It's a little sad,but of course we are happy for him progressing in his career and everything...
So, yesterday Grannymom was coming over to watch the kids while Michael took me to my morning Dr. Hales appointment. It takes so much longer for me to look and feel like people lately, so I spent most of the morning getting myself and the kids ready to go.
Everything at Dr. Hales went quickly and efficiently. I lost another pound, but my blood pressure is back up to normal (114/71). What I have been told: as long as the baby is growing healthy, we aren't going to worry too much about my own weight loss. Some people are weird, and I happen to be one of them, apparently.
Michael and I got to see Benjamin again--his little face was hidden in the placenta again, which makes me sad. I know I will see him soon enough, but it didn't feel like the tech was trying that hard to let me see the little fella. She didn't even point out what we were looking at or anything, which I know it's because she is new at this and doesn't know, and I can recognize what I am looking at anyway, but it's part of the experience that I like--they tell you what you are looking at, that it looks healthy and what's changed this week with the baby, they ask you what you are naming the baby...It makes you feel like they care. This time, she was pretty quiet--willing to answer questions, but for the most part just taking the scans she needed in silence.
His head is down in my pelvis, his legs over on my left side. Up to 4 lbs, 15 oz. Which to me and Michael sounds gigantic, but that's only the 38th percentile (50th percentile is "average"; anything below is considered "small", anything bigger is considered "large", but all sizes are generally healthy). Both Emerald and Gabriel were around the 25th percentile until near the end of the pregnancy, when they abruptly dropped to the 6th-9th percentile. That is worrisome because babies aren't supposed to stop growing, but they were both healthy sizes when they were born.
Anyways, 5 lbs all ready sounds huge, especially since babies generally pack on about 1/2lb to 1lb a week until they are born, which could equal giant baby. The doctor said that it could be diabetes, but who knows--my Ben looks healthy healthy.
We left here and went home to feed the kids before Gabriel's doctors appointment. Ken had come over, and helped Emerald clean up her room; Grannymom had done the dishes. It was really awesomely sweet--I have been falling behind in my housework lately because I've been so fat and tired and we have had a million things going on....that is no excuse for me to be slacking around the house, but I really appreciated their help =)
Because 1.30 was the only time that we could get, we had to take the kids right at nap time. I hate doing that--I try to never schedule things for the two hours that the kids and I generally lay down because we need that rest time. But sometimes I can't help it.
This appointment with the doctor was as sort of a wrapping up/recounting of all the specialists' opinions, and final recommendations, plus addressing some final concerns that I have had.
Dr. Stripling never once said the word "Autism". Maybe he realized how on edge the word has been making us lately, maybe he didn't want to label whatever this is quite yet (which he doesn't, but I will mention that in a minute), but he just kept referring to it as "this".
He said that we should keep our appointment with Dr. Rogers, but shouldn't expect much from it other than what everyone has been telling us--stick with the therapies, keep working with him, keep an eye on it. He also had very positive, good things to say about Dr. Driskell which makes me happy--call me crazy, but his approval of another physician means a great deal.
The major concerns that brought us in (and his response) were:
1) Gabriel's horrible sleeping habits. He has technically never slept through the night. Contrary to common belief, he didn't start out co-sleeping with us either. When he was an infant, he slept in the bassinet; at some point, however, he started needing so much affirmation and water overnight that the only way Michael were going to get any sleep was to let him in bed with us. He has been that way ever since--waking every couple of hours to touch our faces, stroke our hair, reassure himself that we are there and everything is okay.
Of course, we all recognize that healthy sleep habits are the foundation to him learning and developing in the best manner possible, so our primary goal as of now is to get him moved into his own bed, in his own room. We are discussing different ways to go about this--he needs a big boy bed, so we need to get one. One of our thoughts is that he would like to be enclosed but not swaddled, so bed with a tent cover or something similar may make him feel more secure.
Dr. Stripling had more suggestions, one of which was putting Gabriel on melotonin at night which might help him drift off easier and stay asleep longer. We got some at the pharmacy last night and are giving it a try, but we are trying to not rely on it.
2) Gabriel has consistently loose stool. Yeah, totally gross. But according to the doctor, this is a common issue with toddlers--we need to up Gabriel's fat intake, which will help him have more healthy normal BM's. That was unexpected advice from the doctor, but after I thought about it, it makes a lot of sense. Emerald eats a lot like her father: they prefer cheese, fast food, chicken nuggets, French fries....all manner of crap, basically. Gabriel on the other hand is more like me: junk food repulses me, and I prefer whole grains, fruits and vegetables, and purchase everything low-fat, low-calorie, low-sodium if it is pre-prepared. It sounds unfair to Michael and Emerald, but if Mike wants something else, he can do the shopping and preparing meals, lol.
3) The last two kind of go hand-in-hand, so I am going to mention them here.
The staring episodes:
They were a big issue way back when, but when the EEG and MRI both came back clean, Michael and I decided to not pursue further testing. We both were fairly unconcerned with these because we both felt he was just getting a particular thought in his head and was thinking about it so hard that he was oblivious to what was going on around him. We weren't noticing them as often and there has been less physical difficulties surrounding them, so we shelved that worry.
Then something happened that made me start worrying about them again...
Most people scarcely see them any more, but since I am with him more than anyone else, I see them more often. The other day, he got into one of his little "episodes". It started stretching longer than I was comfortable, so I tried to get his attention--calling his name, snapping in his face, patting his back, rubbing his arms...he didn't even blink. That is normal; par for this course. But I had put on a Veggie Tales which queued up while I was trying to get his attention. The theme music started playing, the animation was flashing...and he didn't even flinch.
Why would this worry me more than all the other signs of unresponsiveness? Gabriel loves Veggie Tales. It is something that has gotten through to him when nothing else works. When we worried about his ability to hear, he would run from the other end of the house when he heard that music started playing, and he would stare transfixed from the first song all the way through the ending credits. It was a loud, unmistakable event happening a few feet from him....and it still could not pull him out of his head.
That scared me a great deal, so we have decided--which Dr. Stripling supports--to get several example videos of these spells and send them in to the neurologist and see what Dr. Brown thinks we should do next.
The second half of this concern was that Gabriel drinks much, much more water than the average child. He has done this since infancy, and we all ready had him tested for diabetes because of it, but Dr. Stripling says it could just be a compulsion related to the autism thing, which can have the negative effect of causing a sodium deficiency. Sodium deficiency can be associated with absence seizures, what we are concerned the "staring spells" are.
On that front, we are doing some blood work to check for a sodium problem, as well as substituting some of his constant water with Gatorade, which will replenish some of the nutrients he needs.
All in all, he said we need to keep going with what we are doing. He said that with kids as high functioning as Gabriel, in several years he could catch up in his development and we will wonder what made us ever think he could be autistic. But if that's not the case, then treating it as such until we are absolutely certain without a shadow of a doubt that he is (which is somewhat impossible, to be honest), we can use this diagnosis to give him the help he needs.
All of that is to say...we spent a great deal of time yesterday not learning that much. But I think we needed it; it was a verification that all the information we had gathered thus far was valid and complete, nothing left out, and we are learning more about what we can do for Gabriel.
I have the absolute worst pain in my wrists from typing so long, so I am going to go, lol. More updates later!!
--Andie--
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