Friday, May 8, 2009

It's Not What It Looks Like, I Swear!





















Welcome to my suburban pill poppers paradise! Well, That's what it looks like anyway. But it's not. Really. Caleb has many, many, many food allergies which mess with is behavior. In order to decrease their impact on his life, he takes digestive enzymes. In the past I have served these dissolved in juice because he couldn't swallow the pill. He drank a mixture at breakfast, lunch, dinner, elevensies, second breakfast, tea time, you name it. If he wanted to eat he had to have the juice. The juice that tasted like fresh mown grass. Or worse. He was pretty good about taking it for a long time. But then I started finding the lunch dose still in his lunch bag at the end of the day. Or he would "accidentally" throw it away. Or not take it to school at all. Now, these puppies are pretty expensive as a maintenance item, so I decided to stop wasting the money. Except he was getting in trouble a lot at school. A LOT. And the rims of his eyes were so red and inflamed (His only external physical symptom) that he was starting to lose his eyelashes. Poor boy. I finally ordered more of his enzymes and when they came we worked on swallowing the capsule whole. It took about 24 oz of water, but he finally managed it. Now we could dispense with the yucky, grass flavored juice. Hooray!




















Except that these babies are in a cellulose or v-cap. And v-caps take 30 to 40 minutes to dissolve enough to release the enzyme that must accompany the food. What 9 year old plans that far ahead? What 9 year old's mom plans that far ahead?




















So they need to be repacked into these gelatin capsules which dissolve immediately. It took a long time to repack 180 pills (Which lasts about a month).




















And you are left with a massive pile of v-caps and a powdery substance all over the counter tops, making you look like you live in suburban pill popper's paradise.

7 comments:

CatchMe said...

I love your blog...caught my attention right away, haha. Keep up the good posts :)

Trish said...

Haha spammed again! Twice.

That looks like alot of work, but well worth it.

Gramma 2 Many said...

Looked at both of them, neither are spammers. I thought so at first but they are legit.
Glad you are doing his enzymes again even if they are a pain in the patootie.

mer@lifeat7000feet said...

The title and the picture made me laugh out loud, Gina.

Good grief, that's a LOT of work. You're one dedicated mama (I'm sure the payoff is worth it). Is there anyway you could mix that stuff in food? Like pudding or something that would disguise the taste??? Seems a heck of a lot easier.

Anonymous said...

Gina - as usual, your life comes up on my top 100 MSNBC headlines. That should stroke your ego no matter how you think gets there. And I tell you still....I didn't do it.

Life must always continue in pictures. And when you have, use words. You have the gift of both.

Lula! said...

Seriously, I thought that first pic was taken in my town, aka the town with the highest rate of illegal drug sales/usage in the United States, per capita.

Not even kidding. Sad, huh? We've been on 20/20 and the CBS Evening News because of it.

But you are a GOOD mom for doing this. You really are.

Lee Ann said...

Very, very good mamma.

Here's my pill swallowing tip. Place the pill on the very TIP of your tongue. Not at the back. It will go down! Hope he's doing better soon.