With Nora’s long seizure-freedom, she has become a regular spunky 10 year old girl. We will forever be grateful for the ketogenic diet and the difference it made in her life, and the difference it made in our lives as her parents. I’m still happy to be a supportive friend to any parents who are on this journey with their own child–if you are out there, feel free to comment and we can email or talk.

Now I’m helping a family member on her journey into careful low-carb eating. Her pancreas had to be removed, and now she is diabetic and entirely dependent on insulin. It is essential to get a healthy low-carb eating plan in place.

I revisited our own blog to find some recipes and nutritional information–like leaving myself a message in a bottle! I’m baking a version of the Blueberry Almond Muffins for a healthy on-the-go snack. I will do a lot of baking and freeze lots of low-carb treats!

As I was looking through recipes, I came across this post by Ted: Lessons Learned. Just, wow. Practical tips, plus words of wisdom on navigating the marathon of epilepsy. Marathon makes it sound a little too easy (not that I’m ever running a marathon, sounds hard to me). More like a marathon with archers and club-weilding trolls jumping out of the bushes randomly. They may knock you down, but you get up and keep on moving. If you don’t read the full post, this is the pearl of wisdom for all of us:

It’s not “hard.”  It is different.  If you think the ketogenic diet might help your child, don’t accept any statement that the diet is “hard” as a reason for not trying it.  I wouldn’t say the diet is hard.  Epilepsy is hard.  The diet is a tool that may improve your child’s quality of life and development.  (Remember that if your child has failed two anti-epileptic drugs, the diet is statistically more likely to help than a trial on a third drug. Also, certain epilepsies respond particularly well to the diet.) However, the diet does require some changes to your thinking and expectations.  Once you get your routines down and everyone gets a few months to adjust, the diet is not significantly harder than having other diet restrictions.  Just different.

That is a beautiful, resilient frame of mind for any life challenge. Thank you, Ted. I can tell you in person that you are amazing, but let’s all take a public moment to recognize your amazingness.

We are happy to be a resource for parents on this journey. Leave a comment and we can converse here, or we can be in touch by email.