Archive for January, 2010

My son’s return to school has been, for the mostpart, successful! Other than a few minor outbursts, which his teacher was able to easily talk him down from (a miracle in itself!), he’s been great. I am soooo relieved.

And just when we are making headway with my boy – we have to MOVE! ugh

My lease is up where I live, and I found another place for us which is both less expensive, and larger. So packing is well underway as of this writing, which poses other issues for my sweet boy. He HATES change. While most kids take change in stride, for asperger kids, heh, not so much. These kids (and especially my son) covet sameness, routine, structure, boundaries. Any kind of change sends my son’s anxiety level through the roof.

I’ve tried to prepare him as much as possible. Things like telling him the night before what I’m planning to pack the next day so that he’s not surprised when he comes home from school and sees more boxes stacked, have helped alot. The new landlords have been great! They have met us at the new place several times, so that JJ can spend time in it in advance and kind of get used to the layout. We’ve already planned out his bedroom, where he wants his bed, dresser, etc.

Just the little things like this have helped tremendously and I’m really excited about this move. I’m just hoping that we like living in the new place and can make it into a long-term thing.

Time will tell

As I have mentioned on here before, my son, who just turned 10 in November, has Asperger Syndrome, ADHD, Obsessive/Compulsive disorder, Sensory Processing disorder, and a few other related disorders. He was also recently diagnosed with severe Anxiety disorder, which is fairly common with Aspergers kids.

His behavior became very antagonistic, and volatile, somewhere around mid-September, and we dealt with that as best we could until mid-November, at which time he started to become physically threatening not only to himself, but to other people. He had started slapping, hitting and punching himself, then there were a couple of incidents with his teacher, and with me.

One afternoon when he came home from school after such an incident, I was beside myself. I called Belmont Pines, which is a local pediatric psychiatric hospital that I had been referred to by Ed’s case worker. I told them what was happening, we set up an assessment appointment, and he was admitted to the hospital but on what they call “partial hospitalization”, which simply means that he would be there only during the day, and coming home every night. (WHEW!).

He was there for 10 days, and did wonderfully! That’s when he was diagnosed with Anxiety disorder, and placed on Topamax.
At the end of the 10 days, he was discharged, and went back to school, where everything went downhill very very quickly.

To make a very long story short, he has 2 more days to go in a second stint at Belmont Pines, and then it’s back to school on Wednesday. However, I’m truly hoping that this return to school will be different.

You see, mom has been undergoing a little bit of re-training SO, we shall see what happens now.

I am absolutely determined that 2010 will be a better year for me and my boy than 2009 was. It has to be – couldn’t be much worse.

Oh my it’s been quite a while since I’ve updated my blog! Well that is going to change.
You’ll be reading quite a bit from me in the days, weeks, and months to come, so check back often!