Gavin Archives - Page 56 of 113

Why Gavin having his wish granted is heartbreaking for me as his Dad

By now most of you know that Gavin is having his wish granted by an amazing organization called Wishes Can Happen. He qualifies for this because he's living with life threatening health conditions. This opportunity is probably one of the biggest things to ever happen to my family and Gavin absolutely deserves this. Every time someone hears about this, their response is usually along the lines of that's so amazing or he's so lucky. I've even heard things like what a blessing and what a great opportunity. None of those things are wrong. It is an amazing opportunity and we do consider it a blessing that this has been made available to Gavin. I don't take offense to the well intentioned affirmations but I want to make clear that this…

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September 21, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

Is Gavin experiencing paranoid?

Gavin just informed me that he had a hard time falling asleep last night. He never came to us for help, or even brought it to our attention until now. That's a bit surprising because he typically gets me when he can't sleep for some reason. More concerning than the problems falling asleep, are the reasons he couldn't fall asleep. Actually it's reason not reasons. Apparently, Gavin couldn't sleep because he was terrified that someone was going to set our house in fire, with us inside. There are two possibilities that come to mind in regards to this. The first and most likely being that two houses in our neighborhood were recently burnt down by an arsonist. One of the houses was across the street from us. Gavin's never expressed…

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September 16, 2017

Clozapine / Gavin / My thoughts

Heartbreaking: We’re seeing changes in Gavin’s behavior

I wanted to give a general update on how Gavin's doing with the changes to his antipsychotic medication, Clozapine. It's been a couple weeks since the dosage was reduced and I think it's a fair time to evaluate how he's doing since those changes. One of the biggest changes I think we're seeing, was very subtle at first and hard to notice. It's been a couple of weeks now and it's become much more obvious that there are changes taking place. The biggest at this point is that Gavin's spending much more time in his room. What this tells us is that he's spending more time in fantasy, then he is in reality. By fantasy, I'm referring to the Schizophrenic hallucinations he interacts with. Gavin's spending much, much more time…

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September 16, 2017

Autonomic Disorder / Cleveland Clinic / Gavin / My thoughts / Pediatric Neurology

How Gavin’s appointment went and why I’m so overwhelmed

We were gone for most of the day and it was an exhausting day at that. I want to start by thanking my Mom for helping out with the boys yesterday. We truly appreciate it. There was a lot of construction on the way to Cleveland but the drive was only about one hour and twenty minutes. The trip home was a bit longer but not too much. There were some idiot drivers out there and one major accident but the trip was relatively smooth. ☺ We were headed to Cleveland in order to meet with Gavin's neurologist, in regards to his autonomic dysfunction. [foogallery id="65530"] There was a great deal discussed and autonomically speaking, he's very happy with Gavin's stability. It's been about three years since his last major…

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September 13, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts / Wishes Can Happen

It’s the only thing that makes sense at this point

I wanted to drop a quick line and let you know that I've spoken with the people from Wishes Can Happen about the timing of our trip. We're going to wait until the end of the week to make a decision but as far as Lizze and I are concerned, our decision is made. Lizze and I are going to reschedule the trip when the end of the week arrives, at least as long as we have any control of things. I realize there was a bit of doubt that Hurricane Irma would interfere with our trip but I suspected it would from the get go. I wasn't being negative but rather trying to be as realistic as possible, because this trip will only happen once-in-a-lifetime, and we want to…

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September 12, 2017

Cleveland Clinic / Gavin / My thoughts / Pediatric Neurology

We have am extremely important appointment today for Gavin

It's going to be super busy today. After taking the boys to school in the morning, I have to take Lizze to her first of two doctors appointments. While she's there, I'm going to meet my Mom at the park and try and squeeze in about four miles. After lunch, Lizze has her second appointment of the day. The moment she walks out of her appointment, we are heading straight to the Cleveland Clinic for a late afternoon appointment with Gavin's neurologist. This is really important for a few reasons but the biggest is to assess where he is neurologically, compared to where he was previously. We also have to discuss his vision issues because if his eyes are checking out, it's likely to be neurological in nature. At least…

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September 12, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts / Vision Problems

Gavin’s worsening vision issues

Gavin took a bath this afternoon. That's nothing unusual, in and of itself. What is notable however, is what happened after his bath and I'm not sure how worried I should be. While he was getting himself dressed, he looked in the mirror, which is high enough that it only reflects his head, neck and chest. He explained that while looking at his reflection in the mirror, he saw white geometric shapes, separated by black lines. He was unable to answer any questions because he didn't know how to answer them. I asked him to draw a picture of what he's talking about, because without us understanding what he's experiencing, it's much harder to help him. His drawing however, doesn't help is as much as I was hoping it would.…

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September 11, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts / Wishes Can Happen

We’re 3 steps closer to having Gavin’s greatest wish granted

I was able to make some progress in my quest to get ready for Gavin's Wish granting trip to Florida at the end of the month. Aside from packing, making needed purchases and planning the physical drive, we have quite a few other things that need to be addressed before we leave. One of those things has to do with the rental car. I checked with my insurance agent and they told me not to take the extra insurance from the rental car agency. I have a rider on my policy that does the exact same thing and it's significantly cheaper. One of the biggest things we had to get figured out in order to actually leave was what we were going to do with Maggie. We found a kennel…

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September 8, 2017