Saturday, April 16, 2011

Update!!

Seems that after that post, things went down hill again for Nick. We were seriously worried about him. He bit his cheeks at school so hard they bled. That led to a call at work from the school nurse, who was pretty adamant that he be taken home. They did not want him to go on the bus hurt and bleeding. So, I went to pick him up. He ended up staying home from school most of that week due to behavior/cold or allergy symptoms. It was like a vicious cycle. Things got so bad that we were thinking he could be having small seizures. He would cry, put our hands on his head, and then attempt to bang it. He was literally kicking, biting, hitting, screaming on a daily basis. Dinnertimes were awful. He would scream, bite his lip, and hit himself or me. He did not want to eat anything. It was getting pretty dire around here, and I just did not have the energy to blog. I was trying to figure out what the hell had happened to my son.

Best we can tell right now: Nick was on the mend until we had a weekend of hockey tournaments. He got sick, and missed that week of school. Then came Spring Break. He seemed to be doing ok during this time. Still not 100%, but better. Then we had another tournament. He was fine the first night. Then, something in the rink bothered him and he started melting down. This carried over to anything dealing with our home rink(which he was used to and enjoyed) due to anxiety. He did not know if what bothered him at the other rink-would bother him at our rink. So, he did not want to be there....at all. This led to him kicking,hitting,screaming, you name it. Around this time he also developed a loose tooth. I think this is what fueled the dinner time melt downs. It felt strange/hurt to eat some things. So, once again he grew anxious and did not want to eat anything he deemed *suspicious*. It was hell. For us and him.

Since I refused to spend our time at the rink sitting in the car, I got up the nerve to just *remind* him that he liked this. I took him in the rink screaming and all. We were going to get through this no matter what. I walked with him up the stairs to the viewing area (mind you, he was still putting up a big fight), we sat down on the bleachers and I held him. I held him while he screamed and fussed. It took about 20 minutes, and me hugging him as he laid on me for support, for him to lose his anxiety. He has since been ice skating twice there without incident.

His tooth is still loose, and we are still dealing with him being uncomfortable sometimes during mealtimes. However, he has persevered and the dinner time meltdowns have stopped. Until the next time.

This week, his scores in his home ABA program have returned to pre-regression status, and he is even doing things he was not doing before all this!! His language has returned, and he is once again very chatty throughout the day. We had an OT evaluation last Thursday, and he will be getting one hour of OT a week now. That is wonderful news! He needs immense work on his fine motor skills like coloring and writing. Things are looking up again!