4 days being sick - is this what it's like?

After two days spent crawling from the bed to the toilet continuously and two more days laying limp on the sofa, I'm finally feeling a bit better.  Honestly I've not been struck down by a bug like this in years.  Now, on the road to recovery, I learned something I didn't expect about my son's difficulties.

While I've been ill, I've not eaten anything.  I found it hard even to have a sip of water. On Monday I had to shout on school route instructions to my husband in between taking my head out of the toilet - it was not good!

Tuesday I managed some water and some dry bread and by Wednesday I decided my biggest problem was being weak because I'd not eaten for four days. At lunchtime I ate some sliced chicken.  Then by evening I looked in the fridge and realised we had little in the house because I hadn't got any shopping in. As hubby was at work, the kids wonderful grandparents had been helping with school runs and with the kids themselves.  I fished around in the fridge whilst still holding my delicate stomach and found some tender-stem broccoli left over from last week's Hello Fresh box.  Grandma steamed it for me, I sprinkled on salt and ate it....

And it was good.

Within about ten minutes I felt better.  Better enough in fact to finish putting the kids to bed myself.  Yep, I definitely needed to eat.  After the kids went to bed I searched around the house made a baked potato with butter, some baked beans and grated cheese,  Except I still felt uneasy and wasn't sure how they'd ...mix...in my stomach. 

I dished them up on separate plates.  I sniffed all the dishes... and immediately wasn't so sure about the beans. I went to the potato as the safest option and managed to swallow a spoonful ok.  I popped some grated cheese onto the beans and then again that seemed ok. It was when it came to mixing the lot together that I wasn't sure.  The different flavours and textures in my sensitive system... even the smell of it all.   And then it hit me... is this what it's like for my son?

David has autism and like many other autistic kids and individuals he has a restricted diet.  His senses are heighted - sight, touch, sound, smell and taste.  He finds it difficult to have foods with different textures together and smells everything before he puts it in his mouth.  His system is so sensitive that he can tell when Tesco's changed their garlic bread recipe - and so stopped eating it. He is five years old and we still often feed him from a segregated plate.  Just like my separate dishes, he's not sure when foods are mixed together.  He doesn't trust them.

In an effort to increase his diet last year we went through a horrendous few weeks of forcing food into his mouth.  Day after day of holding him down and forcing.. coincidentally.. a baked bean into his mouth. After two weeks he would eat baked beans with encouragement. After a month he stopped again. It felt terrible then... and feels awful now.

As I look at the food, that I can't bare to mix together in front of me, I felt a new found sense of appreciation for what my son goes through.. possibly at every meal. My sensitivity will reduce to a more 'normal' level, but his never will. And perhaps I'll have just a little more patience when he sniffs and rejects food and try and think of other ways to help him eat.