Aspergers

This is a word I was not prepared to hear one year ago, but one that I was relieved to hear today! Last year, to label my son with a diagnosis meant that we had to deal with what we feared for a long time. We weren't excited about the news we got, in fact we were numb! After denial, came mourning and then action. I began to research everything and we began therapy. The more involved we got, the more I realized that we were dealing with a lot! Today, I realize that had I been honest with myself we would have gotten here sooner. But I do not think that I could have handled that at the time. So now we change direction, and we look at things from a different view.

Still Here!

Well, we have been on one more ride since the last time that I blogged!! Turns out that the med adjustment wasn't a good thing at all!! He had a horrible reaction to it, but we are back to "our normal" now!! School is going OK, and he is working very hard to keep up! I am so proud of him!! Addison is doing well, she is taking dance lessons and getting ready for her very first recital!! I am so excited to see her on that stage! She is such a trooper too! I can only imagine what she thinks about what Drake goes through and she is always there to give him a hug and support him and he depends on her a lot too!! They are so very strong and I pray that they continue to be close and that she doesn't grow to resent him! Right now, she handles him better than the rest of us! We are making it right now and that is about all I can say at the moment! We don't really know from day to day if things will get better or worse and we are learning to cope with every situation that comes our way!

Update

It has been almost a month since I blogged! We have had quite the struggle with OCD since Thanksgiving and I have been too discouraged to write. Drake is still struggling daily, school is very difficult because he has to work so hard to appear like a normal 7 year old that he doesn't always stay caught up with his schoolwork. We did have some more testing done to see if he has an autoimmune type of OCD and it confirmed that he does not. We have adjusted meds yet again and we are working closely with school to make sure that he gets back on track. My heart is breaking for him and I want so bad to fix it and I can't. He is tormented by this horrible disorder every day and it isn't fair!

OCD SUCKS!

The title pretty much sums up how I feel right now. I was just looking back at my blog and noticed that on Nov. 13th we were making progress and now we are back to a bad place!!! The week after Thanksgiving, Drake got sick with a stomach virus and he hasn't been able to get back to his normal since! I have been doing some research and looking into the possibility that Drake has PANDAS OCD, which is cause by a type of strep. We are moving in the right direction, I have contacted a doctor in Chicago and we are in the process of setting up some test so that we can confirm or deny. But, in the meantime I can't stand to see my son having so much trouble. He is fighting so hard and it is heartbreaking because I want to fight for him. I want to take this away from him. I can't bear to see him in so much pain and be so helpless!!! So, OCD sucks bigtime and I hate every part of it and I want it to leave my son alone for good!!!

December!

We have had such a busy month! Addison just started dance class as an early Christmas gift from her Nanny, thank you Nanny! I am so excited for her and she absolutely loves it. I am excited that she gets to have her own thing! Drake is having a bit of a difficult time this month, he has had quite a few meltdowns, He has been off his schedule since Thanksgiving and now we are gearing up for Christmas break. This is the one thing about OCD that is heartbreaking, any kind of change is hard for Drake, even good change. We noticed this very early with him, as early as a year old! He even said this morning that he didn't want to be out of school for Christmas! I just hope that we can do a lot of fun things with the kids and Drake will be ok, it will be tough but we are preparing now!

Here

We have been doing so well, but now we are back to square one!! We did have a great Thanksgiving and I am so thankful for the wonderful day that we spent with our families. Drake is doing good in school and Addison is doing pretty good overall too! I certainly can't complain! Drake was doing so well and out of nowhere, we have major meltdowns, aggression that is hard to control and I feel like the very minute we get comfy with this OCD crap, everything goes wierd again! He is doing well in therapy, but we are still very dependent on meds, which I am guessing is going to be a neverending cycle. I have accepted that this is what we have to deal with, but now I am mad at it! I guess it's the process. I don't want to write about it, read about it or talk about it!! So, right now we are back to being just here!

Proud Mama!

Drake just got his first report card of second grade! He got Bs and Cs. He asked me if I was mad that he had Cs! I know that he is working so hard on his OCD and class and homework and i am so proud of him!! He only had 2 Cs in language arts and reading, the rest were Bs!!! I told him that as long as he tried his best that I was proud of that! He looked so relieved, I hate that he spent the whole afternoon worrying that I may be mad about his grades! But, once he realized that he had achieved something, he looked so happy and that makes me happier than anything else! He is also doing very well with his therapy and on his medication!