foods. On the other hand, Trader Joe's is closer to home for me, and has their list of gluten-free products on their website. As far as I can tell, MOM's website does not have any product lists. And maybe I'm just getting better at finding GFCF stuff.

After we move, I will have to start all over again, figuring out where I can buy GFCF foods. But I don't see my current efforts as a waste of time. It's a learning experience.

We're almost ready to put the house on the market. AF needs to paint the upstairs bathroom and finish painting the kitchen, and fix a few things here and there. The wood floors are all refinished, the outside of the house has been painted, the yard has been cleaned up and mulched, the chimney/fireplace has been lined/repaired, and most of our clutter has been hauled to the new house, to Goodwill, or to the dump.

JF's rash disappeared after five days. The daycare refused to take him back until the pediatrician had filled out a new health inventory form. So, on Monday (or was it Tuesday?), I took the morning off from work to take JF to the doctor so he could fill out the stupid form. (AF had to stay home to meet the chimney repair people.)

Oh, and I almost forgot: JF pooped in the potty again! (This seems to be a monthly occurence, so it's still cause for celebration.)