It is mid-November and the dead leaves lay thick, moist and moldy all around my house.  This traditionally is the rock-bottom time of the year for my boys.  For the first 10 years of Alex’s life, I think I probably spent more time mopping up his bodily excraments than I did sleeping.  Even last year, after our OSR disaster, I have nightmarish memories of barely sleeping and sending many desperate emails to our doctor. 

6 years of SCD, 24 hookworms and 600 TTO later, I am happy to report a serious dearth of vomit and diarrhea in our household. And while Alex’s sleep isn’t stellar (he’s having trouble falling asleep 2 or 3 nights a week), this fall has been pretty damn wimpy, in comparison. 

Overall Alex remains happy and calm.  Academics are in a rut, but we have lost none of his new skills, which is good news.  Negatives:  finger picking is back and as bad as ever.  And his teenage acne has also flared up badly. Neither seems to be responding anymore to the minocycline.  I have an appointment with our doctor in 2 weeks – I think the time may have come to move on. 

After several long talks with Marc and Jasper at Autoimmune Therapies, I was considering upping Alex’s family of hookworms.  Seems to me that it is something to explore – see what happens with 10 or 20 more.  However, as many of you know, the FDA told Jasper a week or two ago that he could no longer sell the worms in the U.S.  A terrible shame, considering the positive effects this therapy has been having on so many with various immune-based diseases – my own children not the least of these.  I’m not sure what I’ll be able to do, worm-wise, going forward.  I may end up having to buy more TSO in the future, but where the money to do so is coming from, I don’t know.