Wow! My first post in 2009. It has been almost a month since I posted. We had the winter break from school which was a busy time here. Our 15 year wedding anniversary was January 1, 2009. And on January 9th we took a 3 day cruise to the Bahamas. It was a nice break and a great way to celebrate our anniversary.
We continue to have a small army of professionals helping us now with Miss M. A true blessing! The CBA (certified behavior analyst) and the therapist Dr. Susan still come to the house once a week. We still see the Psychiatrist once every 3 months and more if needed. We also consult with him by phone.
M has started having rages more frequently again which is an indication that her meds need adjusting. She seems to have grown a bit which messes with the med balance. She had been on a cycle of 1 rage every 3 weeks which for a bipolar child her age is considered stable and certainly better than every day, multiple times a day, or at best every other day. But she started having more and more difficulty. Hard time getting to sleep, lots of temp. complaints, and more moody irritable behavior - frequently. When the rages started coming back we consulted her Psychiatrist who has made a med adjustment. So far it seems to be helping already. She is still grumpy but is using control and not escalating right now and she is going to sleep easily and sleeping peacefully through the night.
While we were away on our cruise Nan stayed with the kids and we had a "plan" in place to deal with any potential issues. We had diversion planned where M got to spend some one on one time with a family friend. That helped some but she let the friend know that she was ready to go home and that was that. I think she realised that she was having trouble keeping a lid on it and she would rather be at home when she is struggling emotionally.
When M woke on Sunday Nan knew she was having a bad day. Very irritable and lots of outburst that were not rages. So Nan followed the plan and called Dr. Susan who came and helped out. They took the kids to the park. Things went okay. On the ride home M got angry about a toy and began escalating from there. Dr. Susan tried her bad of tricks which did not work unfortunately. M began attacking Dr. Susan and Nan and so went the rage. Once M began coming out of it they gave the PRN meds. She was mentally in such a state that she did not settle even with the PRN meds. She fought sleep for 4 hours. Dr. Susan recommended baker acting her where the police are called and the person is escorted to a psychiatric hospital for a minimum stay of 72 hours. Nan did not feel comfortable to make that decision with Mom and Dad unreachable. Nan also said that this was by no means the worst of her rages which apparently surprised Dr. Susan. She said she had baker acted children for a lot less than what M had dished out. Our goal is to keep M at home if at all possible. So far we have succeeded with the Psychiatrist help. When we can no longer keep M or the rest of us safe then we will have no choice.
Dr. Susan expressed that M is severely mentally ill and dangerous. It is almost humerus when professionals catch up. We understand all that already that is why we have all this help in place. Hearing about it and seeing it in living color are two different things. So at least now Dr. Susan has a more clear understanding.
M also had a little issue in school where she kicked a girl in the head Wednesday. Nan actually witnessed the behavior and unfortunately it appeared that the teacher assistant in charge of the girls did not see what happened. Not good. So we have asked our teacher friend who is also our support person at school meetings to address this situation with the after care staff.
The other kids are doing well. C has had much better behavior since we have eliminated dyes and preservatives in his food. No easy task, but it is going well. He is still battling anxiety and chewing his little fingers till they bleed. We will need to revisit this with his pediatrician.
V won 3rd place in the Science Fair at her school! This year she entered the biology category which is a tough category so we were thrilled that she worked so hard and placed in the fair.
E is still a ham and such a funny kid. He is talking all the time and so so smart! He carries this toy snake around everywhere and it usually scares people.
Well I will try not to be so neglectful of my blog here and keep the updates coming.
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