The Lone Banana

There's no way to sugarcoat it sometimes, so I will just come out and say it. It was an awful week all around. Mira has been exceptionally irritable every day this week, which has led to a lot of stress, anxiety, and eventual exhaustion around the house. With the boys (and Mira) out of school, Sarah reached a tipping point pretty quickly this week, with all of the crying and tantrums from Mira and on occasion, Eli and Jonah - sometimes all three at once. No amount of walking, or museum excursions, or lunch/dinner out (just to try and break the cycle and to get out of the house) would suffice for all three of them. It is very difficult to simultaneously entertain a surly 13-year-old, a non-ambulatory and non-communicative almost 11-year-old, and an almost 8-year-old, who is on the spectrum. They have all had their moments, with Sarah doing all of the work while I am at the office. If there has been a bright side, I haven't had to travel for the last 3 or 4 weeks, so the baton can be successfully passed when I walk in the door at the end of the day.

The week started off with a banana. Yes, a seemingly harmless banana, which I mashed up and put into one of Mira's bottles. We used to do this at least once a day, years ago - it gave her calories, potassium, and she loved the taste. Giving her one on Tuesday quickly reminded me of why we stopped giving her bananas - it created horrible constipation. Mira does not handle constipation well, at all. And when I mean not at all, it creates havoc not only on her innards, but it makes her absolutely miserable. Tuesday she was uncomfortable, Wednesday she was wailing, and by Thursday, she was inconsolable and extremely twitchy and having a ton of seizures. We speculate, all because of the constipation. All of her seizures yesterday could have been brought on by her digestion, but then again, she has had awful days without being constipated. Either way, it was the perfect storm of misery.

Fortunately. we recognized the issue by Wednesday that she was starting to struggle and all signs seemed to point to that one horrible banana. We doubled her Miralax dosage on Wednesday and again on Thursday, but still, with no progress in the constipation department, Mira continued to wail and we braced for the inevitable onslaught that was on the horizon. We have been down this road before and while we know it is truly awful for her, it is a literal shit-storm for us. Needless to say, today was the day everything finally kicked in and the complete evacuation of her system began. Fridays are half-days for me in the summer, so by the time I had gotten home for lunch, Mira was in full evacuation mode. I will just say that it is difficult to understand just how much volume one's intestines will actually hold. Multiple bed changes, clothing changes, and of course baths later, we hope everything is back on track. Lesson learned. No more bananas, Ever.

After all of the chaos this afternoon, Mira and I managed to go down to the annual art fair, which is only 2 blocks away. Mira enjoyed getting out and frankly, we had to vent her room afterward while we were gone, so some fresh air was in order. Mira has been in much better spirits since this afternoon in general, which is even more evidence pointing toward the culprit yellow fruit. She also looked exhausted from all of the struggling this week, with the constipation as well as the seizures yesterday.

Prior to the banana adventure, someone managed to back into our car on the street on Memorial Day, which I didn't notice until later that day. This is the second time that the car has been run into in that very spot, but at least the first time, our neighbor graciously admitted that he bumped into it. The damage then was minimal, in fact, we just popped the dent out by reaching in the back quarter panel. This time however, someone really did some carnage, knocking the rear panel off  the frame and significantly denting  the bumper. They didn't bother to leave a note or anything either, so it could have happened on Saturday for all we know. Happy Memorial Day - enjoy your future increased insurance premiums and your high deductible.