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I don’t know how parents of kids with special needs or severe illnesses do it. For the last few weeks, I’ve been driving Glow Worm about 1.5 hours away to see a famous Chinese medicine doctor for his eczema. (Glow Worm kept breaking out no matter what I ate and was scratching his head so bloody that his sheets looked like the site of a massacre.) On top of that, I’ve taken him to Western doctors for steroid/cortisone creams and have so many unguents and creams and ointments, I should open my own store!

Obviously, Glow Worm doesn’t have anything seriously wrong with him. (Although, I would say the boils and pus-filled blisters, bloody scars, and general discomfort were getting to be very serious.) But all these appointments and trips to the special doctor take time and energy and money. Incidentally, I also have Cookie Monster and Gamera to take care of. Thank goodness Hapa Papa has a pretend job where he can watch the kids or take them out to fun places. Hapa Papa’s out on vacation next week in NYC so I am going to be juggling a lot of kids and doctor appointments. It should be interesting.

Now, Glow Worm is much better thanks to a combination of my diet changes (I call it my Extreme Love and Sadness Diet) and the steroid/cortisone ointments and creams. I feel as if I haven’t seen my older kids in weeks. Also, I’m exhausted. (Did I mention that I’ve been fighting off a pretty bad cold?) Hapa Papa is exhausted, too. We are all exhausted.

I am also incredibly hungry. The Chinese doctor said I can’t process proteins very well so I am passing all these unprocessed proteins to Glow Worm in my breastmilk and his poor system was so overwhelmed that he started to react to everything I ate. So, I got put on a cleanse of sorts and my diet is pretty restricted. I am also undergoing a lot of acupuncture, acupressure, and dietary therapy. I have to avoid dairy, gluten, fatty and/or fried foods, eggs, soy milk, seafood (fish is ok), and an assortment of other random things.

I am SO HUNGRY.

Hence, the Extreme Love and Sadness Diet. Extreme because, HOLY SHIT WTF CAN I ACTUALLY EAT? Love, because, I do this out of love. Sadness because, well, I also love food and these dietary restrictions make me full of The Sads. And now, I am full of The Hungers. But Glow Worm is much improved so I will keep this up. (Pretty much until he’s weaned. SIGH.) The only other plus side is that I’ve dropped a lot of weight in a very short period of time. So, you know, if you ever want to drop weight, all you have to do is STOP EATING EVERYTHING.

It is totally not worth it if it’s just for weight loss. I was pretty cranky the first few weeks.

Also, did I mention that I AM SO HUNGRY?!

Anyhow, this is all just a long, rambling post to say that I have so much respect for parents of children with actual, serious situations/illnesses/problems. I don’t know how they do it (other than they HAVE to so they DO). I don’t know how their other children do it. (Again, they HAVE to so they DO.)

All I know is that I kinda miss Cookie Monster and Gamera. But then they have insane nights like tonight (they were both exhausted but refusing to sleep and Gamera basically went ballistic) and I think, “I don’t really miss that. Have fun, Hapa Papa. I’m outta here.”