October, Gabriel's moods, energy, and aggression were getting out of control. He was biting and scratching and pinching at school, and after 12 weeks of school he still needs complete adult support to stay in his seat. Leave him unattended for even a moment and he jumps up and runs off. He doesn't attend tasks, and sensory items that have worked in the past such as weighted lap belt and chewy tubes are no longer effective. At home, daily activities like taking his medicine or getting dressed became all out battles, and Michael and I have the scratches and bruises to prove it. As the norm of when daytime behavior suffers, his sleep schedule suffers as well.
At the end of October, I took Gabe for his check up with the developmental pediatrician, who prescribed him the medication Trileptal to help even out the extremes of his moods. With any mood-altering medicine, standard protocol is to allow two full weeks of taking the new drug to see results.
What followed were two...difficult weeks.
It's like the dial got ramped up to 12--at school, he would collapse in the hall, laughing so hard he couldn't stand and disturbing every class around him while the teachers and aides struggled to move him. Attacking himself as well as others, the classroom reports noted significant aggression every day, and he started taking it out on the home therapists as well. Indifference to lessons elevated to outright refusal to participate, concerning all those watching him. He wouldn't allow the occupational therapist to soothe him, rejected all forms of weight and pressure applied, brushing, spinning...every method we had for tamping down his excess was now more likely to set him off into a meltdown than to help.
While he was with me at home, token protests of fussing and struggling against routine were amplified to all out brawls, with Gabriel fighting with everything he had, screaming or laughing the entire time as he forced us to restrain him. The laughing was no game for him, though, anymore than it was for us; he was out of control. Michael would have to pin his arms and legs while I forced him to take his medicine, put on his shoes, wear his pajamas. Gabe is incapable of any sort of "normal" activity--he cannot sit still for dinner, see a show through to the finish (no matter how much he likes it); he spends most of his time at home banging his head on the couch again and again and again.
I could go on; needless to say, the stress level of everyone in the house was high, and all five of us were suffering.
So, two weeks comes and I call the nurse incessantly until she returns my call. They discuss options and take him off the Trileptal immediately, and to replace it with Risperidone. It is supposed to help temper the extremes of his emotions, make them more manageable again and to halt his aggression.
Pray this works. Emerald is struggling at school, most likely having stress-induced anxiety attacks because of the current climate at home; Gabriel deserves peace, even from his own body and mind; and they all need a mother that isn't running on scraps of sleep, caffeine, and sheer tattered nerves.
I promise a much more thankful, cheerful post in the near future.
--Andie
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