Friday, October 29, 2010

A better day, and ruminating

I put a decent amount of miralax in Nikko's juice this morning and he didn't have any bowel movements today. Could be because there's nothing in there to move. But if he doesn't have one tomorrow, I'm going to have to watch him closely for straining and more possible blockage that didn't come out the first time. Doesn't this sound so familiar? Yes, this happened already once, twice before. So c'mon, Nikko, please have a poop tomorrow before lunch. Please.

School notes: ST - Better day today. Good naming pictures to go in a puzzle of fruits, 1 of food and 1 of household objects. Some I had no idea he knew! He cried for a minute in the middle unprovoked. Read Bus book, went to office for greetings and did 1 step commands.

This morning Nikko had a good session with Kathy. There were no outbursts until the last ten minutes of the session. Kathy told me this was where she brought out the Candyland game and forgot that Nikko does a little stim with the characters, not really taking turns and playing the game. She played with him for a while, but when it was time to put it away he protested and got mad. Besides that, he had a good mood day, unlike yesterday. He went off to school and was happy when he came home.

After the kids went to bed and the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, I had to decide which project to tackle tonight. Yesterday was all about laundry (adult laundry, 3 loads. I ran another load of kid laundry this morning. Felt super-productive in that respect. It's the little things.). Tonight I decided to finish laminating a few cards that were still missing from my daily schedule. I made a card for Go Home (an arrow pointing to a house with our family faces in it), nap time, bath time, exercise, and a card for Jenna. I think my schedule is now complete! But what I also wanted to do tonight was go onto a few websites and do some research on Elementals Living. I have read a big section that describes, with video, how you take samples of hair and stool and other things and then send them to a lab so they can do testing. I think there's a blood test involved as well, which I'm not going to be thrilled about for Nikko. I'm also sitting here trying to make sure that I know what I want from going this route. Like all moms with ASD kids, I want to find a cure for my child. I want to do it without causing him pain, or to avoid long-term pain. I want it to be safe. I want it to work. I've read so much lately about this organization or that organization trying to disprove the DAN! doctors, the biomed methods, the hocus pocus and the voodoo. So why won't a regular pediatrician try harder to understand how to help treat an autistic child? Why do they keep burying their heads in the AAP guidebooks? I've been wondering if I have a friend that is a pediatrician that can answer these controversial questions. A friend told me something that is a very common phrase in these circles: Just try it. If it doesn't work, then move on to the next thing. People not sitting in this boat may think that's so risky, sounds stupid, sounds like it doesn't hold water or doesn't use common sense. It does sound unsafe, rash and impetuous. But when your child is struggling to communicate, whining like a dog instead of using words even though he can sing Happy Birthday to a velcro cake, when it is painfully obvious that his peers and his siblings are surpassing him academically and socially, when you just fear for his future because you have absolutely no idea if he will improve or, worse, regress, then you become desperate.

I am desperate.

There's got to be a better way.

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