specialneedsparenting Archives - Page 4 of 15

Emmett’s fever flares may have returned

On Saturday night, Emmett began complaining of his mouth hurting. When I checked it out for him, I found a rather large mouth sore on the inside of his lip. This may end up being nothing more than a random cold sore but Emmett's never had random cold sores. When these painful little things show up, it's always been because he was entering into a fever flare. He's been really, really grumpy today and hasn't been eating much. All of these things are classic signs of a flare but he hasn't had one since early last year... 🙁 We'll have to see how he's doing in the morning before we know how school will be handled. If he's in pain, we can kiss him wearing shoes and socks goodbye because…

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February 13, 2017

My thoughts

I drank 72 ounces of water today. Is that enough?

This is totally random but has been the topic of debate between my wife and I. Feel free to weigh in and share your experience or knowledge. Here's the question... How much water should the average person drink in a given day? This is a really important question because how much water you consume in a day can have a significant impact on your overall health and wellness. The problem is, there's so much conflicting information out there and it's tough to know the good info from the bad. The rule used to be, drink eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day. Now the new recommendation is to drink half of your boy weight in ounces a day. I don't know about you but getting 64 ounces of water…

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February 13, 2017

Gavin / My thoughts

Update: This kid is driving me effing CRAZY

I took a large part of the weekend off from writing. Things were getting stagnant for me and I think a break was in the cards. I'm feeling good and my thoughts are stringing together will less effort. Yay for the little victories... ☺ There's one main thing to touch on tonight before I go to sleep and that's about how Gavin's doing as we've cut his Lithium in half. Gavin's been on 900 mg of Lithium per day for close to a decade. Overall, it's served him well. That's something that we are grateful for because it improved the quality of his life by helping to manage his bipolar disorder. The problem is that sometimes these improvements come at a cost. In Gavin's case, it seems that the combination…

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February 13, 2017

Date Night / My thoughts

For the first time in a very long time

My apologies for not having anything new in the last day or so. I thought I would get everyone caught up while I'm camping out in the living room with Mr. Emmett, who's getting mouth sores again. 🙁 He's in a lot of pain and this is about all I can do to help him sleep tonight. Anyway, let's get caught up. The boys were gone for the night on Friday and Lizze and I had the house to ourselves. We decided to go see The Lego Batman Movie. It was pretty good and we had fun. On the way home, we got some ice cream and hung out on the couch with our deal old friend, Netflix. We aren't used to going out and Lizze was still having issues…

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February 12, 2017

Date Night / My thoughts

The kids have left the building

The boys are gone and Lizze and I have the house to ourselves. My paycheck arrived, so Lizze and I are going to see The Lego Batman movie tonight. Yes, that's a kids movie but we want to see it really bad and we want to make it through without a million trips to the bathroom. We just won't tell the kids that we saw it. This way, when we take them, interruptions don't matter cause we've already seen it. Brilliant no? I'm so excited to be able to go out because it almost never happens. ☺

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February 10, 2017

My thoughts

Sometimes things just go right

It's been a hectic but otherwise pleasant morning. The boys got off to school with minimal effort and we even beat bus 38. I have this one sided challenge every morning and that's to beat bus 38 to the school. It's weird, I know but it keeps things interesting. ☺ Immediately afterwards, I met with the income tax office because I had to sign a new payment agreement. It's not a big deal at all and they really do bend over backwards to help. After that, it was off to the lab so Lizze and Gavin could get their blood work done. Gavin's is for his refill of Clozapine and Lizze's was just to check her therapeutic Lithium levels. I hung out in the car while the two of…

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February 10, 2017

My thoughts

It all comes crashing down

Is it possible to get a do over for today? I mean, it's only 7:00 am and I'm already being tested. Gavin was trying to be helpful this morning by putting the clean dishes away that had been left to dry in the strainer. Next thing I know, I hear a huge crash and when I look in the kitchen, Gavin had dropped an entire stack of bowls, sending shattered glass everywhere. Thankfully, he wasn't hurt but when I say there was glass everywhere, I mean everywhere. To make things even more frustrating, the Goddamn broom snapped as I was trying get all the glass from the far reaches of everywhere. Gavin's freaking out because he's upset with himself. I'm not mad and have made the as clear as possible. …

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February 10, 2017

Emotional Health / Gavin / Psychiatrist

MAJOR change is coming to Gavin’s life

The appointment went pretty well with Gavin's shrink this afternoon. It probably goes without saying that Gavin did a good job while he was there. As I mentioned in the previous post, this was supposed to be a med check and nothing more. I also mentioned that I can never know for sure because it's Gavin and everything about him is fucking complex.. Let me get right to the point. Gavin's rather significant level of confusion might be related to the fact that he has childhood disintegrative disorder. Frankly, that's what I've thought and sorta run with. As it turns out, the confusion may me related to his Lithium or rather the Lithium/Clozapine combination. As a result, we're doing something we never done before and that's begin to wean him…

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February 9, 2017