VoyForums

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1], 2, 3, 4 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 14:36:02 12/01/05 Thu
Author: Lawshark
Subject: You asked for it...
In reply to: bfny 's message, "did I mention I'm quitting smokes?!!!!!" on 08:47:37 12/01/05 Thu

Talked with my Mom earlier today...and she's in full fledged martyr role...but she's moved into the depressed martyr role. She's decided that since she is the problem in the whole family dynamic she is going to remove herself from our lives and the lives of my brother and sister and their respective families. That she loves me, but that she knows that I love my boys and my wife and that I need to focus on them and no the stress that our relationship provokes. Since my dad doesn’t seem to be the one who causes the stress in our relationship she said that he can maintain the communication with us if we want.

But I digress…why start at the end? As you pointed out Bud…I’ve left quite a bit unsaid previously. I had drug my feet…not wanting to sound like WhineShark…but I guess it is too good a story to remain untold and I’ve already opened my mouth too much anyway, right?

I think I had covered my stellar birthday in Cincinnati…the screaming match between Laura and my Mom that day that DID have the silver lining of actually getting me and my parents to talk about what was going on in our lives. How we parent Andrew has been a huge bone of contention…and we frankly had not talked to them much about what we were doing or dealing with. When my sister had visited last summer (2004) she had decided that Andrew was a holy terror and that we were horrible parents who were ruining him. So, of course, she told my parents. Then, she called me up at work and read me the riot act and I told her she full of shit and didn’t know what she was talking about. That helped setback our, at the time, somewhat improving relationship with my parents.

The problem is that Andrew [b]is[/b] a very difficult child. That’s the other huge background stressor and complicating factor with my parents. I love him dearly, he’s got boundless energy and enthusiasm, he’s really smart and is very loving…but he’s also ridiculously impulsive and has extreme difficulty interacting with other kids once you get beyond one to one. Starting up preschool in the fall of 2004 was a disaster. The school turned out to really be more of a glorified day care center, they had 14 kids in too small of a room with only 2 teachers…so conforming and listening by all the kids was vital. Not going to happen with Andrew. We’re getting calls…trying to work with them…they suggest he be evaluated by Maine Child Developmental Services. Big hurdle for us to mentally clear…Andrew had been way ahead of the curve on all his milestones…and now we were being thrown to CDS for developmental delays.

This actually turned out to be a very good think in the long run. Andrew had certain signs of issues…whenever he is excited about something he’ll jump up and down and flap his arms. His eye contact is often poor when speaking to you. Something hits his brain and he acts upon it. He wants friends and likes the other kids…but will get into their space…which alienates them. We switched schools to a program that CDS highly recommended and it seemed to be going much better…challenging…both at home and at school…but there seemed to be improvement. With the way Andrew is wired it really requires us to be extra consistent…and that is something we have a lot of difficulty with. But we did see improvement and the school seemed to be indicating the same. We started working with an occupational therapist on various things. Then…as the school year was drawing to a close they suddenly decide to tell us that they hadn’t seen “any” improvement over the course of the year. They also said that another kid in the class was on medication now and it really helped him…let’s medicate Andrew and give it a try!

Assholes. We’d been asking them repeatedly how things were going…it wasn’t like we were trying to stick our head in the sand and avoid them. We even had the regularly scheduled school “parent-teacher conference” about 3 weeks earlier where they told us what a joy Andrew was to have and how they were so happy to have him. Then, boom. Hey! No progress! How about drugs?

This left us feeling that we’d pissed away a vital year and had only ONE more year before he was off to kindergarten. We had several meetings during the year with CDS and Andrew’s “team”…our case worker, the OT, the school to monitor and discuss progress. So much for that. We really started pushing with CDS to get moving on things, took the initiative to get in with a MD who is a behavioralist, evaluated by a speech specialist (his vocabulary is through the roof…he pegged at a 1st grade level…but evaluated for pragmatic speech) etc. The MD is great…very nice and while she thinks that medication does have its place, it is the last resort…not the first. She certainly thought that something was up with Andrew but was going to reserve judgment until she had much more information…the possibilities being something in the autistic spectrum (like Aspergers) or ADHD.

Back to CDS for the latest big meeting in May and we the information gathered so far bumps Andrew into the next level…CDS is paying for OT time…speech time…AND his preschool. He’s officially qualified as special education. Kinda difficult to swallow. Plus, you know me…I’m not big on government services and we felt very uncomfortable taking a bunch of free stuff. We offered to pay for the services but were informed that you simply are not [b]allowed[/b] to pay for them. You can’t get many of the services unless you’re in the CDS system….you also need to qualify under CDS guidelines and then it is considered part of the State’s public education system…ergo you are not allowed to pay for PUBLIC education. So, they were going to make sure Andrew started summer school at the Reach School…owned and run by CDS/Maine and specializing in autistic kids…they just started this year mixing mainstream and special ed. Summer was ok…but he was only going for 3 hours on Monday and Friday and you couldn’t get a read on things. BUT…come fall Andrew qualified (with a lot of advocating from us and our MD) for 5 mornings…the Reach School has been a godsend. It’s amazing to see what truly qualified and caring teachers can accomplish. The have a 1 to 1 teacher/kid room for the very challenged kids…”true” autism, etc. A 2 to 1 room where they’re trying to transition kids and a 3 to 1 room where there are special needs kids and “mainstream” kids. Andrew is in the 3 to 1 room. After a year at the last school Andrew only seemed to know half the names in his class and not even all his teacher’s names. Within a week or two he could rattle off EVERYONES name at Reach. They’re very strict…it’s not a touchy feely program in the pejorative sense…but they are amazingly positive with the kids and patient. Something as parents you don’t always feel like you can do.

It’s also been great to meet other parents and also appreciate that while we’ve been stressed out of our minds there are so many other parents who are facing even more. Raising kids has to be just about the most humbling thing that you can do…

Anyway, we just had our latest meeting with the MD yesterday (Laura’s birthday AND the percolating eruption with my parents) and at this point our MD is getting ready to recommend medication. Andrew is huge puzzle for them. He keeps getting described by multiple evaluators as “brilliant”…but also as one of the more challenging children around. The doc leaned forward and said, “Quit beating yourself up. You have a [b]very[/b] difficult child. Colleen (the director) at Reach said that on a scale of 1 to 10 Andrew is a 10.” BUT…when that energy is channeled in the right way it’s amazing to watch him. He’s got a lot of contradictions…some of his stuff points directly to Aspergers…and other traits not only don’t fit but are diametrically opposed to the diagnosis. Ditto for ADHD. However, the common trait that everyone keeps coming back to…including us…is his amazing impulsivity. Therefore the Doc is at the point that she’s going to recommend medication next month. We found out today from Colleen at the school that we’re also probably going to get an Aspergers diagnosis. (that may be, in large part, so that we can qualify for a very good program at the public school he’d go to next year.)

So…I digress…but I think the rest of the story is incomplete without the background of our stress in this area.

Time to go home…drink some beers…but I’ll continue the story later. Promise.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.