Dear Doctor

Dear Medical Professional, You will ask about his medical history, And I will repeat the story I have told 100 times or more, The details fine tuned to the essentials I know you need: He was born full term, He has a 7 year old brother who is fit and well, He is allergic to penicillin.  You will ask me what happened, And I will answer: He is 6 years old. He wasn't breathing for 7 minutes. I gave him mouth to mouth. I will hand over a careful typed piece of A4 paper. It will tell you his hospital number, The things he is allergic to, A list of medications and doses. You will take it and smile. You'll tell me I make your job easier. I will stand calm, And in control.  You see my demeanour, my hospital bags packed and ready, And you say, You've done this before. I'll nod and say many times. But remember this; That 6 year old is my baby. That boy with the oxygen, And the wires, And the tubes, Is my son. I watched him turn bl

The Ketocal kid

The Ketocal Kid?  That's Little H that is! 


He has currently swapped his 5 feeds a day of nutrini mulitifibre 'a nutritionally complete tube feed for the dietry management of disease related malnutrition' 

 for ketocal  'a very high fat, low carbohydrate, nutritionally complete vanilla flavoured liquid product'




The Ketogenic Diet is a high fat, low carbohydrate diet used in the treatment of difficult to control epilepsy.  Little H definitely has what you'd call 'difficult to control' or 'complex' epilepsy.  His seizures are life threatening and have scared the life out of me repeatedly.  I have had to resuscitate him more times than I'd care to imagine, the most terrifying of which was at the side of a dual carriageway.  You can read more about H's epilepsy in this post: Six months on from an epilepsy diagnosis  

When medication after medication failed to control H's epilepsy, his neurologist decided to try him on the ketogenic diet.  A brilliant website and charity providing lots of useful information about the ketogenic diet is Matthew's Friends.  Have a look if you want to find out more.  


I am using this online diary to chart Little H's progress on the diet as a reminder to myself, but also in the hope that it may help others starting the diet to know what to expect.  You can either click on the links to the individual posts below, click here or follow the 'ketogenic diet' link under the labels near the top right hand side of the page.  


Blogs Posts on the Ketogenic Diet:



You can read about Little H's friend Sam who is also starting the ketogenic diet here: Samuel's Ketogenic Diet Diary