Joy's Autism Blog

Well tomorrow is the big day, Sanura’s evaluation. It’s been a very long time coming. I called her teacher and talked to her. I asked her if everything was still the same since we spoke last time, she said it was the same. Neither of us said much else and that’s that.

I’m worrying about this appointment, I’m not happy that we have a snow storm coming through. We’re not supposed to get too much but Iowa City is getting 3 to 5 inches of snow. Not terrible but not fun either…Glen will be the one driving because I don’t like driving in the snow. I’ve been very grumpy, snapping at everyone and not pleasant to be around. I guess it’s all just stress. I’m trying to keep a good attitude but I’m losing the battle.

So the plan is:

Today-grocery shop, laundry, clean house, maybe run some clothes to Goodwill to donate-I’ve been trying to declutter some, look up directions to the hospital and plan what time we need to leave, etc.

Tomorrow-get up really early to get on the road to the appointment. Adrian’s lasted from early in the morning and we didn’t get home until after dinner time.

Saturday-Sunday-Nothing but clean and laundry and try to relax.

Monday-Meeting to find out what Lincoln’s results are from his evaluation.

Lincoln seems a lot better today, Glen doesn’t feel very good and Adrian was saying “Sick!” last night at bedtime but seemed fine this morning. I am hoping and praying nobody is sick for this appointment tomorrow. It’s the last thing I need to be trying to deal with. I won’t reschedule. We will just deal with it. It takes months to get in there.

So that sums it up, I hope I can cheer up after some of these evaluation appointments are done.

I took Lincoln to the doctor yesterday at 1:00. It wasn’t our regular doctor and she was pretty terrible. She barely looked at him. She checked his ears pretty good, listened to him, and pretended like she looked down his throat. She said at this time of year if kids are sick she just “writes the a prescription for an antibiotic, it’s not scientific but it does the trick” She shrugs and says “we’ll just call this sinusitis” and hands me the prescription. I am not big fan of giving my child a medication just to give it to them. If she had seen a sign of infection then I would have filled the prescription.

So I brought him home, sprayed some saline stuff up his nose and he was acting normal. I put the kids to bed at 8:00. Around 10PM I took Lincoln up to bed with me. He was just acting up and not sleeping. We slept from 10PM until 1AM when he woke up screaming. I could tell he was not feeling well. He felt a little bit warm and was very agitated and hard to calm down. I got him calmed down with some cartoons and rubbed his back but he was up all night long-so that means I was up all night long! At 4:30 he fell asleep until about 5:00 and that’s when I decided to just get up for the day. The 20 minute sleeps were doing me more harm then good at that point and I was frustrated.

Glen relieved me at 7:30AM and got the kids ready and off to school and Lincoln and I slept until about 9:15AM so not much sleep still for me. Lincoln slept until almost 2 this afternoon though and he seems better. I filled his prescription and tried to give him some and he spit it everywhere! I’m hoping at least some stayed in.

I think I’m going to spike some ice cream with his medicine tomorrow instead of risk him spitting it all out! I’m hoping for another nap today, we’ll see what happens. I’m so ready to have a healthy household for a while, I’m so over all this.

**Update
Adrian woke up with a fever the day we were supposed to go. I had decided that we would give him tylenol and try to do it anyway because I did not want him to miss out on this. So I gave him tylenol and got everyone ready. As we were walking out the door he threw up on the kitchen floor so I called and let everyone know he was sick. Of all days I can’t believe he was sick on that day. He’s feeling all better now but we’ve all been dealing with being sick ever since, it’s been going from one person to another. So we’ve been dealing with that. Great fun I say. ********end of update

So my phone rang today, it’s the kids school. Par for the course, I imagine, I start thinking “is someone sick?” “is someone in trouble?” etc…in my seconds before I answer. I’ve overcome the anxiety somewhat though because Adrian’s teacher calls quite often which I LOVE! So when she called today she asked me if I had a few minutes to talk with her. I didn’t really, in fact Lincoln was completely naked because I was in the midst of changing a blow out dirty diaper but of course I said “yes I can talk!”

She started telling me about this research they are doing at the University of Iowa Hospital. There is a little clinic there called Center for Disabilities and Development, that is where we took Adrian when he was diagnosed with autism and again the following year for a follow-up visit. There is a program called The Consultation Service for Children with Challenging Behaviors. This is funded by a grant given by the Iowa Department of Education to the Center for Disabilities and Development to provide consultation services to children with challenging behaviors (Adrian fits the bill for this for several various reason but the one she mentioned was tantruming when she was trying to get him to do his work) and it’s intended to help promote positive partnerships between school teams, area education agency teams, families, & other professionals that work with the child.

So from what I understand basically we’re going to go and people that work with Adrian at school, perhaps his teacher (if she can get a sub) and some people who work with him in the classroom from area education agency are going to work with Adrian and the professionals (whatever doctors, therapists, teachers, specialists) that may be will observe the interactions with the teachers/other professionals and make suggestions on how to better handle Adrian and other children like Adrian.

It’s very exciting and we’re really looking forward to using this opportunity to help Adrian, help Adrian’s teacher help him, and in turn help create ideas and communication between these professionals who will be touching the lives of lots of kids!

We’re going one week from today!