Gavin Archives - Page 71 of 113

We’re celebrating a little victory today

I've written this post out twice now and each time WordPress somehow eats it. For that reason, I'm going to keep this short and sweet.. I took Gavin with me to the grocery store the other day. He always wants to push the cart but I usually avoid this because he doesn't pay attention to his surroundings. He tends to run into people and things. This time however, we weren't in a hurry and I could keep a close eye on him. You should see the look in his eyes when he can push the cart. It's very similar to a parent tossing their new teen driver the keys to the car. He actually did pretty well. I had to stay on him but no one was hurt and nothing…

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March 26, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

When good news is heartbreaking

I wanted to share some insight into what it's like to be heartbroken by good news. I know that sounds weird but let me explain. On Tuesday, we were informed that Gavin has graduated from speech therapy. He had brought his scores up in several areas and he no longer fit the criteria that would enable him to continue. On the surface that sounds like amazing news and in some ways it is. Gavin's worked very hard to make some of these improvements and we're proud of him. The heartbreak comes when you see beneath the surface and understand what this graduation really amounts to. The reality that my wife and I face is that we're so happy and proud of Gavin for doing so well in speech. On the…

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March 24, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

It’s the not knowing that kills me as a parent

It's becoming clear that Gavin's struggling more and more. Unfortunately, there's no way to know if this is another leg of his journey with Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, the result of changes to his medications or just par for the course. His level of functionality is decreasing and doing so in weird areas. Things like self-awareness are slipping. There's never been a great deal of that to begin with, so this change is noticeable. What do I mean by self-awareness? Gavin had an ice cream sandwich this afternoon. About three hours later, I took the boys to the park to hunt Pokémon for short while before picking up their pizza for school tomorrow. I wasn't paying attention to Gavin's face, like I usually do before we leave and I was caught…

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March 20, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

1 BIG reason I’m worried about Gavin

This is an important update on Gavin's current overall status and one that's a bit concerning, although not entirely unexpected. Gavin's officially off of Lithium for the first time in over a decade. We were a bit caught off guard at the timing because we were supposed to stop this coming Thursday but when his new box of meds was delivered this weekend, it was devoid of Lithium. By the time we would be able to address this, it would be close to the original cutoff date anyway. Frankly, it doesn't matter, aside from finding out why they pulled it in the first place because we never told them to. Anyway, Gavin's off of Lithium for the first time in over ten years, and we're bracing for a major unknown.…

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March 19, 2017

Bipolar Disorder / Gavin / Major Update

Major Update: We saw the psychiatrist today

Many things have happened today but in this entry, I want to focus on what is arguably the most pivotal. I spoke previously about Gavin having his Lithium dose cut in half, with the potential of being totally removed in the near future. The near future has arrived and we met with Dr. Reynolds this afternoon about this very subject. The focus of today's appointment was to discuss how things were going on the current (reduced) dosage and then decide where to go for here. Lizze and I both agree that Gavin is or at least appears to be manic. Is this the result of the decreased dose of Lithium? My personal opinion is that it's probably not. The reason I say that is because Gavin's been on 900 mg/day…

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March 9, 2017

Gavin

My heart broke twice today (part 1)

I was excited about today because we had some exciting things in the works and Emmett even got off to school without much problem. He ended up wearing his flip-flops to school. Shortly after home from dropping the boys off at school, Lizze and I wanted to finish a show we had previously left unfinished. Gavin came downstairs to deliver a message. He wanted me to know that he would be spending most of the morning at base. Apparently, there was a huge party in celebration of the anniversary of his super hero teams birth. Lizze and I sorta looked at each other as Gavin continued. He went on to explain that there's going to be a big party to celebrate the anniversary of his super hero team coming together,…

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March 8, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts / Vivint Gives Back

3 items are helping my son with #Autism gain independence

I've spoken about this a few times before, but I wanted to share something we've done, to help our low functioning teenager with Autism, gain a bit more independence. Gavin is seventeen years old and struggles in most areas of his life. He's unable to remember things, and his cognitive ability is in a slow, unending decline. One of the things that we've recently done to help him better manage his daily life, weekly schedule and bedtime routine, is introduce some home automation into his room. I've been working on automating our home over the last year or so. For whatever reason, Gavin was resistant to being included in this process but a few days ago, he decided he'd like to give it a try and that's pretty exciting because…

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March 5, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

Gavin tried hopping out of a moving car today

I'm really struggling with Gavin today. He's been off since waking up this morning. When I took him to get his bloodwork done, he totally freaked me out. I had just pulled into the parking lot and was pulling into a parking space. The car was still moving forward, when Gavin rips off his seat belt and tries hopping out of the car. WTF Gavin? I instinctively yelled at him because I needed to stop him from continuing to try and let himself out of a moving car. He was very apologetic and I don't think he even realized what he was doing. He was so focused on getting his bloodwork done, everything else just faded away, including the fact that the car was still moving. A guy can only…

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March 3, 2017