All Things Hold Together

I can’t believe that it has been two full weeks since I last blogged and 20 days since I last Twittered.

Things have been mad crazy around here. Big E and D’s bio-dad is visiting from out-of-state, which has caused mondo stress. Our close friends are moving away, so we have been spending a lot of time with them. Little E had a friend from Texas visiting, who is the grandson of our friends that are moving, so there was lots more visiting. Summer Kids Week (aka Vacation Bible School) was last week, so the kids were busy and tired. Bob has been working on the weekend, as his job occasionally requires, leaving me without my usual backup. And we are planning on moving, so there’s the planning and so forth involved in that.

Oh, and I just single-handedly rearranged our living/dining room (or great room, as they are sometimes called).

Lots going on.

Still, I am sorry to just disappear like that.

I need to recommit (again!) to blogging regularly. I have so many cool things I want to share, like recipes, crafts, and decorating ideas. And I want to do some posts about ADHD.

I took a July blogging break from my political blog and now I think I should have done that here, too - formally, I mean.

Anyway, I look forward to getting back in touch with my blog world friends. I hope you are all having a great summer!

One of the chores that the older boys have to do is empty the dishwasher, which is run when it is full - almost every day.

They can frequently be heard complaining that we never empty the dishwasher, despite the fact that my husband empties it at least once a week for them.

Well, this week they have been at camp. The dish washer has been run exactly once and currently only has about three dishes in it, excluding silverware.

So, I guess there is a reason that we make them empty it.

I know, it has been so long since I updated. Things have been so crazy around here. It seems like every second of my life has been consumed with learning about ADHD. There is so much to this, but for the first time in 11 years, I finally have a glimpse inside the D’s mind.

I have never understood my boy. Never. But, now I am starting to. And it has made such a difference in our lives.

Things have settled down with him and he is now able to go a couple of days without a temper tantrum.

Still, it is not perfect and there is much work to be done.

The older boys are leaving for summer camp on Sunday for a full week.

Then, on Monday, my mom is taking Little E for a couple of days.

I will have a couple of days alone and then the rest of the week with only my 4-year-old, who loves lots of alone time.

It will be a long-needed break.

And when it is over, I should be rested and we should be able to get into a routine again. Hopefully, one that includes blogging!

I can’t believe that all of this change in our lives happened right when I got my new laptop!

At least it is change for the better. We are on the pathway toward healing the hurt feelings that resulted from a year-and-a-half long downward spiral in the D’s behavior.

Our family was a wreck. His tantrums got so bad that everyone hated being around him. The stress got the better of all of us and we all fell into bad patterns of interaction with one another.

Things are going much better now, though.

Still, I know this will always be work; it will always be a challenge. Any parent with an ADHD or other “attention different” child can tell you that, but at least it will be work toward a productive goal. Fighting all of the time was work, too, only without any positive outcome.

That’s all I have for now. I am seriously fighting to keep my eyes open, so I am going to get off the computer. I just wanted to check in and let my blog friends know how I am doing.

I plan on resuming Weight Watchers Wednesday tomorrow, too.

Just to follow up on last night’s rant…

I am feeling much better today. I had a good cry last night, followed by a good talk with Bob.

This morning, I took the kids for a walk to the park, which was around 2.3 miles round trip, according to Google Maps. I was good to get out. Very therapeutic.

I am definitely going to make that a regular thing.

We are going to switch to our summer schedule, since we are close to wrapping up the school work for this year’s portfolios to the state.

The summer schedule will include about an hour of academic stuff, so we can still finish up what we need to do. After that, we will do more project-oriented learning activities.

We will go out in the mornings, but I like to stay in during the sun’s peak burning hours (red hair + light skin + blue eyes + freckles = major sun burns), so I figured we could keep the studies going over the summer.

The older boys are going to camp for a week from the 22 - 28, so I have a nice break coming up. Then, in July, they will have summer kids week at church from 9 - 12 every day. Add in a couple of trips to grandma’s and I should have the mental health breaks I need to avoid meltdowns like last night.

Plus, I plan to go out at least once a week when Bob is home to some place with WiFi, so I can bring my laptop.

In other words, I am doing much better. (Wait, I said that already.)

Sorry for being such a downer! I hope to get some fun stuff posted later today and a soap tutorial tomorrow (hopefully!).

I am so overwhelmed I cannot even put it into words. I did not realize how much I was tuning out The D’s problems and not dealing with them. I mean, I was dealing with them, but more as if he was just being a bad kid. Now I realize that this disorder gives him a completely altered way of seeing the world and dealing with life. Absent learning to adapt to his condition, he does act like a bad kid. But he is not. The changes we are making in our approach to parenting are starting to work already. As much as I abhor schedules, the schedules are helping. Standing in as his substitute brain when he is frustrated is starting to help. He went all day today without stomping. You have no idea what a big deal that is. To put it in perspective, he was stomping so much, he made the light in the downstairs apartment fall down last week! Thank God that the property manager was understanding.

I know that things are going to get better. They already are. Most importantly, I enjoy being around my son again. He has been so mean for so long that I all but gave up hope that he would ever be nice again. For 2 years he has acted like a mouthy teenage punk, but now he is just a little boy again.

The downside is that this is exhausting me. I am on duty every second of the day. The only reason I am online right now is that he is at a meeting at church. The other two boys are so quiet and independent by comparison. Even Little E, who is only 4!

I am so physically and emotionally wiped out that I started crying when I read, “ADD is an ‘invented disease,’ it is a ‘media-myth’.”

I Googled “homeschooling” and “ADD” and “ADHD” to find out more about what other parents do with homeschooling ADHD kids. I found that gem on Home Education Magazine’s web site. I have not read the articles linked there yet. I was crying too much.

Why do people think they know everything about everybody else?

This is not a made up condition!!!

In all my years of political blogging and dealing with complete idiocy, I have never wanted to call anyone an asshat until just this very minute.

After everything my son has been and is going through, and the difference in his mood, attitude, and behavior since starting the medication, you cannot convince me that this is a myth.

This is not just a kid who won’t sit still or doesn’t pay attention. He is not difficult to teach or slow or behind academically. All the judge-y know-it-alls think ADHD is all about drugging active kids to get them to sit still.

No. It isn’t.

True, The D does not sit still. Neither do my other two boys. I read to them while they are hanging upside down or rolling on the floor. I homeschool. THEY DO NOT NEED TO SIT STILL!

This is a kid who is unable to process through his emotions because his brain won’t sit still. So, he reverts to primitive behaviors, like stomping, yelling, and hitting.

He had no way to process the things that sent him into a depression a year and a half or so ago. And no one had any idea that this disorder was affecting him. That is why therapy was not making things any better and everyone threw up their hands when they could not help us.

But, you know, I am sure it is just an invented disease or a media-myth.

And I am even more sure that people are insensitive nitwits without a clue.

Too bad that doesn’t stop them from talking typing.

So, the D has been taking ADHD medication for a week now. I have noticed a positive difference. We still have so far to go.

I am not sure if more could be accomplished by a higher dose - he is taking a very small dose - but I am not sure if I want to take chances with it. We have a follow-up with the nurse practitioner who prescribed it Wednesday, so I’ll discuss it with her.

I am not sure that he really has anything else going on (like the severe mood dysregulation that was mentioned during the preliminary diagnosis) that cannot be attributed to the ADHD, especially since it went undiagnosed for so long. Man, there is a lot more to that than I thought. I was under the impression that it was just inattentiveness and hyperactivity. There is much, much more. (I want to post more about that.)

I was kind of upset when I realized that the public school should have caught this during the 3 years he was there. They should be trained to spot the early signs.

Instead, it went so long that his behavior got to be really bad. Now he has so much work to do before he will be functioning at his age level. (As do we.)

I am not going to dwell on it, though. I have more important things to deal with.

Like sleeping! I am so exhausted from dealing with all this.

But, it’s great to start to see the little boy I love coming back!

So, we met with the Nurse Practitioner at the pediatric psychiatry department for our follow-up visit about The D, last week. I haven’t written about it yet because it is just a lot to deal with. There is such a stigma surrounding mental illness and it really took me some time to accept it.

To some extent, I already knew. A while back, Bob started using the term “special needs child” to describe what I was dealing with, on those days when I was feeling like a failure for not getting enough done.

We already began the process of accepting that we could never expect “normal.”

Anyway, the diagnosis is Severe Mood Dysregulation, with ADHD and ODD (oppositional defiant disorder).

SMD is very new. It does not even have diagnostic criteria in the DSM IV (which is the book that psychiatrists use to diagnose mental disorders). It is an area that is being researched right now, so she was able to get us in with a really good doctor, who is going to help us with a behavior plan. He has a lot of experience working with families of children with ODD to develop strategies for managing behavior.

The ODD was absolutely no surprise. I have known that he met all the criteria for years. Honestly, I thought it was a made up disorder to describe children who lack structure. Well, I was wrong. We do not lack structure. And I have two other children who do not act this way. The D really has problems that require a different approach.

ODD is treated with behavioral therapy, but he also has ADHD. I, along with the teachers he had in public school, thought that he did not have ADHD because he can and does focus on school work.

As it turns out, some ADHD children can become hyper-focused on things that interest them - like video games, etc. The D just happens to be interested in reading and school work.

She prescribed a stimulant for the ADHD. It is supposed to calm his mind down enough so he can process things. The D often wants to do the right thing, but he says that he can’t help it. He is excited to take the meds, hoping that he will be able to control himself better. That is good, but also sad. I can’t imagine how that feels for him!

He starts tomorrow. We wanted to start on a weekend, in case he has a bad reaction. I want Bob home and a car here. (I don’t have a car when Bob is at work.)

Last weekend, we went away, so we couldn’t start it.

The medication was the hardest part for me to accept. I became a mom around the time that it came out the kids were being over-prescribed Ritalin. You know, adults just couldn’t handle rambunctious boys, so they gave them medication.

Well, I was always anti-medication. I want to let my boys be wild. I homeschool for Pete’s sake! They do not need to sit still all day. Or at all, really.

But that is not what this is. This is a boy who has no ability to calm himself - even when he wants to. He has over-the-top reactions to every mood - happy, sad, angry, you name it. He wants to control himself, but lacks the biological means to calm himself down.

I don’t know what the medication will do, but I am hopeful. I know that there is a lot of work to be done, but this could help calm things down enough to get that work done.

So, that’s what is going on with The D. I will update you about how things go. I also want to share how this has helped my husband and me to lean more on God. But that is another post altogether.

I have not had time to blog much lately, so here is a summary of some of the things I would like to tell you in a longer post, if I could scrounge up some *me* time.

* I am sorry that I did not get a Weight Watchers Wednesday post up this week. I just couldn’t get to it.  Nothing major to report there.

* I am finally getting the delicious purplish blossom pattern laptop that I have been dreaming about. The best part is that I will be able to blog when the kids are using the computer, which is about the only time I have during the day when they are not needing my attention/too noisy/annoying me/annoying each other/otherwise prohibiting blogging activity - or just so darn cute that I would rather hang out with them than blog (which really does happen).

* I spent the day with my 25-year-old sister yesterday. We went to a store near her that sells the kind of broomstick skirts I love for a great price. After we left, we had the following conversation.

Sis: Did you get the skirts you were trying on?
[She hadn’t actually seen the skirts I was trying on because she was trying stuff on.]
Me: Yeah. I actually bought a short skirt.
Sis: Short? You mean it comes up to your knees?
Me: Uh, yeah. Well, that’s short to me. My skirts usually go to my ankles.

I forget that short to your average 25-year-old is something different than it is to me.

* I finally got The D into the child and adolescent psychology department after all these months. We went in for the evaluation Wednesday. The woman who did the evaluation and I are both supposed to process everything over the week, so we can get back together on Thursday to put together a treatment plan. I like that approach. Thinking about things is a good idea. So is praying about it. I’m glad I have time to sit with it.

He has all the criteria for Oppositional Defiant Disorder, shows signs of depression, and is hyperactive and impulsive, but without the attention deficit and inability to concentrate that is normally present in ADHD kids.

In other words, no kidding. I didn’t learn anything new, except what treatment options are available. My hope is that we can get into a parenting training program so we can learn more effective behavioral therapy techniques.

That’s about it. I’m hoping things calm down around here soon, so I can get regular blogging time.

Have a great weekend!

Little E is doing much better. He has only needed his inhaler once each of the past two days. Both times were after some intense playing outside. His cold is still hanging on, so there is hope that once it is gone, the asthma symptoms will be too.

As I told you in my last post, Little E was up early this morning having trouble breathing. I naturally assumed that he had phlegm in his throat that was blocking his airway and didn’t think much of it.

That is until later this morning when I noticed his chest heaving as he struggled for breath.

I called the doctor and was trying to decide whether to bring him in right away or wait a while to see how he was when he came into the room with a look of panic on his face and announced, “Mom, I can’t breathe!”

The doctor, who was still on the phone, said she could see him right away.

I brought him up there and when she listened to him, she thought he had inhaled an object because she could not hear any breath.

She had him breathe in a nebulizer for 10 minutes, then listened again.

This time, she could hear his breathing, but it was wheezy.

She said that she is not ready to say he has asthma, but his body is “acting” like it has asthma and he needs to use an inhaler every four hours, as needed, and take 3 days of steroids.

I cannot explain the panic a momma feels when her little guy tells her he cannot breathe.

It looks like he is going to be fine, though.

Hopefully, he will not have serious asthma, but we will just have to wait and see what happens.