We’re still learning…

It’s not quite the end of October, so fall has only just begun, so really I shouldn’t feel so defeated when I look back at my last post and realize that since then things have only gone downhill. I know this thing we call life is a marathon and not a sprint, I know that the goodness of the seasons both of the harvest and of life are not determined within the first trembling weeks. Still I can’t help but wonder just how long before the “lookin’ up” mentality takes back over my attitude. Oh sure, I put up a good front for everyone else, telling them that it WILL get better, we just have to trust God and be patient, but the reality is I wonder if all I’m saying is just empty words.

I don’t guess things are really THAT bad, certainly not as bad as they’ve been in the past. Actually things were much, much worse even just this past summer. Maybe I’m just now settling back into ‘normal’ rather than ‘crisis’ mode, and so the adrenaline let-down is clouding my senses.

We did go camping and we had a great time, despite Matthew having a couple of very emotional days. He went through the whole rainbow of emotions within hours (more than once) and that did dampen the fun somewhat, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. The first week we were back home was way worse. The rage came back with a vengeance. There was a lot of destruction of property that week. We followed that with a trip to the ped and an increase in both of his bipolar meds. The next week was better, and the rage has not come back to the extent it had been, but neither is he the ‘sweet, golden, little boy’ he was for those 2-3 wks of May when he was taking the same amt of Seroquel. THAT is the part that’s dragging me down, I really think. I had so hoped we’d see that level of ‘good’ again. =(  I’m trying so hard not to lose hope, though. I know that the mood stabilizer needs a good 8wks at therapuetic level (which he just hit this last week) to reach its full potential, and I know that the last week he hasn’t been feeling all that great physically as his asthma has been acting up. I’m REALLY trying to hang on to the hope that as he gets well physically, the emotional/mental will ‘catch up’ as well.

Meanwhile, our school experience has been VERY relaxed. In years past this would have had me in an absolute frenzy of guilt and even anger at the kids (and myself!) for being so far ‘behind’. The title of this post explains my feelings on this situation now, though. True the kids have not completed vast amounts of written work each day. True if you go by the recommended schedule given for each course, they are quite behind, but no it’s not the end of the world. For one, they ARE still progressing in everything, just not at the ‘recommended’ pace. For another, it’s finally beginning to hit home that neither one of my children are destined for the great academia life that I’d always secretly hoped (and pushed) for them. Oh, they’re both highly intelligent, no doubt, but the academic ‘way-of-life’ is not a strong suit for either one of them… for different reasons.

I’ve always known that academics was a good fit for some people and not others. For instance, a child born with Downs Syndrome absolutely CAN and will learn, but would not be expected to be able to soar through standard schooling and college with As in every subject no matter how difficult those subjects may be. A child born with legs that will never be able to hold their weight wouldn’t be expected to win all the events at a track meet. A child who loses their sight due to illness would never be expected to ‘find Waldo’ or excel at ‘I Spy’, nor would they be thought less of because they were not suited to those kinds of activities. Each person is born with different abilities and God has a different plan and will for everyone. We’re not all supposed to be neuro-surgeons, or chemical engineers. We’re not all meant to be athletes. We’re not all meant to mechanics. Some people have natural affinities for these things… others do not.

I’ve always thought it simply cruel for parents to expect their children to excel in athletics simply because they did themselves in school, regardless of whether the children were physically CAPABLE to or not. I’ve certainly seen that exact scenario often enough! “How selfish and simply ridiculus of those parents to just assume that the child would be great at something just because they wished it so. Don’t they realize that some kids just aren’t CAPABLE and if not they should not be punished or denigrated for it? They can’t help the way God made them.”, I would think to myself. Some kids have athletic ability, some do not…and that doesn’t even take into consideration the possible physical limitations the child might have.

It humbles me to say so, but I was guilty of doing just exactly the same thing! =(  Just because I managed to sail through school and always wanted to learn more, wanted to study more advanced subjects, wanted to soak up the academic lifestyle does NOT mean my kids will want or be capable of the same thing. Yes, both kids have high IQs and for a long time it was that and that alone that I looked at as a factor for whether or not they were achieving what they should be academically. The Lord’s been working on me about that, though. Especially the last couple of years. When I’m honest with myself and with God, my first priority as their mother is to teach them to fear and love the Lord. After that it is their physical, mental, and emotional health that I am to attend to. ONLY after those things have been taken care of am I to worry about teaching them the ‘academics’. Yes, learning to read, write, and do basic math is important. Yes, I am to train them and teach them to take care of themselves and live as a member of society, so yes school is important. It’s NOT, however, the be-all, end-all that I used to think it was. So what if they don’t study calculus and make straight As doing it? So what if they don’t graduate from college at the top of their class (or at all, for that matter)? A person is so much more than just their school grades. LIFE is so much more than just the next A or getting better test scores than everyone else.

Yes, it’s a pride thing. I admit it. I never took the SATs because I couldn’t stand the thought of getting a less-than-perfect score like my cousin. It would be open knowledge to the whole extended family that I was not as ‘smart’ as he is, then. (As if they couldn’t tell without that precious test score! HA!) I set out to homeschool the kids so that I could ensure they got the absolute highest level of academics possible. By that I meant that they would be the smartest, the brightest, the most advanced students in the family. Maybe not in the world, I mean I didn’t expect them to be graduating university by 8 or 9, but certainly faster and with better grades than anyone else in the family.

It’s been tough, I admit, but I’m learning that high grades in the most advanced courses at the tenderst ages are NOT what God had/has planned for these two precious children He’s entrusted to my care and rearing. It bruises my pride to think that my kids aren’t ‘the smartest’, honestly. That’s MY problem, though, not theirs. I’ve pushed them too hard for too long in this one area.

So… the schooling has become much more relaxed. Neither kiddo is behind by any means, not even compared to the ‘typical’ student their age. If they were, though, so what? I wouldn’t think ill of another child (or their parents) with mental or even physical (say months of chemo treatments, for example) limitations being ‘behind’ their age-mates. The important thing is not what honors course they take at age 12yo, but how well they are being prepared to be an adult… a Christian… a husband/wife… a father/mother… even an employee and citizen. All kids, the A students and the F students, the ones that skipped a grade or two and the ones held back a year or two, have the same ultimate educational need… to be prepared to live on their own and support and care for themselves and their families.

To that end, regardless of what limitations and difficulties Meagan and Matthew have in any aspect of life, I’ve been far too rigid in the way I’ve approached school with them…certainly with what I’ve expected of them. I’ve told them for years that I only expect them to do their best, but the truth is I’ve been expecting them not to do their best, but to do the best compared to all other kids their age…at least in SOMETHING. I’ve allowed that Meg is weak in spelling, “but she is a math genius”, I’ve thought. And Matthew? Well ok, so he isn’t the top math student, but he is THE best speller and SO intellectually mature. “He’s my language kid”, I’ve always said.

I’m learning that academics are not ALL that’s important in a child’s life. I don’t believe either of my children are destined to excel in academics. They are solid A, B students, yes, and do indeed have ‘genius-level’ IQs, but that does not mean they are meant to (or SHOULD) study college-level courses in their early teens, as I’ve been wanting them to for so many years. Truth be told, they may never study college-level courses, and not because they simply don’t *want* to, but possibly because they won’t be *capable*. How can that be if they have such high-IQs?? I used to hang everything on those high IQs, but the truth is they are so much more than that!!

Meagan has severe social struggles. Right now she needs more practice in learning self-hygiene, and good conversational skills than in sentence diagramming. Matthew has severe emotional struggles. Right now he needs more practice in learning to deal with his extreme emotions properly than in finding the square roots of 4 digit numbers. If I focus on the academics, they are in danger of becoming adults who still don’t understand how to act around other people or how to live peaceably with others. When all is said and done those skills are more important than being able to list all the countries in Africa or describe in detail the structure of a plant cell.

I haven’t completely abandoned academics, though. No! To swing that far from the wrong thinking I had, would *also* be wrong. Instead, I’ve relaxed my expectations, especially in regards to the *timetable* I’ve been expecting them to progress by. Meagan is still taking high school courses, some of which *are* advanced compared to the public school system, and I do still expect her to complete them. I don’t, however, expect her to complete them by a set date. If she needs to move more slowly (and in a lot of areas, she definitely does as her reading comprehension isn’t strong), then so be it. So what if she’s 19 before she graduates high school? Is that really any *worse* than if she graduated at 16? The same is true of Matthew. I haven’t given up academics altogether, I’m just not harping on them so much. His emotional (and lately physical as well) health has really made it difficult for him to focus on and do well with school, so he hasn’t gotten as much done each day as I would’ve demanded a year ago, but he IS still learning. So maybe he’s focusing more on learning how to deal with emotions this month instead of learning algebra, he’s still learning. And the math is still there, waiting for his brain to become more settled and able to focus without the frustration he currently experiences.

So the kids are still learning, and I’m still learning. It’s been a hard lesson for me to learn, I must say. It’s very humbling to accept that my children aren’t ‘cut out for academia’. I don’t really know why academics have been of such huge importance to me, I just know they have been, and they shouldn’t have been. Had the Lord blessed me with a child born with Down’s Syndrome I wouldn’t have expected *that* child to excel academically, and I shouldn’t expect Meagan or Matthew to, either. Both of them have ‘special needs’ and are ‘differently abled’ than they ‘typical, normal’ child, so it’s not fair to them or to me to expect of them more than they are capable. Even if they don’t have the ‘special needs’ or ‘different abilities’ I would have picked to deal with or live with. It’s true I would have always absolutely adopted a child who I knew had Down’s Syndrome or Cystic Fibrosis or half a dozen other limitations… in a heartbeat. I’d have PICKED those special needs, but I never would have picked the special needs these kids have. Bipolar? No way. Not touching that with a twenty-foot pole. Socially awkward and immature? Nope. Also not ‘glamorous’ enough for me.

I’m learning that it’s not up to me to pick and choose what kind of kid (or what abilities that kid has) for me to train up for the Lord. It’s the Lord’s choice, not mine. He knows best, even when I think He doesn’t.

Fall Is Shapin Up to Be Better

July and August were spent recovering from the ‘toe thing’ of May and June. Matthew spent 10 days in a partial hospitalization program, supposedly to get his meds straightened out. That didn’t work out so well, but the 2 weeks we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House while he was in PHP was like a vacation of sorts. Both of the pdocs that were assigned to him (one replaced the other) turned out to be real duds. The first was focused only on the fact that Matthew “doesn’t like to be called Matthew, he prefers Ryan” (NOT true, a HUGE mistake on her part) and that “he is happy with being a boy” (good, ’cause I wasn’t about to ‘fix’ it if he wasn’t!). The second one flat-out refused to do anything for Matthew, medication or otherwise. This despite Matthew and I both giving him detailed descriptions of the problems (mostly rage) he’d been having and after a middle-of-the-night call (that the on-call doc never responded to!) because his meds were not helping him stay in control. In between we had a horrible week plus while on the Abilify. Made him very physically sick. Our trip to the zoo was spent pushing him around in a wheelchair because he was to weak to stand.

After the 2nd pdoc told me he had no suggestions as to what to do for Matt and that he would not do anything himself, I called the ped from the elevator. I got him an appt within the week and also got the verbal ok to increase his Seroquel dose from the miniscule 50mg/day the pdoc had him on. The dose of 400mg/day was a golden dose, one we worked up to when it was evident the 200mg/day wasn’t working. It was a no-brainer that the 50mg wasn’t doing any good!

After the PHP, where nearly every single one of the therapy team members voiced their opinion on Matt’s dx as being bipolar disorder, I bought some books and started my homework. Researching yet another new health condition. This time one that falls under the mental health umbrella, which I must admit I never would have even considered learning about if it didn’t ‘happen’ in my own family. I used to think that bipolar was just a cop-out dx that people who didn’t care a fig newton about their actions or reactions came up with to get out of having to face the consequences. Boy did I have a lot to learn!

One thing about it, after all the reading I’ve done, there is no doubt in my mind that this IS what Matthew has been dealing with most of his life. I really knew it before I did the ‘heavy’ research, though. I knew it back in the spring when I scanned that first childhood bipolar book. The small, still voice of the Holy Spirit told me back then that I’d finally gotten to the answer He’d been leading me too.

That first appt with the ped after the pdoc fiasco was about a month ago. Since then we’ve seen her twice for med ‘consults’. She asked to borrow one of the books I’d purchased so she could read it, and also said she’d be doing a little research herself. She’s MORE than willing to continue managing Matthew’s meds, which is AMAZING! In her practice of about 2,000 kiddos, she says there are only 3 that she knows have bipolar disorder. Of those, Matthew is the only one she is managing meds for! She has always gone out of her way to research things when something comes up with one of the kids. If she doesn’t know how to treat it, she learns. She’d still like us to find a good pdoc if possible, of course, if nothing else than for a “for-sure” dx, but given our recent history with pdocs and the limited list available under our insurance… not sure that’s gonna happen anytime soon.

Based on our research, we’ve decided to add a mood stabilizer to Matt’s meds. The PHP discontinued his ADHD med, and we’ve left it off. Taking that aways seems to have allowed us to keep the Seroquel dose down to 300mg/day. Then a little over a week ago we started him on Trileptal. He’s currently on 600mg/day, and doing really well. Once we got the Seroquel back up to 200mg/day we started seeing the rage withdraw, once it hit 300mg/day we haven’t had a major rage episode, and very little irritability even! He’s even doing his schoolwork without a fight.

So for Matthew, fall is definitely looking to be a better season than summer. Of course, that means that it’ll be better for everyone!

Meagan has had a personal upswing as well. She dropped a bombshell on us right before school started and told us she wanted to be homeschooled again as the stress (and lack of help/friends) at the school were just too much for her. After looking at her standardized test scores from the first year she was there and this past year, her daddy decided I would teach her through high school. She has been NO END of excited ever since. She’s loved every minute of her school work and is more than eager to get started on the subjects we hadn’t been able to start yet because of waiting for all the materials to come in. She’s super excited about Spanish, especially.

Mike is in the middle of a 2wk vacation, and I think we’ll probably be headed out to Arkansas for 3 or 4 nights of camping tomorrow. He’s actually been taking his antidepressants (well most of the time) for a few weeks now, and I think they are starting to take effect.

I’ve been busy helping my best friend with her cosmetics business. Thankfully I do the behind-the-scenes work… bookkeeping, software/website maintenance, order pulling/packing, etc. My favorite part. =) I’ve always liked doing the behind-the-scenes stuff. I LOVE it! Plus the ‘office’ is her dining room, and my ‘boss’ is…duh, my best friend! haha I keep telling her I would totally do it for free, but she has been insisting on paying me. That means that *I’ve* been able to to tithe and give to missions!! YEA! She purchased all the school curriculum for the kids this year! Most of it was actually for Meagan, since Matthew is still in the middle of 7th grade, but he even got a couple of new courses.

Besides having WAY too many cats (5 adults, and 8 kittens) things are lookin pretty good for Fall. And next spring? We’ll get to welcome a new little one into the family! No, *I’m* not pregnant, but my brother is. Well… not my brother, technically, but still… my kid brother’s gonna be a daddy!!

A Sorry Start to Summer! =(

It would appear that this summer is going to be one of our most difficult yet. =/

To start things off, Matthew started having ‘attacks’ of OCD that threw him into near panic attacks and kept him from being able to sleep. The recent med change for the rage episodes had completely knocked out all rage and aggression, but also completely knocked MATT out, too. He was sleeping (when not panicking because his toes “felt funny” and needed re-arranging) 15+ hours a day. So a trip to the ped and we decided to do another med change. This time weaning off the Seroquel and onto Abilify. She has suggested he skip church camp this year (he did NOT like that!) and gave him a script for Valium for when the freak-outs happen.

Then my best friend had a HORRIBLE week. As her 2nd youngest trooped off to camp, the youngest was admitted to the hospital with a supder-duper bad case of strep throat. By Friday evening that week, the wee one had had surgery to drain the abscess in her throat, their son was home from camp- with pink eye, the oldest had come down with the same virus that BOTH parents picked up while at the hospital, a power outage had ruined some of their food, and their 2nd oldest had managed to overflow the toilet and flood the house!

We just thought the next week was going to be better. Monday (so 6 days ago), the wee miss was doing so much better we were all anticipating her release in the next day or two. Here at *my* place, though, the med change for Matthew was not going so well. He was down to an almost nonexsistent dose of Seroquel and hadn’t started the Abilify yet. Naturally this meant the anger, rage, aggression, etc was showing up again. Meagan didn’t help things any by bickering and fighting with him all day. By 9pm when Mike was due to leave for work, Matt had been full-out out-of-control for about an hour and a half and was throwing anything he could get his hands on and hitting whoever he could get close to. When he threw a folding chair at Mike, I knew we had to make a trip to Cook’s again. This time through the ER instead of to visit my little Sweet Cheeks.

We got home around 3am Tues. Sweet Cheeks followed late Tues evening. Since then, Matt has switched over to the Abilify and ramped up to his target dose. Thankfully the rage, etc has disappeared again. Unfortunely the freak-out OCD attacks have only gotten worse. He has been taking Valium every 6hr whenever he’s awake, and wishing/waiting to be able to take it again in between. He is so anxious and miserable! If he’s not pacing the house trying to NOT rearrange his “funny feeling toes”, he is crying because he is so miserable and frustrated. If he’s not doing either of those it’s because the Valium and/or the Benadryl he’s taken has blessedly kicked in enough to outmatch the anxiety and he’s dropped off to sleep.

It’s been so bad the last few days, I called the ped yesterday on a Sat! I hate doing that, but the poor kid is desperate for relief. That’s when she suggested taking the Valium in the afternoon in an effort to beat the attack to the punch. I just wish it had worked! He has an appointment with the ped Thurs afternoon, and at the ER last week I was assured that he had been through the intake process (by visiting the ER) and that Cook’s Mental Health would be calling me in a week or two to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist. I haven’t heard anything yet, so I will be calling them tomorrow to try and speed things up.

Meanwhile… the week before the HORRIBLE week, Meagan had gone to camp. She came home saying she had had an earache and might need to go to the dr. This was, of course, late Fri afternoon. When Monday rolled around, I asked her how her ear was and she said it was fine, so the focus turned on Sweet Cheeks once we found out she was in the hospital. The following week (last week) was when Matt made the ER trip. We left Meg at home and had my mom come over to stay with her. Mom decided to take Meg home with her and hang on to her for a few days while Matt got through the worst of the med change-over. Smart idea! Thanks, Mom!

She came home last night and surprise, surprise! She was complaining of a horrible earache. She slept most of the day today, but since she woke up she has commented several times that she hopes the dr can get her an appt tomorrow! So here I sit… church time with 2 miserable kids. =(

I have no idea what exactly lies in store for us the rest of the summer, but I do know that our journey with the mental health professionals is about to start. I’m sure there will be many doc appts this summer… more so than usual. That isn’t all that scary. What IS scary is the very real possibility (as in there has already been significant serious talk about it) that Matthew may need to be admitted to a partial hospitalization program.

Meagan had a dream last night that her ear was so infected she spent a month in the hospital and had two surgeries for it. Let’s hope this is NOT a dream that comes true. One major thing at a time, please!

Crazy, not lazy, May!

So it’s been a crazy busy May this year. Praise the Lord I’ve been healthy enough to handle it!! Last May I was doing good if I could get two or three chores done a week and was hoping beyond hope that I’d be able to survive our upcoming trip to Arkansas.

This May was so different. Granted the last 5 or 6 days of the month I spent doing a lot of sleeping, but nothing compared to last year or the 2-3 years before, for sure! I think I was just zapped because it’s been SO crazy busy…and it was ‘my time of the month’. Blech!

So what’ve we been up the last few weeks? Well, I got the new (temporary) floor down in the kitchen, three shelves hung in there, and a new cabinet/countertop installed. Of course, the icky old red laminate countertop from the 70s was replaced with white stone tile and the shallow sink replaced with a deep one, but props for those have to go to Mom and Dad. Actually, everything but the floor needs to, really. LOL I just helped hold boards in place for the shelving. I know. Hard work there, right?

Then there was the biggest cleaning the house has had since I first crashed with the Lyme. I don’t mean cleaning like scrubbing walls, baseboards, ceiling fans, and the like, though. Nope. I just mean getting STUFF put away and trash OUT. Oh, and laundry either washed or put in hampers. Yes it was that bad. No I am not proud of that fact. =/ So while the house did get “tidied”, it wasn’t really a “cleaning”. That is still to come. Soon, I hope.

Then there were the doctor appointments. We had 4 dr appts in 4wks! Matthew had a routine follow-up with the endocrinologist, and two visits to the pediatrician to try and get his bipolar meds adjusted. Then Meagan had to go and get strep throat again…. which she gave to me. Nice. Then I got a cold just as I was getting over the strep. Nice again.

My best friend/adopted sister has started a new business. Quite the entrepreneur she is. This is not her first endeavor at being her own boss and bringing in extra income for the family; just the first one since SHE crashed with Lyme. What’s she doing? Selling high-end cosmetics…wholesale. Selling LOTS of it. LOTS and LOTS. Like 5-figure orders, we’re talking! How does that have anything to do with me? Simple. She got in over her head because the business didn’t just bloom, it BURST almost over night. She needed an extra set of hands to help count, sort, package, and tend to her youngest (just turned 5yo). She was doing all that *and* all the emails (tons) and phone calls (even more tons) and overseeing another daughter’s homebound school and trying to get all the regular mom stuff done, too. Overwhelmed much? YES! lol

We’ve just about got her set up and ready to go, though. Well, I say that. I haven’t actually even started getting her new software set up yet, but at least I’ve got her convinced she has GOT to get some. (Seriously. Trying to keep track of thousands of dollars worth of orders on pieces of scratch paper and post-its just is NOT efficient!) I’m also getting a website set up for her to direct her customers to in order to see what she has available.

In the meantime, I also helped…or rather TRIED to help my older ‘niece’ with her Algebra. I was all like “Oh sure, I’ll help her. No problem!” And then I was all like “ummm I have NO idea how to do this”. We did, however, have an absolute BALL trying to figure the problems out. To our credit, between the two of us we DID get things figured out. It just took hours and enough laughter that we were seriously sore at the end of the day. We had fun, but I’m not so sure I should be ‘tutoring’ in Algebra anymore. LOL

After that adventure, we had the end-of-the-school-year awards ceremony for Meagan’s school. This kid makes me so proud! She comes home with handfuls of ribbons and other awards every year. Of course I’d be proud of her even if she didn’t, but it’s a Mom’s job to brag on the kids! =) She made mostly As with a couple of Bs all year long. Silly girl got a paper report of all the awards she had already received throughout the year and was shocked and excited when she saw that the tea towel she embroidered for my birthday won first place. She couldn’t remember bringing home the blue ribbon, so it was like winning all over again! LOL

After that I spent several days making a kitchen ‘unit’ for a ‘niece’s birthday present. It has a sink, cabinet under the sink, and then a dishwasher (with countertop). I had all the plastic canvas and almost all the yarn I needed, so aside from time the only cost for this bday gift was 50 cents for a clearanced set of dishes approximately Barbie sized, $1 for a gift bag, and the $2.58 I spent on a skein of gray yarn (of which I have almost the whole thing left). Not bad at all!

The last few days I’ve been busy doing some research. Matthew had an interesting ‘episode’ last week in which he had MAJOR problems getting to sleep 3 nights in a row. Why? Because his “toe felt funny”. Yes, seriously. The first night he was at my mom’s and I only heard about it in passing the next day. I picked up on the fact that he had cried some, but it sounded more like he missed me than anything else. At least that’s what my mom insinuated. I stayed at her place that night and he said it felt funny again. No tears and he didn’t seem to be in real distress, so I chalked it up to him being overtired and/or trying to stall. The third night we were back home and it happened again. This time he did cry. A lot. Also he admitted that it took everything he had to NOT cry the night before. There was nothing wrong with his toe physically. It just felt “funny”. It didn’t hurt, it wasn’t red or itchy, nothing like that. Just the way his toes were touching each other “felt funny” and it bothered him so much he literally was in tears because of it. Then the light bulb went on! He was fixating on the ‘funny feeling’ because of his OCD. We’ve known for years that he has OCD tendencies, and have joked that he has OCD many, many times. Never before, though, had his quirks interfered in his life in a major way. I explained to him what I thought was going on and he asked what to do about it. I told him there were medicines that could help. (I highly suspect that one of the meds he was recently taken off of had been treating the OCD to a degree…and now that the med is gone the OCD is coming on full force.) He was oh-so-ready to go to the ER. Right then! That’s how upset he was over this. He did NOT want to think about his toe, he did NOT want it to feel funny, he was tired (and admittedly so) and just wanted to go to sleep but he couldn’t quit thinking about it. The “funny feeling” was driving him crazy. Really.

After explaining that the medicine isn’t a ‘rescue’ med like his asthma inhaler, but a ‘maintenance’ med like his Singulair, I took him into my room and we laid in my bed while I read to him. I really was wishing I had some Ativan to give him, but since I didn’t (and I was certainly NOT taking him to the ER for an OCD ‘attack’) I thought trying to get his focus off the funny feeling toe and onto ANYTHING else was about the best thing I could do. Thankfully it worked. I can’t remember now what search terms I thought of while laying there holding my breath that the poor kid had finally managed to fall asleep, but I got up and came in here to the computer.

Whatever it was I looked up, it led me to a series of workbooks written by a psychiatrist. I ordered three of them on the spot. The names of them are: “What to Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming OCD”, “What to Do When Your Temper Flares: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Problems with Anger”, and “What to Do When You Grumble Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Negativity” I have no doubt in my mind that the Holy Spirit led me to these books. Matthew needs these SO much! I pray that he will cooperate with me in working through them and that he will actually put into practice some of the technigues they teach him. From what I gather they are all based on cognitive-behavior therapy techniques that he would get if he were to see a psychiatrist or therapist for these challenges of his. Since he is NOT willing to go to someone else, this is truly a God-sent alternative. There is even a workbook for anxiety. I thought about buying that one, but really his horrific anxiety (disabling in all seriousness) is a thing of the past thanks to antibiotic treatment for the Lyme. There are a few others in the series as well, but for now I’m uber excited to see how these can help him.

All that research also led me (later, after I’d already purchased the 3 workbooks above) to a book/workbook set similar to this series only written specifically for bipolar! It’s in my shopping cart at Amazon waiting for the next payday!! The name of it is “My Bipolar, Roller Coaster Feelings Book”. PERFECT! If I had any question about sending Matthew to school versus keeping him here at home, the Lord just answered them clear as a bell! My only ‘regret’ is that Meagan will be home during the day for the next couple of months so finding “Mom and Matt Therapy Time” will be a bit more difficult… just as we’re getting started. Go figure! LOL

I’ve also been putting together a unit study on Isaac Newton for Matt. He took an interest in the laws of motion and wanted to know who figured them out. Not so ‘coincidentally’ Isaac Newton was a Christian who had bipolar disorder! Brilliant! I haven’t spent a lot of time on putting the unit together, but I did just order a biography from the Sower Series (Christian based) on Newton. That led me to looking at other science stuff since he doesn’t have a formal science curriculum this year. I found a couple of things I want to get, but not a huge hurry on those. THAT led me to researching English curriculum.

The English curriculum we’ve been using the last couple of years is really frustrating for Matt. It spends a lot of time on diagramming (which I can’t help him with because I never learned how to and it makes NO sense to me whatsoever), and just is so technical! He really struggles with it, which has been confusing for me because Matt is me ‘language’ kid. He has always been super fascinated with words and phrases and languages. He likes to know where the words/phrases came from, and just goes giddy over puns of any kind. He likes playing with words and even with accents. When he was little bitty and first started getting interested in words and what-not and then picked up reading and spelling almost instinctively I felt sure I had a writer in the making. Sadly he hates writing for now, and as I said he struggles in grammar, usage, and mechanics.

I think I may have found some answers to these problems, though. I’ve learned that the area of the brain affected by bipolar includes the area responsible for executive functioning. Long story short this makes writing difficult for him. He might have tons of ideas in his head (and he does) but getting them out onto paper is more difficult. I’ve found a curriculum for grammar, usage, and mechanics that does NOT use diagramming at all, and I’ve also found a writing curriculum that looks very promising given his unique challenges. These too are in my shopping cart awaiting next payday. LOL

On top of all that, Mike’s 64th birthday was yesterday, though honestly we didn’t ‘do’ much to celebrate. I sent him to the chiropractor and then stuffed his belly full of pork chops, fried eggs, and cheesecake. Fix ‘im up and then clog ‘im up. haha The rest of this week is busy with getting Meagan ready for teen church camp… that is provided she gets her chores caught up and we can find the funds to send her! Then next week (with Meg at camp…?) we’ll be getting Matt ready for church junior camp the following week. And sometime in the next two paydays we have to buy Meg some new uniform shirts for school.

We had to replace a tire on the van in amongst all this, too. Oh, and we also bought a new auto-injection device for Matt’s shots. I still need to purchase the rest of the fabric for the kitchen cabinet curtains, too. Lots of ‘extra’ expenses the last few and next few weeks!

At least we won’t have to buy 3 more tires for the van. My best friend’s dad (and Mike’s high school classmate) just gave us two nearly-new tires that will fit the van. That gets 3 of 4 replaced, and I’m pretty sure that one of the existing ones is still in pretty good shape. =)  I’m constantly being surprised by the ways in which the Lord provides for us!!