It went much better than I expected

It's been a long day and an emotionally stressful one at that. Gavin had his psychiatrist appointment this morning, and you can read all about what that gifted us with here. What I didn't mention in the above-linked post from earlier was what we were doing with his medication. Someone left a comment asking about that, and I figured I'd address that now. ☺ Long story short, his medications are not changing. His dose of Clozapine is still 300mg and will remain as such. Nothing else is being added, and at this point, I feel that's the best thing. We can always re-evaluate things later. It's important to understand that Clozapine is an end of the road medication and it's only used when nothing else works. Clozapine is the end…

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I feel like we’re killing off the last part of his childhood

Spent a couple of hours with Gavin this afternoon. He had an appointment with his psychiatrist today for a medication follow up. This was in regards to his Clozapine specifically. This was an unexpected fucking emotional rollercoaster for Gavin today. Out of nowhere; he became distraught. When I asked him what was upsetting him, he explained that he's terrified that he's been put on Santa's naughty list because he's killed people while on missions. Super quick background If you're unaware, Gavin is schizophrenic along with everything else. His hallucinations revolve around going on dangerous missions to save the universe from evil. He has a team of superheroes that he leads. Along the way, there are times that he's had to kill evildoers. He was in the waiting room, physically sobbing…

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There’s never an in between

I mentioned earlier that Gavin appears to be more and more paranoid. Part of the concern is about his schizophrenic hallucinations and the direction they're currently heading in. He seems to be worried about bad guys watching him or something to that effect. That's not necessarily new, but we see it with more frequency lately. What's weird is his current obsession with his health. He's very focused on rather benign issues, and we've never seen him show any interest in his health before. He's continually coming to us with things like I just coughed, my nose is runny, I just had to blow my nose, my arm muscle just felt funny, there's saliva in my mouth, my toe hurt for a second, I sneezed twice, my knee cramped up, and…

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I’m going to bed heartbroken

We had a great afternoon/evening at the movies. Avengers: Endgame was amazing. I'll leave it at that cause I don't want to ruin it for anyone. I'm so grateful that we had the opportunity to do this as a family. ☺ Unfortunately, that's where the awesome news ends and the bad news begins. After the boys went to bed tonight, Gavin came downstairs to take his bedtime meds, but before he did that, he needed to tell us something. I've grown to dread these moments because when he says things like this, it's seldom something I want to hear about. Gavin informed us that he wouldn't be able to help out around the house tomorrow because "I'm going to be needed at HQ a lot cause Sonic has a really…

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This made me smile today

It's been a rough day for a multitude of reasons. Rather than focus on the negatives, I wanted to share something a bit more uplifting and positive. I feel like it's important to focus on the positives as much as possible. I realize it's not always easy, especially for Autism parents but it's a good habit to get into. Admittedly, it's still a work in progress for me personally, but I'm making a concerted effort. That said... If you have been following for a while, you know that Gavin used to be quite fond of drawing. As his daily struggles increase and he loses touch with reality, he drifted away from his more artistic side. It was sad to see that part of him fade away because he was always…

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24 hours of devastating meltdowns

Gavin is not having a good day. We've already survived several meltdowns, and that was before 9 AM. Yesterday was pretty rough for him as well, and I'm not sure what's going on. Yesterday, he lost it because I was paying him a compliment. I think it came down to semantics on his part. Here's what happened. When I picked him up yesterday morning so I could take him to get his blood work done, I noticed that he was wearing a hoodie. Gavin has this thing where he automatically defaults to wearing his winter coat, hat, and gloves, even in warmer weather. All I did was compliment him for dressing appropriately for the weather. I asked him if he'd checked the weather before heading out to the car and…

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Something I do to help my #Autistic son better navigate life and the people in it

Gavin's been in a really good mood today. He's usually a good mood kind of person but today was a bit different. I've been working with Gavin for years on being able to goof around. He's so serious all the time, and if you try to joke around or tease him a little, he tends to freak out. We've been practicing making stupid jokes and some harmless, good-natured teasing. The idea behind this is that Gavin can loosen up a bit and better understand the difference between goofing around and being made fun of. Gavin tends to take everything personally, and that's not always the appropriate response. It's similar to knowing the difference between someone laughing with you and someone laughing at you. Anyway, this morning, I made a joke…

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Today we follow-up with Gavin’s doctor

Elliott and Emmett are both home from school due to illness. Thankfully, there's no school tomorrow so they will have the weekend to recover. In just a little while, I'll take Gavin to his doctor's appointment at Akron Children's. This is a follow-up from hospitalization this past weekend. I'm not expecting anything crazy to come from this and I'm looking forward to starting the long weekend...

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