Thursday, November 14, 2013

Anxiety......

It has been a couple of months since my last update, so let me see if I can catch up on everything. School started and it has been busy as usual. I am taking four classes this term-which has been a bit of a stretch trying to manage everything; but has been okay. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the worst right now. I have classes at 8am, 1:30pm, 4pm, and 7pm on those days. Then on Wednesdays I also had practicums to go to, and meetings with Nick's school team. The semester is coming to an end in just four more weeks, then I have a break, and then Spring semester starts.

Michael is getting straight A's in school! He is now in the ninth grade. He stands 5'4" tall and is 120 lbs. At the beginning of the school year he came down with what we thought was just a typical cough. He complained of being out of breath and feeling like he was breathing through a straw. We just thought it was because he had started soccer on the Varsity team and that he was just out of shape. He had practices twice a day that involved a lot of running. We just chalked it up to that. Last week we get a note from the school saying that there was a confirmed case of whooping cough-and since Michael still had fits of coughing, we took him to the pediatrician to get it checked out. Turns out he is now suspected to have exercise induced asthma! We left the office with three new prescriptions. One is an antibiotic in pill form that he has to take for 5 days (just in case he does have some infection-his chest sounded rattly), one for an inhaler, and one for a spacer. We go back the week of Thanksgiving for a follow up. This kid wants to do so many things in life. He has lofty goals like attending Harvard or West Point, becoming a para-rescue man, and joining the Air Force. His best friend in school is in the ROTC program, and Michael cannot wait until he can sign up next year! This kid is going places!!

Nick has continued to have sudden rage episodes with jerking, despite us being "harder on him" as per the last neurologist visit, so we went and got a second opinion from the Cleveland Clinic. We drove there last Friday and presented the neurologist with all the documentation of these events that had been written up by members of his team at school. They think he has severe anxiety and recommended we put him on an SSRI like zoloft. Clonidine was added to our med list in early October, and I am happy to say that he is doing much better! We still see sudden rages and some twitching, but his self injury has made a drastic improvement! Since he is doing so good right now, we are not rushing into any med changes, and will discuss a plan at the next team meeting.

Halloween this year was wonderful!! Both boys were able to wear their costumes to school on Halloween :) Michael was Dr. Who, and Nick was a Minion. I took Nick out trick-or-treating with his aide, and we were actually able to stay out for a half hour! The only time he was afraid was when the train would come by. He would bury his face and drop his bucket. After that was done though, he was able to persevere and get some candy. He was so drained after 30min, that he just came home and went upstairs to his room. But he did it!!

In case I don't get on here again for a while, hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving, and Happy Holidays!!

4 comments:

Sarah said...

Hi there. I follow your comments on the BBC ASD group page. But I figure this is a good way to get a non-ASD question to you. You've mentioned that your older son, Michael, is growth hormone deficient. Both of my sons (one NT and one ASD) have low pituitary gland hormones... particularly low thyroid and low growth hormone. They are on supplemental thyroid, but our insurance company will not approve growth hormone shots since they are growing somewhat well... about 15-25th percentile. But considering that I am 5'11'' and my husband is 6'4'', the low levels are clearly affecting them. Did you ever give Michael any supplemental growth hormone? Thanks so much for any advice you can offer!

Sarah said...

My son was a purple minion for Halloween, by the way!

Amy said...

Hi Sarah! Yes, Michael does get supplemental growth hormone. His levels were non-existent though and he was well below the 5th percentile on the growth chart. He was 6yrs old and only 39" tall. His bone age was also quite delayed. Between that and his hormone levels being zero, I am sure that is the reason we had no problems with insurance covering it. He basically stopped growing all together between kindergarten and first grade.

Sarah said...

These hormone things are so weird, aren't they? Our endocrinologist is just recommending the wait-and-see approach for now... which makes sense, considering they are still on the growth charts. Their bone age is about 2 years behind, so maybe they are just slow growers? I hate having to do blood draws every four months though. Ugh.