Category: autism

Ryan was diagnosed today with ADHD and also suspected PDD (pervasive developmental disorder, the umbrella term of autism that is most mild). He went ahead and gave the PDD diagnosis [which he suspected but didn’t know how much of the behaviors could be from his hearing loss] to enable him to have the most schooling and therapy. He should be able to go to all day school next year now for kindergarten in an autism class. I’m relieved about that in one way because I know he really needs the structure. On the other hand it breaks our hearts to have three children on the autism spectrum though, again, Ryan’s diagnosis could change as he gets older and more verbal and maybe it’ll change to Asperger’s like his sister who is just about typical with some vague shadow syndromes.

His ADHD seems rather severe and although he is only 4 he’s been prescribed medication – FocalinXR. I need to do some research on it. I’m afraid to give it so young- Colleen didn’t start on Ritalin and then Concerta until she was about 9, but she was never as hyperactive. He actually does very dangerous things – he has run into the street before and just yesterday he plugged in a waffle iron in the living room while I wasn’t looking for a minute and just left it heating. He didn’t ask me about it, just went, got it and plugged it in. He has become extremely hard to handle and even though he’s only 50 pounds it’s exhausting. 50 pounds is still 50 pounds. and on a day when 200-pound Chris is pulling me around – watch out.

They have always prescribed new meds for Chris that again I’m afraid to try. we think we’re going to try and hospitalize him to enable the med change – his last med change he had a psychotic reaction in 2004 (I think that’s the right word?) similar to tardive diskenysia (sp?) and it was horrible. I have to make an ASAP appt. for him Monday.

Thanks for prayers for us!

Prayers also appreciated for our financial situation – we’re doing okay but we got so behind both when Rog was laid off and I was on the one working, and then when he was working but I took a break due to the severe situation of the kids, that we are pretty behind. I’m about to put all our back bills on credit cards just to start with a clean slate because I don’t want any shutoffs. But you hate to do that too…

In the “small potatoes” category I really want to get my house cleaned up WELL by Tuesday afternoon for my weekly assignment wed. with RT. I worked a lot this last month with two unexpected large assignments (YAY!) from individuals (direct pay) and it was very worth it!! But I had never even caught up from Christmas [still have a Christmas tree up in the basement family room] and just need some time now to breathe and try and clean all the rooms well. I’m tired of tripping over things! To keep our sanity we just need to get our surroundings organized and I’d appreciate prayer that we could do that and keep it that way with everyone’s help in the home.

I also have temporarily (I hope only temporarily) lost my autism/deafness family picture blog due to moving servers (the new server so far has been unable to access my old servers files) and we’ve been unable to load the database even though it looks on paper simple as pie. This is 3 years of work (including old journals from another web site) and I had a lot of friends comments on there and some people who had asked for help with autism/deafness whose contacts will be lost if this blog is lost. I had just made it onto google and was getting some comments [though small and far between[ and now they’re getting a blank page. And i”m not sure whether to leave it blank and as is for the techs to work on or to make a new blank blog – not sure how to proceed. I know it’s a small thing but was so important to me – prayers on that appreciated!

And I have a bad headache today – had aches and pains yesterday half the day – and 3 people in my family have had a bad cold or flu and I’m surely hoping I’m not catching it.

I’m glad you are all here and that I still have this journal 🙂

(2020 as I’ll probably see noted in here later I did find all those blogs — they are pretty much merged in here now!!)