Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Horses. And herbalist appt

Dominic and i went over to my friend Carol's today, and all three went to visit her horse, Raven. Dominic loves Raven, and took great delight in walking him all around (read - holding onto the end of the lead, while Carol actually held Raven).

Carol had baked him a horse shaped cookie for the event, and he took it in, and wanted so badly for Raven to eat it. Raven was more interested in grass. As we were leaving, dominic left the cookie in Raven's grain bucket. it was Very cute.

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Also, our appointment with Christie is Thursday at 4:15. She'll muscle test Dominic for true allergens, and we'll see if she's got some ideas for herbs that will help him focus.

4-29 updates

Okay, I’ve spoken with the preschool teacher again, and she is onboard with tomorrow being Dominic’s last day for the school year. I’ve talked with the office and they’re working on getting us either a refund or a credit to next year.

I got a call from the Early Childhood ed office, and they still don’t have the paperwork that I mailed to them in their SASE on 4-18, so she’s sending a new batch out, which I will hand deliver to her after I fill them out. So. Annoying. BUT – she did go ahead and put him on the schedule for the school districts speech evaluation on May 14 at 8:30am. So that appointment at least is on the books.

Monday, April 28, 2008

More misc / 4-28

4 days with no school in a row (Friday was a teacher in service day and today was a weird schedule day so we didn't have either of us available at the pickup time - he went to work with Rod instead) and when I came home from work, Dominic came running up the stairs saying HI MOMMY. then he babbled. And this evening, he had an AMAZING time playing with a large empty microwave box (ours died, got a new one this weekend adn the box is gigantic) - he hid in it, then he locked the dog in it, then he put them both in it. Rinse, repeat. And he giggled madly the entire time. This is not an unhappy kid

We've decided to just pull him out of preschool and starting back again in the fall, requesting a different classroom. The only drawback to a different classroom is that the one he's in right now is the only one with in-room small person bathrooms. The other classroom, he'd be across the hall. So we'll have to work REALLY hard this summer on him going to the bathroom without wanting an audience.

Tomorrow I'll be calling the school to find out if we can either get a refund on May's tuition that we already paid, or get it applied to next year. We'll see what they say. Even if they say No, I rather expect we'll pull him out anyway. General consensus among those we've talked to is that the classroom / teacher / whatever is toxic for him right now.

April 28

Misc. updates, just to keep track of the little stuff

We took a pot of soup over to a friend who just had a baby yesterday. She has boys ages 2 and 4 who Dominic played well with last fall. He would not interact at all with them. He sat on the couch and pouted the whole time. He had no interest at all in playing.

Talked w/Christie, the herbalist friend of mine who helped so much when Dominic had a horrid yeast infection about a year ago. She can do something called muscle testing to check for allergies – which will be faster than an elimination diet. We’re going to try to connect sometime this week. There are also some herbs that can help kids focus and cut down on ‘mind chatter’. She’s also tasked me with started a food journal of everything that passes his lips. Yeah. That might have to wait until I’m back from Houston this weekend. Her example was her daughter (now 19) had a sensitivity to eggs and peanuts but only in combination – she could have either, but as long as she didn’t have them within a day or so of each other she was fine. Peanut butter one day and eggs the next and her behavior was out of control for 3 days. Its going to take a few weeks of food journaling to pin that sort of sensitivity down.

Friday, April 25, 2008

April 25

Got a call back from D11, they do not have the paperwork yet. They said it might be stuck in their central processing center or with the secretary. I’m to call back next week, Wednesday.

April 24

well, that was interesting. Dominic did far better than yesterday's appointment - I was very pleased with his behavoir. The hearing test itself consisted of the usual box, but instead of having him wear a headset and push the button when he heard a sound, on Audiologist sat in the box with him (he was on my lap for this) and played with him to hold his focus. The other audiologist piped the sounds thru speakers on either corner of the box. When he looked at the right speaker, a toy lit up and danced around. He was fascinated.

Anyway, from this behavior response "test" they think that he "may" have a mild loss in the higher frequencies, more on the left ear than the right.. Obviously, from this kind of test they cannot be at all sure, so they are recommending what is called a 'Sedated ABR', or Auditory brainstem evoked response test. This would be done in the hospital, and he would be sedated for the 2+ hours it takes. They, at my request, are contacting our pediatrician to discuss prior to ordering the test. They also want a CAT scan of his skull to check for something called Enlarged Vestibular Aquaduct, which is a genetic bone deformity that causes progressive hearing loss. nothing can be done about it, but its one of those things that you want to know about because head trauma should be avoided if it exists (ie, no playing football.) Apparently if there is head trauma with this bone deformity issue, kids go from okay to really quite deaf almost immediately. she doubts he has it based on our family history, but wants to check.

So. If the ABR shows a hearing loss like the behavior test indicates, they'll recommend hearing aids. Neither Rod or I think we'll be able to keep them on his head at this age, so that might have wait a little while. The ABR has to be done in the hospital, since there's a sedative involved, and we do not know yet when that will be since they want to talk to the pediatrician first. i'm guessing its a few weeks out. Its gong to be a Very Bad DAy - its a light sedative, so they want him sleep deprived when we arrive so it works. (lovely) He's also not allowed to eat or drink anything for at least 4 hours before. (double lovely. ugh)

For what its worth, he was chatting up a storm with the two audiologists today. all garbled, as has been the pattern lately, and they both said that his speech pattern issues do not sound like they are the result of hearing loss. A hearing loss speech delay would sound mushy, and his garbles are quite clear.

so, more waiting game now. I have not gotten confirmation that the school district has in hand the paperwork I submitted a week ago, so i've left them a message. We need to get on their calendar for evaluation. Next official appointment is the private Eval, but I suspect the sedated ABR / CAT scan will come first, along with a followup appointment with the Nurse prac at the Hearing office (its a full 3 months to see the Dr. there, so the audiologists were thinking that the nurse prac would be able to explain results to us)

fun stuff.

April 23

I just got our pediatrician to give us a 'script for speech and occupational therapy evaluations and sessions. I had already done the insurance preauthorization w/the place we want to go, and was only needing the formal 'script. The appointment with them is on May 27. Doc did say he's not thinking autism, he agrees with me and is thinking speech delay due to the stress of starting school and maybe a little sensory integration stuff. He was not panicked, and doesn't want to see us until 6-8 weeks or so into ST and OT. Still waiting to hear back from the school district for their evaluation window on him. And tomorrow is the hearing test.

Dominic was so overtired and bored at the doc's he had a complete meltdown. We waited for the doc for 45 minutes after our appointment time, which i suspected would happen becuase Dr M likes appts of this nature at the end of the day so he can spend plenty of time on them. i couldn't get him calmed down to eat until I made tater tots which he is now eating in the tub. He's gained 6lbs since early March when we were in for the flu.

April 19

my friend who is working on her masters in early childhood special ed carpooled with one of the student teachers in Miss Paula’s classroom. She told the Student teacher that she herself had a perfectly appropriate conversation with Dominic at a birthday party in December. Student teacher is shocked that anyone has ever had a conversation with the child. We also learn that Miss Paula’s class is overstaffed this year, but will not be next year.

April 16 - 18

April 16 - Childfind calls me back, and tells me that we have to follow process, and that process is paperwork, then evaluation in their office. Paperwork arrives

April 17 - I return the paperwork

April 18 - I get the name of a good speech/developmental place in town from a friend who works w/delayed kids. I call and get them started on the insurance pre-auth.

April 15

D had a bad pickup from school, was hysterical for no good reason. I called Miss Paula to see if anything upsetting had happened during the day. She ended up going over piles of concerns with me, almost as if she'd never told Rod about them. Specifically, his speech, she said he doesn’t seem to have appropriate life skills, and she'd put his development age at like 18 months, not making eye contact when he runs around, and something about having no spatial awareness. She was emphatic that I call the Childfind office and have them send a specialist asap to observe him in the classroom because she'd never seen behavior like it before. She started to use the word Aspergers, but quickly covered and said we should see a doctor. She was “shocked” that a doctor had not noticed any developmental delay issues. I left a message at childfind about getting someone into the classroom

April 14

Talked to Childfind, got the paperwork sent to me, also made appointments with the pediatrician and a pediatric audiologist (hearing loss runs in our family). Checked health insurance to confirm coverage

April 11

Miss Paula, the lead preschool teacher told Rod at pickup very quickly that to not worry, but we needed to call the school district and get Dominic connected with Childfind. We freaked out. I put a call into the Childfind folks, but didn't reach anyone.

March 2008

Mid March - We realized that Dominic's speech was significantly regressing. I emailed my parents. Figured it was just a phase. He still has many words he uses regularly, but the pronunciation is getting harder to understand, and there’s a lot of mumbling and garbled words that he just spouts off with. He’s only doing 2-3 word sentences, but they are hard to understand.

Late March / Early April - At dropoffs more than one teacher commented on Dominic doing great, or just being a happy-go-lucky kid – such a difference from the drama of dropoffs at the beginning of the school experience.

Feb 2008

Feb 11- D turned 3, at wbv, Dr Maynard. said that he thought D would have a hard time in school, but did not say anything about developmental issues, etc.

Feb 12 - D started preschool in a Montessori preschool, 5 days a week, 2 1/2 hrs a day.

It took 2 full weeks before he stopped crying hysterically when we dropped him off. They almost told us that he just wasn't ready. but, he got acclimated, and eventually the dropoffs were not a problem.

January 2008 - ish

D helped a friend of mine wind yarn for her business and had a full on interactive conversation with her about the yarn. She remembers this vividly as an entirely appropriate 3 year old conversation.

Some basic history

D was never in daycare, we have done the working in shifts thing so that one of us was with him all the time.


Starting in Nov, D began watching lots of TV because it was too cold to go outdoors and TV was the only thing that we could get him to do calmly inside. Very high energy kid – loves to run back and forth in the living room flinging himself onto the couches. Just since probably January - ish, he’s not been able to tolerate tags in his clothing or textural differences (I patched some jeans and he absolutely flipped out and refused to wear them – but the holes in the knees drove him nutty, too)