Wild-Heart.net

Baby Boy was discharged from the hospital on Saturday. The first thing I noticed when we arrived was how disorganized his thoughts and behavior still was. I asked the charge nurse if he had been this way since his admission or if this was just excitement over going home and he said that he had been like that for the duration.

The changes the hospital doctor made to his medication was to taper him off of Xanax during the 5 days that he was there, moved his Abilify to
bedtime instead of morning and made the Seroquel at bedtime permanent as opposed to as needed. He kept him on the 100 mg Lamictal at morning and noon and 200 mg at bedtime. At least he is finally sleeping again and the voices and visions have drastically minimized.

Baby Boy is very slowly starting show some progress at home towards being less violent and and defiant but it is still very obvious that he is cycling frequently through the day and responding to the slightest of stresses with outbursts of rage. The staff at the hospital said they had to frequently redirect his behavior, when we calmly attempt this at home he becomes agitated and aggressive.

Whenever he is in a calm state and I attempt to calmly and quietly work with him on the things we talked about during our family session at the hospital, such as creating a daily schedule that he can see and follow for more structure and practicing going to time-out calmly, and how to ignore his big brothers so that they don’t have the power to trigger him, he becomes violent and it triggers another round of mania. I’ve emailed his regular psychiatrist with all of this information. I think he’s either going through Xanax withdrawal still or Lamictal alone as a mood stabilizer during the day just isn’t going to do the job.

And yet somehow through it all, we’ve been able to complete our homeschool lessons yesterday and today. Granted, it took much longer than it used to but we made it through. Today was better than yesterday which left me with bruised shins and multiple bite bruises received when attempting to stop him from rhythmically beating his head on the wall.

Tonight was actually a rather good night for him, too. The first since he’s been back home. He and Bonus Boy both got in trouble and landed themselves in timeout for cursing out Boy #2 because he was fighting off a migraine and didn’t want to take them for a walk. They didn’t think I was within hearing distance. They were wrong and both were sent to the kitchen table for time-out. Poor child, I think it helped to have a partner in time-out. Something about it made him stop and think about what he had been doing the last three days and we had a good talk when it was over. Now, if he just remembers it in the morning. *sigh*

Baby Boy is back in the hospital. This time it was a much less eventful admissions process. His medications stopped working. We had an appointment with the psychiatrist a week ago this past Friday and some adjustments were made to his medications as the visual and auditory hallucinations were occurring again. During that appointment, I mentioned to the doctor the study I had came across that had been done in Finland that shows a link that prenatal fetal hypoxia might somehow trigger the gene for schizophrenoform disorders at an early onset. As an example, Baby Boy has early onset schizoaffective disorder while the usual age of onset for the disorder is either early 20’s or even later in life. The doctor recalled reading about the same study and asked his nurse to pull his MRI films so he could take another look at them and see if there was evidence of prenatal fetal hypoxia damage to his brain suffered at the time that I was pregnant with Baby Boy and nearly miscarried at 4 1/2 months. Sure enough he found. So there is some credence to the studies findings. As I said, he made some adjustments to his medications and we gave it 10 days.

Yesterday, I had to call the doctor and let him know that the changes had not helped Baby Boys symptoms and in fact things were actually becoming worse for him. He asked us to bring him in for an emergency appointment. He tweaked his medications a bit more and added a benzo to use as needed for when he has violent outbursts. He slept through the night for the first time in over two months. We thought perhaps we were going to have the start of a good day for a change. He woke up at his usual 06:00, helped me make oatmeal and biscuits and get Boy #1 motivated and out the door to school. At 07:00 the mood swing started, the violent and delusional boy was in full gear and before I could stop him he had climbed up on Boy #2’s bed and was giving him all he had because he was convinced he had stollen something of his that didn’t even exist in the first place. Okay. Time for the benzo. Thirty minutes after taking it he calmed down, another 15 minutes he was in full paradoxical reaction to the benzo and having to be put into a theraputic restraint.

We finally got him calmed down and called the doctor. He said it was time to call the insurance company and the hospital and get him admitted for a full on medicinal evaluation and changes. The time has come for the big guns aka the old standards. In the last two years he has been tried on nearly every atypical anti psychotic mediciation approved for use in children. They work for up 2 months, sometimes 4 if we’re lucky before his liver learns to metabolize them quickly and they no longer work.

I hate this. Watching my child be wracked and tormented by a neurological mental illness is sometimes more than I can bear. He’s now in the hospital, 2 hours away from home. I just pray that the attending doctor will work closely with his local doctor and that they can quickly find a med combo that will help him.

Prayers, kind thoughts… they’re appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Two months ago, my doctor started me on topamax for seasonal and hormonal mood swings. He mentioned that there is some anecdotal evidence that it helps also to relieve some of the symptoms of fibromyalgia and that it would help with weight loss as a side effect. I didn’t think too much about it. Why? Because there is another side effect of the medication, that of just about everything in life seeming to be dull and not enjoying much of anything, has been kicking my ass in a big way. Everyday of fighting against that side effect, I didn’t even think about getting on the scale. At the time that my doctor Rx’d the medication I had reached a plateau with my weight loss. I just didn’t think about it.

Until last night. I pulled out the scale and dusted it off. Damn. In just two months on that medication I’ve lost 27 lbs.! Yes, I know that’s a lot and I should have noticed it, however I have a bit of body dysmorphic disorder. When I look in the mirror I don’t see what other people see. So it was never obvious to me. Today, I had to prove it to myself. I dug out the leather pants and my old office wear clothing and sure enough they all fit again. I still have a long way to go before I reach my goal. I’ll just be brave enough to admit that the sizes of the clothes that now fit, that had been stashed in the back of my closet for 5 years were all sizes 18 and 16. I’m still a fatty, but there’s a lot less fatty now than there was at the beginning of this year.

I can’t hit a ball, never could, and I feel like I’ve been stuck in a batting cage for the last month dodging a never ending barrage of balls being pitched at me.

Where to begin? As if any of this matters other than clearing cobwebs from my mind so that maybe I’ll actually feel like blogging again instead of hiding.

Let’s start with the quack of a doctor I started seeing for primary care last fall who informed me that I have COPD, told me that it was in my medical records yet refused to show me where exactly in my records it was and when my symptoms were not getting better refused to refer me to a pulmonologist or a cardiologist even though it had been over six years since having seen either one. Well, I finally found and had my insurance change me over to an internist that seems to be relatively competent. He would have an even better time of doing his job if the afore mentioned quack would release my medical records to him.

New doctor set me up with a referral to a pulmonologist. Pulmonologist reviewed my x-rays, had me do a breathing test, said my asthma is under control and the problem is not COPD but that as I had suspected, the pulmonic valve stenosis stuff is worse and that I need to get a referral to a cardiologist as soon as possible because with the symptoms I am exhibiting it is possibly time to replace that heart valve and, “when you go, if they decide it’s time, make sure you tell them that I want to be on the surgical respiratory team because what you have is really rather rare and I’d love to be there for the surgery.” Gee, Doc, you bet, I’ll make sure you get to be there for the freak show. Still waiting to hear back from my internist on the cardiology referral.

Then there was the referral to the GYN. It had been 5 years since I’d had the lovely pap done. Yes, I know. I am a Darwin candidate. Especially since I’ve had three procedures to remove (non-HPV related thank you very much) pre-cancerous cells removed in the past. She did the exam and history, etc. Asked if had any concerns or questions. I let her know that I’ve had no less than 12 menses since the first of the year and about the cervical pain I experience during sex. She had no answer for the frequent menses other than a possible sign of perimenipause and/or stress and then told me that the cervical pain was most likely all psychological in nature. Lovely. Nothing like having the person who just peered up your vagina telling you that you have mental health issues with sex. Five days later I got a call from the GYN telling me that my pap results came back with results for a non-STD related bacterial infection and she actually apologized and said that was the cause of my cervical pain. When I asked her what caused the infection she made a statement that made my husband beam with pride when I later told him, “These types of infections are usually the result of repeat injury to the cervix, if your partner is well endowed, that is the most likely cause of the repeat injury leaving the cervix vulnerable to infection from normal bacteria.” Way to go, Joe! In the mean time, I’ve had cramps like a mofo ever since that pap three weeks ago. Made worse by the pelvic ultrasound that she scheduled and that I had done yesterday. Talk about a surprise. I hobbled my way back to the exam room and the tech pulls out the vaginal probe, “I’m going to be doing a vaginal ultrasound today, we get clearer pictures of the uterus and the ovaries this way.” Way to ruin a day.

I think I can talk briefly, in circles about how things are going concerning the information in the password protected post. Let me just say, after having played the nice neighbor once in this neighborhood and the one neighbor that became a daily part of our lives losing his mind and murdering someone, I will never again be the friendly neighbor. I don’t want to know who my neighbors are. I don’t want my children to know who our neighbors are. Baby Boy is just now starting to re-stabilize after having to deal with the trauma of another male figure in his life doing something horrifying.

On the plus side of things, I think we’ve finally found our homeschool groove. Boy #2 distracts Baby Boy and Baby Boy distracts Boy #2. Boy #2 however, is a night owl, so he stays up late, logs in and does his school work from 9pm until 2am and then sleeps until 11am. Baby Boy works on his school work from 7:30am until noon. Unconventional but it works for us. The best part is that it keeps Boy #1 and Boy #2 from their previous routine of bitching at each other for at least an hour every night at bedtime until one of them gives up and falls asleep.

Another positive, the topamax has done wonders at keeping the migraines at bay and even seems to be helping the fibromyalgia a bit. It’s also a wonderful thing to have the flexeril on hand for the days when the spasms and spasticity would otherwise have me tethered to the walker.

For those of you close enough to have read the now temporarily defunct other blog, you know we, as a family have been through a whole lot of hell with Baby Boy since December of last year. The short of it is that eventually he was diagnosed with severe early onset schizo-affective disorder… two weeks prior to my mother finally being diagnosed with the same disorder. I feel like it’s something I’ve been dealing with all of my life in caring for others. But when it’s your own child, it’s something else entirely.

This came about just as I finally won my 4 year fight for disability. During those years I was without medical coverage. As an asthmatic with diastolic heart failure as a result of giving birth one too many times while having pulmonary stenosis and ventricular incompetence, I knew better than to let a sinus infection or bronchitis go untreated, but I did on more than one occasion which led to the development of COPD.

Myself and my children are extremely sensitive to stimulants of any sort. They tend to make us a bit manic. Add the stress of what we’ve gone through with Baby Boy and the addition of COPD medications, which are all stimulants  and I became a ball of manic anxiety. It got to the point that 1mg of Xanax taken 4-5 times daily didn’t settle my nerves. Not even the additon of an antipsychotic mood stabilizer did the trick.

Baby Boy and I had our monthly appointment with the neuro-pyschiatrist on Friday. He was finally able to review my lumbar MRI screens and devise the best pain/anxiety/and mood treatment to give a try. So now for me it’s 5mg of Abilify 2x daily, 2mg Xanax 3x daily and 50 mg. of Tramadol at bedtime. I now sleep at night. Since starting the Spiriva for COPD two weeks ago, I had been fighting insomonia to no avail. Not even Melatnonine would knock me out. Nor Benedryll.

The numbness in my thigh isn’t bothering me nearly as bad, my daily migraine had disappeared,  and I haven’t been this relaxed in years. Sure, I’m still up tight. But nothing like I had become after watching my child lose his mind six months ago. The Tramadol is also supposed to help the Fibromyalgia and while I cannot say that I am pain free, I can say it no longer is taking me 3 hours to get moving every morning.

So far, so good. Mellow is good.

Yesterday’s appointment with the new internist when okay, I think. He was quick and thorough and there wasn’t a whole lot he was able to do other than take brief history until my medical records reach him. I have to go Thursday or Friday morning to a lab to have blood drawn. My blood pressure was low and his nurse wasn’t able to get it and it took him two tries. The reason for going to the lab is that I have tiny veins on a good day and they can only rarely be hit on a first try.

I like the nurse at the new clinic. She stopped after the second stick and sayd, “Honey, I’m sending you to the lab. I refuse to hurt you again.” See, the only clear vein she could find was in my hand. I have so much scar tissue on my hands on wrists and inner elbows from lab sticks and iv sticks it’s not even funny. I was once told by the obstetrical nurse who took care of me the first time I was hospitalized for dehydration do to severe “morning” sickness when preggers with Boy #1, that after that bad bout of dehydration, nurse would forever have a difficult time sticking me. She wasn’t lying. I can’t recall the exact number of times that if in the hospital I’ve had to stop an over zealous lab tech and beg them to please call an for someone in anesthesia to get the vein.

My previous doctor was forever treating my COPD with steroid medications even after seeing the effect they were having on my mind and body. Whenever I asked the previous doctor if there was anything he could do that didn’t involve steroids he was emphatic that steroids were the best. He ended up concluding that I must have some sort of metabolic thing going on because even a 3 day course of prednisone would have me rapid cycling through hypo-mania and depression and wanting to eat the house.

The new doctor understood my medicinal sensitivies right away and said in his heavily Egyptian accent, “There is one thing but I don’t know if your insurance will pay for it. We will try.” That one thing is Spirivia Handihaler. *I just tried linking and WP’s editor didn’t play nice.* Within 30 minutes of the first dose I could tell a dramatic difference and it iss supposed to get even better by the end of the 30 days. I’ve also noticed a dramatic decline in the frequency in which I have to reach for the rescue inhaler. This is good stuff.

There is always a downside, though. It makes me feel speedy for about 6 hours after taking it. Try being physically crippled by a fibromyalgia flare-up and wanting to crawl out of your skin because you hurt but your mind and body are saying, “We don’t care how bad you hurt we need to do this and that and this other thing and you should go up and down the stairs a few more times.”

I’m exhausted. The package insert says this will dissipate over time. I sure as heck hope so.

Once I have my wits about me (read: have had enough coffee), I’ll be making a phone call to Baby Boy’s psychiatrist. When we saw him last Friday, one of things we discussed is that he has been rather hyper and unsettled for a couple of months. The doctor suggested we try just the smallest dose possible of Adderall. Just to try and see if it would help. Knowing our family history of being unable to tolerate any form of stimulant, he kept it to the smallest dosage and only Rx’d 3 pills for 3 days. He said we’d know within 24 hrs.

He was right. There is no way in hell I’m going to give him another today or tomorrow or ever again.  He hyper focused on an internet game and all seemed to be okay… until last night. He was awake until 23:00 and then slept until 02:25. We’ve both been awake since then. The only positive thing about this trial was that it killed his relentless appetite. See, most atypical anti psychotics have a  horrid side-effect of causing a voracious appetite, a hunger that seems impossible to satiate.

One more cup of Java and I should be ready to make the call… I think. I could always email but eyes are blurry as hell just typing this.

• My nest is half empty pushing my anxiety level to new levels. Some may think that the years in which I did not have physical custody of my bio-boys was fun and easy. Little do they know me. It left me with an irrational fear of being separated from both my bio-boys and my bonus-boy.
• Baby Boy continues to struggle for stability. Friday I finally had an opportunity to speak with our family psychiatrist about this without him being present. The consensus being, severe early onset of schizoaffective with the major problem being, due to his previous hospitalizations, he tries very hard to maintain a facade of not letting anyone know when he is struggling with the auditory and visual hallucinations resulting in an increase of stress to maintain that control which triggers the mania aspects. The doctor said that he has one of the most severe cases of early onset he has seen yet also shows the most uncanny willpower to mask it and attempt to control it that he has ever seen. We also discussed this being the last time we try a different atypical anti psychotic. If this med combo doesn’t work, it’s time to pull out the “big guns” of the older and more potent schizophrenic medications.
• Had a lumbar MRI six weeks ago which revealed degenerative disc disease with two discs being fused with calcification spreading up the back of the spine and one disc bulging. This explains the lower body neuropathy and neurological symptoms but not the tremors in the upper extremities and decreasing fine motor skills. Waiting for a referral to a neurologist to make sure it’s just the fibromyalgia and not something else co-occurring.
• On Memorial Day I made the best smoked/grilled chicken ever. I also ended up with heat exhaustion from being outside all afternoon in the sun and the heat from the grill.
• Joseph is on vacation this week. The goal is to finish painting the interior of our town-home. The kitchen is half done. I’ll attempt finishing it tomorrow while Joseph works on patching holes throughout the rest of the house. When we’re done, the property manager claims new sub flooring, carpet and linoleum will be soon to follow.
• Father in-law and his significant other will be visiting a week from Sunday. We haven’t seen them since our wedding. It always throws me off guard. Joseph is a carbon copy of his father… only taller. His father also has the most unsettling way of looking a person straight in the eyes in a way that leaves one feeling that your soul has been left completely visible to him… It’s Joseph with age and wisdom. Lord, what a future Joseph and I have if Joseph also gains that much of his father in years to come.
• My last living grandparent is failing. She had the beginning stages of renal failure and was refusing to eat. She seems to have improved a great deal and I’ve been told that she’s came out of the renal failure. Her birthday is Sunday. I have to try and find a good time to call her this week. She keeps asking my parents, “When is my girl going to call me? She’s long overdue to call.” Thing is, having Nate home full time since his last hospitalization has left me with little time for luxuries such as long phone calls. And Grandma always talks with me for a very long time, always at least an hour and a half. Thank the gods for unlimited long distance!
• Boy #1 is now 5′ 9″ and only 15 years old. He just might grow into thoe size 12 feet someday.
• Boy #2 is now 14 and lord help my sanity. His personality is that of a great-uncle that while living, lived to keep drama going in the family. He carries a giant spoon with which to stir the pot at will.
• I’m a horrible mother of sons. While I enjoy them more the older they become, and the teen years aren’t quite as horrible as I had feared, the voice changes that boys go through is akin to nails down a chalkboard. There are days that I dread waking up as I know it will be followed by Boy #2’s forever changing and croaking and screeching voice.
• My mother will be here for my birthday this year. She will be arriving two days prior. She wants to meet Joseph’s family that lives here in GA and has suggested that my birthday should be the day. I’m more inclined to simply leave her to supervise the children and take a night away from home in a local hotel. Alas, between my mother’s wish and those of my neighbors & friends it will likely be that I play hostess for my own backyard birthday party.
• Bonus Boy is insistent that he wants to be here for the entirety of my mother’s visit and has begged Joseph to please ask his mother if he may stay with us the entire 12 days instead of just the 7 in the middle. I won’t hold my breath for that one.
• Sunday, the boys and I watched an older movie that has long been a favorite of Boy #1’s which he hadn’t seen a few years, 8 Seconds, the story of bull rider Lane Frost’s life. Boys #1 & 2 and I followed it with an older Julia Roberts movie, Something To Talk About, simply because, while it’s set in The South, it reminds us so much of life “back home.” Not to mention Robert Duvall reminds us so much of my Dad.
• Boy #2 has enrolled in Time4Learning for the summer with his goal being to complete 7th grade curriculum this summer and then take a grade placement test when school starts back in August. If he completes this goal, having seen Georgia’s mandated curriculum requirements for 8th grade public schools, he just might end up placed in 9th grade… There is that much of a disparity and that much lacking Georgia public school curriculum.
• Boy #1 wants to try to get accepted into National Guard Youth Challenge as soon as he turns 16 in January. I’ve been working with one of their mentoring coordinators to find a qualified mentor here in Macon that is willing to at least meet him so we can get the ball rolling. Last week, I dreamed of his wedding. It was unsettling to say the least but reassuring just the same. He later told me that when he is done with NGYC his goal is to join the Marines. Which made the fact that in the dream he was in full Marine dress uniform for his wedding, a bit more unnerving.
• I wish I was more tolerant of having two teenagers with two different musical preferences in my home. Honestly, I have to hand it to my parents. They rarely complained when my sister had her music blaring from one side of the house and I had mine baring from the other. In their shoes I would have gone completely insane.
• I think I’m finally getting sleepy. I’ll attempt something more interesting and upbeat tomorrow.

Ciao for now.~

First off, I’d like to say this… The next person who tells me that all that Baby Boy needs is, “a good ass whoopin’” is liable to receive one of their very own.

We took Baby Boy to see his neuro-psychiatrist on Monday. He explained the MRI confusion. Nothing appears to be wrong via the official results. The best guess is that the weakness and Babinski response are the result of nerve damage he’s done to himself when having a fit by jumping, stomping and in general throwing himself into walls and onto the floor.

We do now have a Dx, though. Baby Boy had one of his “episodes” in front of his doctor which led to the Dx of schizoaffective disorder. You can read about that here at the Mayo Clinic’s website. This has lead to a change of medications. He is still taking the Neurontin 3 times a day, but we have increased the Xanax to 4-5 times daily. No more Abilify and no more Geodon. We decided to give one more atypical-antipsychotic a try before moving on to the old standards. This last one we are trying is new, less than a year since it gained FDA approval for treatment of schizophrenic disorders. It’s called Invega. We’re doing a 15 day trial at the lowest dose (3mg) once to twice daily. Yesterday was his first day on it, but also his first day off of the other atypicals so he needed the night-time dose. So far it doesn’t look like he’ll need the night-time dose today.

While it’s a load off knowing that the MRI was nothing to be concerned about in the end. It is still unsettling knowing the Dx and that the outlook of this disorder with early onset isn’t as hopeful as that as early onset bipolar. Especially when it is this severe this early in life. There is a period of mourning that we are going through as parents. Maybe there will be more medical advances before he is an adult. That is what we pray for. Otherwise, it’s just a bit difficult to accept.

We’ve already contacted my attorney to get the ball rolling on a disability claim for Baby Boy. He’s going to need the income to cover things such as respite that insurance doesn’t cover and therapy that the insurance doesn’t cover. Hopefully it will go through without having to go to a hearing, but if we do end up having to go to a hearing, all the better, the administrative law judge will get to experience his disorder first hand because simply discussing it in front of him brings out the rage aspects of the disorder.

I don’t want to talk about this anymore today. It’s very difficult to care for Baby Boy as he tends to be rather verbally and physically abusive when in a rage. When, as a parent, you’ve experienced those things first hand from an actual abusive ex-spouse it’s hard to handle 90% of the time. I’m working on a thicker skin until we can afford to pay someone with psychiatric training to sit with him a couple of times a week just so I can get break now and then.

Unless it’s something major, I doubt that I’ll bring up the nasty bits on here again. I need my escape so pardon me if from here on out it’s posts about sex, paranormal, news, etc… I’m sure that a therapist would call it avoidance, while I’m sure that our neuro-shrink would call it therapy. Yes, that’s how contradictory the actual doctors are from the actual therapists.

Such is life, eh.

My apologies for not following up for days. I’ll go into more details later about all that has occurred in the last week. Just a quick bullet fest to give you a general idea:

• Baby Boy is now being homeschooled. We’re using the most excellent online curriculum Time4Learning.com.
• PMS started last week, which for whatever reason also triggered a bad but of IBS. Four menses since the first of the year is a bit draining on the stamina.
• Dr. increased my dosage of Xanax, which decided to play hell with Soma. I’ve been sick. Really, really, horribly sick.
• Being this sick is not good when finally getting the opportunity to help a dear friend bring some sanity into managing her very fabulous business while freeing her time to do the work she loves to do and does so well.
• Sometimes I HATE emergency rooms. When you haven’t kept food or liquids down, not even Emetrol or just plain water for well over 24 hrs, which means you haven’t been able to keep down any of your meds and you’re still sitting there waiting for over 3 1/2 hrs. it’s just enough to make you mad enough to go home and be miserable there and just sit in a room with humidifiers and suck on wet washcloths until it’s over.
• Tomorrow night, we have to take Baby Boy to have an MRI of his brain done. Both with and without contrasting. There is a strong possibility that his mood disorder is not organic in nature but actually something physically wrong in his brain. Dealing with that is, well, I’ve yet to figure out what it’s like other than frightening.
• Hopefully I’ll be as fully recovered as possible by Friday. That is, if the rest of the boys can figure out that actually being nice to each other and being calm in the house makes Baby Boy’s “episodes” much less frequent.
• For 3 years, I’ve wanted a desktop zen garden style fountain. This week, my cat received one but I got to pick it out.
• For over 5 years of being with Joseph, I’ve given hints. Lots of them, about how I would occasionally like to be treated to flowers or a card on holidays. This year I got pink roses. Another cat is stealing them one at a time and hiding them.
• I need to get some very important links and info added to the sidebar over there. But it is a bit low on the list of priorities. Which is something like this:

1. Get the FMS back under control.
2. Get Nate through the MRI without the noise triggering an “episode”
3. Get this Rx incompatibility worked out so I can actually get some work done.
4. THEN get some little things done around the old blog here.

Guess I lied and this hasn’t been a quick list. But it has been brought to you by today’s letters: X, Y, and Z.

I just spoke with my baby boy’s attending doctor at the hospital. We discussed his medications and the changes and accompanying psychosis and anxiety. He is stopping the Depakote as his levels are too high regardless of what dosage they have tried and are going to start weening him off of the Geodon since its side-effect of poor memory recall contributes to his anxiety. Today they are also going to start him on Neurotin to see if that eases his anxiety. We also discussed the possibility of starting him on Lithium while he is in the hospital. He said it is actually one of the safest medications to use in patients with mood disorders, even pediatric patients. I asked why it is always used as a last option. He said that the frequent blood level testing is the number one reason that most parents don’t try it before going through every other antipsychotic, most parents do not want to have to mess with frequent trips to the lab.

You know, I try to never judge what other parenting choices that other parents make because unless you know every single nasty detail of their lives, it is simply not fair. Every family is unique and so is every child. I’m trying very hard to understand why, when nothing else is working to preserve your child’s sanity, any parent would hesitate to try a medication with the safest side-effect profile that has the best track record of helping children & adults. Why? I don’t ask that sarcastically. Not in the slightest. It breaks my heart and I would really like to understand this way of thinking. If a child were diabetic, would a parent refuse to monitor their blood sugar 4-6 times a day and administer insulin injections? I wouldn’t think so.

I understand that most HMO’s don’t like to give prior-authorization for medications that require frequent lab testing in an attempt to keep costs down. I “get” that. Honestly. But why not fight tooth and nail to save your child?

And speaking of diabetes, the doctor said they would check his fasting and non-fasting blood sugar levels today and tomorrow. His blood sugar was a bit on the high side when they did labs at the ER. The only thing he had ate in a five hour period, about 30 minutes before the labs were drawn was 2 graham crackers and 2 tablespoons of sugar free peanut butter. He said that in some patients who take antisycotics, the meds can cause high blood sugar levels and when blood sugar is high it can induce psychotic behavior in some individuals.

The more depressing stuff is after the “More” tag/link. It’s my journal and my therapy so if you don’t want to deal with that, feel free to not click it. I won’t be offended in the slightest. And if you’re reading this in a feed-reader, just go ahead click onto your next updated feed.

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I have one word for you: Xanax.

My youngest (nearly 9 yrs. old) has early onset schizo-effective disorder. It’s been a bit of a hell lately but is gradually getting better. The result of the stress of that situation sent me into a tail spin of anxiety, which of naturally triggered a bad fibro-flare. Went to see a neuropsychiatric specialist. I figured it was time to ask for help when my natural ability for parallel thought added paranoid connections between random things. Wouldn’t want crazy to get too out of hand, you know? So he started the process of a neurological work up and various other boring and dramatic things and he got me started on Xanax.

Let me tell you something first, my mom… she’s been taking Xanax like a fiend for about 13 years. Just the thought of having to take that stuff gave me yet another stomach cramp of anxiety. But I agreed to give it a try..

Wow!

I haven’t felt this clear headed and peaceful since I was maybe 17? Gosh that was a beautiful night. You would likely rather I skip that part but it was such a beautiful experience and the last time that I felt connected to life in such an peaceful manner. It was a mid-July evening in Iowa. One of those not to humid nights when the breeze is just right. Think of Meryl Streep on that farm house porch and she turns to face the wind and the look of pure contentment that is on her face. Oh, how I have grown to miss Iowa. But that’s getting off track and I’m sure you’re starting to get confused if you’ve managed to read this far.

I love my shrink and I love Xanax. I’ve still got the usual minor fibromyalgia things going on and the neuro quirks, but it’s as if I couldn’t be bothered to worry. And this is coming from me, the chick who just  spent 3 days awake and worrying herself into paranoia. And I’m remembering things today that used to give me joy and I’m excited about getting reacquainted with myself. I didn’t think I’d ever see that side of me again.

Hell. While fixing supper this evening, I felt as chipper as Barbara Streisand did while skipping across that college campus singing to the flowers to make them grow. (Bonus points to whomever can name that movie right off the top of their head. )

Which reminds me. I’ve been having this urge to NetFlix some Cary Grant movies, Giant in particular. And Doris Day movies. OH! And Elvis’ Hawaii movie which of course means I would also need to watch The Fabulous Baker Boys. I adore that movie. I know, it’s not the right time period but just has that nior feel to it and I love the soundtrack.

Sure, I still walk like an crippled old woman and twitch all over now and then and stink of Ben-Gay. But today, I didn’t care.

Sure my baby boy still was spouting prophecies of some other world known only to him and spent a lot of time yelling at me about horrible his day was and followed me around the kitchen telling me how to cook. But today, I smiled and sweetly was able to deal with that without constantly feeling like I was going to vomit.

I sat outside this afternoon, just enjoying the sun for the brief moment it was appearing from the clouds, and remembered being 4 years old on the first very warm day of Spring in a sun-dress and white strapy patten leather sandals with my sister dressed in matching clothes and shoes, playing Ring Around the Rosie with white clover crowns on our heads woven by our mother. Spinning ’round and ’round and smiling with the most perfect, innocent joy and collapsing dizzy and giggling into the grass and watching the clouds pass over. I think I need another moment like that. Do you suppose 34 is told old for Ring Around The Rosie?

So. Yes. Go Xanax!