Big Day

Today we are going to a Halloween birthday party with all 3 kids. The mother has turned an entire unoccupied rental house of hers into a Halloween house theme, I think complete with fog machines, etc... It should be a lot of fun, but possibly very overwhelming for Elise. We're hoping that she does well. We had asked for a consultant to accompany us, the first time we've ever had a specific request like that. We have really bad timing because the agency decided to do a mandatory training session for its consultants today, so there is no one scheduled to help. We'll manage fine, it just means we won't be able to enjoy the fun with the boys as much because we'll be helping Elise cope.

My recovery has actually not been as easy as I anticipated. I returned to normal activity after about 5-6 days, but I think that my "normal" activity level is probably higher than most people since most people don't have the instense schedule that we have. Keeping up with almost 4 year old twins and a 5 1/2 year old, all in 3 different schools and 1 with 6-8 hours of therapy each day all while working full-time is probably not "normal" activity. Oh well, it's my normal, and I think returning to it has been more difficult than I thought it would be. I'm just so tired all the time. Yesterday, I took A to karate class. It's a parent-child class. I haven't done karate for 8 years now. I thought I would go and "bag" it. Well, I still have the karate bug and was incapable of doing a halfway effort. It was really fun to get back to it, but perhaps a bit early! I guess I've missed doing fun things like that for myself.

Elise had a doctor visit last week. We will be slowly doing the following:

1. Ensuring that she takes her Sertraline each day at the same dosage level by squirting it directly into her mouth. We used to mix it in orange juice and I think she didn't get it all everyday. Poor girl, the taste alone is pretty nasty based on the face she makes. I suspect this drug is not working well for her as we've noticed her more irritable since we began doing this and that's a side effect for Sertraline. We're going to watch it for a few more days.
2. Once we know how the Sertraline is going, we'll increase her Abilify to .4ml per day instead of .35ml. If all goes well, we'll up this to .5ml eventually. Abilify seems to be a wonder drug for her.
3. We'll add Vitamin E to her supplement regimen.
4. We'll add L-Carnitine to her supplement regimen. I believe this may help with her constipation issues.

We're also changing her probiotic brand as this is supposedly a good thing to do every few months. She now takes a full capsule of probiotic each day. We've been doing that for a couple of months now.

I finally received copies of Elise's medical records. I've been working on the paperwork for the appointment scheduling for Dr. Michael Goldberg. I just have to update her written medical history from the parent perspective before I can submit the packet. After the records are all received and reviewed, we'll be contacted for an appointment. I sure hope this doctor will have some other good ideas for her. It is so difficult to get someone to look for the medical cause behind Elise's autism because it's so pervasive and there's no obvious symptom in her, such as some children that are having seizures or others that have persistant diarrhea or obvious allergies. Elise basically seems healthy, but there are some weird things like the fact that she has never had diarrhea a day in her life. Not even close, not even when her brothers and hubby and I have all been sick with some nasty virus. Seems as though she has an amazing immune system, except that she's sick with colds much more often than a typical child. Food for thought. I just need someone who will try to put the pieces together with me since I certainly don't have a medical background to do so alone.

Well, I should get back to playing with the children, you know, the "normal" activity level to which I should have already returned post-surgery :-)

Ay yi yi yi yi...

Lots of happenings again in the last few weeks, never a dull moment. Elise has continued to do well with her new intense schedule. She is definitely improving. Her grandfather is visiting this week and she's really enjoying him being here. She was so excited the night he arrived that she was awake jumping in her bed from 1:30 am to almost 4:30 am. I refer to Grandpa as the eternal optimist. I do see this as a positive quality, but not one I inherited. Anyway, he thinks she is doing a lot better and in this case, I don't think he's just being the eternal optimist, I happen to agree. He's noted better eye contact and overall engagement. It's been between 10-11 months since he last saw her. He also notices that she's much happier. We're just thrilled with how she is doing.

Friday I had my gallbladder removed. I'm still feeling uncomfortable from that and am a little surprised. I thought I would be mostly better by now. Hmmm...maybe some of that eternal optimist quality did rub off on me.