Update on INTUNIV....Day 3

So Day 3 was a little bit harder. What I mean by that is we saw a lot of what we're used to seeing in Grant before he started this medication. He was up at his normal time, fooling around and bothering people. He had a hard time controlling his temper and being respectful towards me.

On a positive note though, I can still tell that he calms down easier/softer than he was prior to INTUNIV, and I do have to mention that he did not get as much outside time today due to rainy/cold weather. Any child has a hard time under those circumstances.

I also noticed that I'm finding him sitting at the schoolroom table by himself playing with little nonsense toys fairly quietly more often than I've ever seen him. He seems to be calmer and able to sit there without being asked to for longer periods of time before he moves on to the next thing. He also sat with me in a quiet room in the evening after getting ready for bed and read an entire little reader book with very few helps from me. He was calm as he tried to figure out the words, and just politely asked me to help him with a few words instead of getting frustrated. It was so pleasant, and I could tell he was trying so hard. It was a lovely moment!!!

He is sleeping fine all night, though I still have been giving him his regular 1.5 mg. pill of melatonin before bed. (If you've never tried melatonin with your child, and he/she has trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, you should try this. It's great for the sleep issues that come along with ADHD!!! I buy a bottle of 120 3mg. pills at Wal-Mart for $6. I cut it in half and give one-half to Grant and the other half to my oldest daughter who has inattentive-ADHD and the most sleeping issues, and they are asleep for the night within 20-30 minutes!!)

We are currently on just 1 mg. of the INTUNIV, and will continue to be until day 7. Then we will step up to 2 mg. and see if what benefits that offers us. I can tell you, I'm already looking forward to that.

Update on INTUNIV....Day 2

So day 2 of this new medication for my son has been a bit different from the first day. The morning was so quiet for us because I had to WAKE HIM UP at 9:30 am. He usually is bounding out of bed between 7:30 and 8:00 am and starts irritating his siblings immediately.

He did get resistive about his schoolwork this morning and refused to do his English, and he did struggle with getting along well with the neighborhood children outside in the afternoon. In fact, he was so aggravated and upset when he came in for dinner that he shouted at me,

"See!!!!...this vitamin (which is how he refers to the medication) isn't working."

One thing I mentioned to the doctor on Monday was how both his sister and I have been diagnosed with under active thyroid issues since we last saw this doctor in August. We both are on Levothyroxine now because of this. I have read in a couple different places that thyroid issues can have ADHD as a symptom (in fact I've noticed some change in my diabetic daughter along these lines since having her thyroid issue). So I asked the doctor if he thought maybe we should have my son checked because we have such a strong family problem with it just to make sure he doesn't have an underlying thyroid issue as well. I haven't seen any other symptoms that would indicate that, but I would love to just make sure.

Also, the doctor ordered a routine EKG check on Grant since he is starting this new medication.This doctor's office has a policy that any child on any medication must have a routine EKG done when they start the medication. I'm assuming they do this so they have a base to go off of in case of any side effects down the line. As an added note, INTUNIV is really (long-acting) Tenex which was once used to treat high blood pressure. So, of course, a side effect of this medication could be a possible lowering of blood pressure. It has to be dosed up in increments until the body gets used to it and he has to be weaned off slowly if we decide it isn't working for him because of the blood pressure issues.

Today (Wednesday), my husband took Grant to have both the EKG done as well as the blood draw for the thyroid check. I told him to be prepared for Grant to resist and fight the blood draw.

He didn't.

He just sat there and watched the nurse slip the needle in, draw the blood, and take it out. No fighting, no resisting, no crying, no freaking out.

Major, major victory for Grant.

His dad was so impressed that instead of the measly McDonald's for lunch, he took him to Applebee's!!!

How we've come to decide to try some medication for my son in managing his ADHD.

This has not been an easy journey. In fact, in some respects, this issue has been more difficult to live with than the all consuming Diabetes routine we've come to respect and adjust to.

Our 7 year old son was diagnosed with the combined type of ADHD along with anxiety issues last August. We've been trying to manage and train him though for 7 years. I distinctly remember him becoming more difficult and active right around 18 or 20 months old, and thinking that this was the beginning of the "terrible two's". I hoped his behavior would improve by 3. It didn't. So I hoped he would grow out of his crying and tantrums by four. Nope. Worse. So surely by the time he was 6 we'd have the smiling, happy, charming child we had worked so hard to bring out. Nope.

By the time I started schooling him, I knew.

I knew he was probably ADHD.

But then when the Diabetes rushed in and took over our lives, his issue had to go on the back burner. So finally, last summer I took him to "The Child Study Center" in Fort Worth.

I mentioned to the doctor that my son had this weird kinda tic. It was almost cute sometimes.

He would start winking his left eye in any kind of situation that was different for him.

It could be on stage with the children's choir at church, it could be celebrating the big baseball team championship his team won in the spring, it could be when his dad or I were trying to correct him in some area, or it could be sitting with a new tutor.

Then there was the anger. Hoo boy... can that child get mad.

Spankings only made him go ballistic.

Time alone in his room to calm down was the only way we could get him to a point where we could talk to him about what triggered him to become defiant, or so angry.

I was prepared to hear ADHD, but was surprised with the anxiety diagnoses. Made sense though. But I didn't really know what to do for that. The doctor recommended counseling. He also recommended that I get some evaluations done at the public school for some of his learning difficulties too. He did not push medication. In fact, he warned with his anxiety issues that some of the stimulant medications available could trigger suicidal thoughts. Neither my husband or I wanted to put him through that. I didn't want the sedating effect either, or the erasing of the personality, or the wight loss because his appetite gets cancelled out.

So I researched some counseling. Came up with a bunch of dead-ends. Very expensive. Not Biblically based. Too far away.

I've looked through dietary changes and supplements. More dead-ends. How much and what will help? The lists are ENDLESS and would take me YEARS to work through. I've tried cutting out artificial colors. No change. I've tried adding some supplements. He gagged and wouldn't take them because they smelled bad. I've made EVEN MORE changes in how processed our food is on top of trying to figure out all the dietary needs of my diabetic child. No change.

I need something else soon, or I will need the medication myself!!!

I've been reading endlessly on the internet about different approaches to treatment. It's either too costly or on the other side of the continent.

Most interestingly, the Lord has brought complete strangers across my path here recently who have been so encouraging about our struggles. One lady in particular that talked with me for about 45 minutes after going through the check-out lane at Wal-Mart at Christmas left me so encouraged.

Her son is also ADHD and she is as well. She was so encouraging and compassionate and understanding of how difficult this is to handle on a daily basis. Especially when going out into public. She told me not to be afraid of trying him on some medication. She said that sometimes you can't even see who these kids really are and the wonderful talents they have because they are MASKED behind these hyper, angry symptoms. They are so frustrated many times because they KNOW they have something "wrong" with them, and want to behave, but just physically can not.

That stuck with me. I started thinking more and more about that. It made so much sense.

Recently here, my son has had some particularly bad evenings. Evenings where he is still running and bouncing on the bed and bugging his siblings......at 9:00 pm......after a full day of the same. He got into a squabble or something, ended up upset, and went to bed crying.

When I was tucking him in, he was crying and telling me that he didn't WANT to have ADHD, that he didn't know why God made him have it, and that he wanted it to go away.

That just about did me in. I knew then that doing nothing was not an option. Giving up on finding something to help him would be cruel and negligent. I'm not waiting around and looking and looking for something that I'm not going to find anytime soon.

We had a follow-up appointment with our doctor on Monday. I talked to him about how we had changed up our entire school curriculum and I had switched all the rooms around in the house to facilitate a better learning environment, and that Grant was improving in his schoolwork!! But I also told him that we still had huge struggles. I talked to him about medication options that we could use a a tool to help him be calm enough for us to be able to talk to him and get through to him, and that would help give him some inner control and peace.

He told me about a new medication that has come out since we were last there in August.

It's called INTUNIV.

It's not a stimulant, and it's not a controlled substance as are other medications used for ADHD.

I'm very hopeful that this will help him.

It's not supposed to help with focus and grades in school and attention.

It is supposed to take the edge off the irritability, and help with the hyperactivity.

It sounds like a really good fit for us.

It is NOT without its side effects though, and we are prayerfully watching for those things.

We were told it would take about a week for his body to adjust before we saw any changes, but I have to say that he took his first dose Tuesday morning, and he was a different person.

I absolutely noticed that he did not have a scream fest ONE time that morning. He was very cooperative with me the whole day, and his sisters noticed that he wasn't as irritating to them.

I don't know if that was just too good to be true, but let me tell ya......it was a victory for us!!!

We'll see how tomorrow goes now, and how he sleeps tonight.

My new thing.....

So a couple weeks ago, I saw an endocrinologist.

See, for quite a while now I just haven't been feeling myself.

I don't know exactly who I was feeling like.....but it WASN'T me.

I can't even tell you when I first noticed this. It kinda snuck up on me.

I just know that 2009 was an excruciatingly stressful year for me (and our family.)

What with Ashlyn's diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes in February (to start our year off right),

to Lexi and Grant's diagnosis of ADHD in August and with my husband's crazy night shift work schedule. I just started feeling like I was loosing control of my household and that just put me

in emergency mode all the time. I started noticing that I was yelling and raging mad at SOMETHING every day (it seemed like). Then I would feel depressed about the future

of my family. I was constantly putting out fires and dodging shoes that were being thrown

by the children at each other.

Then there is my weight.

I feel like I'm two of me.

I'm not used to being this heavy.

But I haven't lost a single pound since Aryn was born two years ago.

Then there is this fog!!

I literally feel like I'm two steps behind everybody and that I can't remember anything...

ANY...THING!

Not just this silly, oh, I can't remember where I put my keys today.

I can't remember why I came in here.

But what was I doing before I came in here?

If I don't write it down on my calendar, I will NOT remember that I have an appointment.

I can't remember names of people, or things that I should know.

Just foggy....like my head is in a cloud!!

So I started talking.

Talking to my friend who is handling some thyroid issues (thank you Amber!!!), talking to my mom who has been dealing with her thyroid since junior high school, talking to my sister who is also managing a thyroid thing.

I started reading.

Reading on the internet.

But what I was feeling didn't always line up with what I was hearing or reading.

So then while in casual conversation one day with my friend, I happened to try to feel my thyroid to see if I could tell whether or not it was enlarged.

Low and behold there is a knot on it.

I was thinking, "WHAT? You've GOT to be kidding?"

I had never noticed it before, you can't see it in the mirror, and it doesn't bother me to swallow.

I decided then and there to just go and get things checked out. If I was wrong, no big deal.

If there was something there, then let's get it fixed.

So I started by calling my OB/GYN (who I LOVE) and made an appointment for a general physical.

I told him about what had been going on this last year, and how I was feeling, and casually mentioned that I had found this small marble size knot on what I THOUGHT was my thyroid.

He felt it and agreed that it should NOT be there.

He sent me to have an ultrasound on my thyroid as well as having bloodwork done too.

When that all came back, he recommended that I see an endocrinologist.

So I went.

And he diagnosed me as having "Hypothyroidism" which is the big term for under active thyroid.

Which would also explain why all- of- a -sudden I couldn't get warm at night.

I was just thinking that I was most comfortable wearing sweats to bed with 3 blankets because it was 12 degrees overnight here recently.

Well, the temps have gone back up to a balmy 40 degrees and I'm still FREEZING at night.

So I'm taking 50 mg. of "levothyroxine" until my next blood draw in a couple months to check and see if this is a good dose for me or not.

I also go back next month for another ultrasound of my thyroid and that knot,

as well as a "fine needle aspiration" of the knot.

Think amniocentesis......of this knot.

It involves poking a needle into this thing and drawing out whatever is in it to check for cancer

and whatever else could be causing this.

Now, my doctor is not overly worried that this is what it is, but he's just checking to be sure.

I'm good with that......the needle....not so much.

He has reassured me though that this offending needle is VERY fine (like finer than my daughter's insulin syringes), so I'm actually not even freaking out about it.

Thankfully this is the all-American condition and is extremely common.

In fact, I bet you know of a lady who is or has had a problem with their thryoid and needs medication for it.

Hence, the medication is extremely cheap. (You might think that because of that the opposite would be true!!!)

Like $10 for a 90-day supply.....at my Kroger pharmacy.

It's the same at Wal-Mart if I'm not mistaken.

I started feeling old when I left the parking lot of the endocrinologist.

A little scene from the movie "Pollyanna" went through my mind.

The one where Pollyanna visits that cranky lady who thinks she is dying (you'll remember that I will not be able to remember her name right now...),

and the lady says "I'm on death's doorstep. Just pills and bills!!"

That's me.

Staring at the big 4-0 in little more than a week here, and already popping pills

first thing in the morning.

But I hope it helps me remember things better,

and that I'll start to thaw out!!!

Gift idea for a two-year old girl.....

Occasionally people (usually ladies) will ask me for gift ideas for different ages of children. I guess I look like a good candidate for being aware of that kind of thing since we have a variety of ages in our home. I usually draw a blank right at the moment I'm asked about this, so I thought I'd share this with you before I forget about it.

I found this at Wal-Mart last weekend for our little new two-year old. I'm getting more and more choosy about the gifts we get for our children because we are running out of space in our house, and I don't want to keep up after a jillion different pieces of some toy. Our little Aryn LOVES baby dolls. She is beginning to look like Michelle Duggar with all the dolls in her crib. Because her 3 sisters all enjoyed babies too, we have several different accessories for dolls ranging from strollers, to back-packs, to clothes, highchairs, pillows and blankets.

Somehow, though, we missed the baby bed.

This little baby doll bed is PERFECT for a little girl! It's just the right size for her, doesn't have a million pieces, was easy for Mom to snap together, and is nice and sturdy. The parts fit together beautifully, and you can snap out the little legs to keep it still or snap the legs in to make it rock. I have been impressed with this little toy, and highly recommend it. The price: $15

Perfect!

A "Date Night"!!!

My husband and I don't get enough of these, but last night I was able to go with him for dinner to a country club where he was invited to sing along with the rest of our church's mens quartet.

I apologize that the picture is a little hard to see, but at least the sound is good!!

My husband is on the far left in the pink shirt.

Enjoy!!!

We have a two-year old in the house again.....

Glimpses of our youngest's birthday.....

Happy 2nd Birthday, Aryn!!!