I totally earned the world’s okayest Dad award today

Typically, I'm pretty hard on myself. I don't often cut myself any slack and I carry around guilt that I probably shouldn't. Okay, I carry around guilt that I know I shouldn't but do anyway, but in fairness, that's very common for special needs parents. Anyway, today was one of the busiest days I've had in a very long time. I got the kids up after not sleeping well. Lunches were packed and we left for school on time. I even had both kids going willingly and right now, that's a hugely positive thing. On the way home, Gavin and I went for a walk. He did really well. Often he sorta of scuffs or drags his feet when he walks. This makes him prone to tripping or losing his…

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The dreaded phone call from the school

A little bit after 1PM, I received the dreaded call from the school that Elliott was not feeling well. I spoke with him and he sounded pretty awful. He said that he was nauseous and tried to make it through the day, but he couldn't go on. He made most of the day and that's a good thing. I spoke with the school again and we agreed that he tried and that it was best if I came and got him. We also agreed that this is very likely emotionally based but that doesn't make what he's feeling any less real. As such, Gavin and I went to pick him up. It was late enough in the day that I would normally have picked up Emmett as well. Being that…

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Some very good news came out of our appointment today

I made it through Gavin's appointment today. I needed to bring his shrink up to speed and that took a little while. Ultimately, Gavin's doing pretty good and we've not made any medication changes. The only thing we did was move Gavin from a seven day supply of Clozapine to a fourteen day supply of Clozapine. Assuming this gets approved by the governing body that grants permission for each refill, Gavin will only need blood work every two weeks. He's super excited about that. As long as his numbers stay good for the next six months, he will be moved back to a thirty day supply and blood work once a month. That will make managing this soooo much easier. If Gavin has any issues with his lab results going…

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It’s better than nothing and I admire his determination

The kids got off to school okay. Turns out Elliott did not take his new medication to help him sleep. When I was putting the meds out this morning, I saw that he hadn't taken it. I don't think he did it on purpose, but regardless, I need to run a little tighter ship in this regard. I don't know if he was faking that he was asleep when I checked on him last night, but he's been known to do that. He was dragging this morning and it was pretty clear that he didn't sleep well. Either way, he made it to school, as did Emmett. ☺ On the way home, Gavin and I stopped at the park and went for a walk. Gavin can't go for great distances…

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The 11 year old I am not sleeping at night

It was a rough night. I don't feel like I got much sleep at all and there's an eleven year old reason for that. I mentioned this in the previous post as well. Mr. Emmett is not doing well at night. Between bad dreams and taking up the entire width of my king size bed, sleep is difficult to find. I was able to grab a picture last night and it helps to put this into perspective. 😂

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It’s heartbreaking to see my kids struggle so much with sleep right now

I mentioned earlier that there are currently a few concerns in regards to the kids and I wanted to talk about them in a separate post. This is that post.. There are a few issues that the kids are struggling with but the biggest one right now is sleep disturbances. Elliott was up until 2 AM last night and Emmett keeps waking due to nightmares. Neither one of them is getting a restful night's sleep and that's a major problem. Both boys are going to be starting a medication called Atarax. Atarax is an antihistamine. It can treat anxiety, nausea, vomiting, allergies, skin rash, hives, and itching. It's mild and is taken as needed, up to twice a day. Right now, we're thinking bedtime. It can be taken with melatonin…

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Holding onto hope where there isn’t any

We made it through the day without any casualties. Therapy went well and everyone got some one on one time with their therapist. I kept the others occupied with a game of horse. It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we had those moments. ☺ There are a few concerns that I wanted to talk about but I'll do that in a follow up post later. The kids in general are resistant to talking about the separation. There's a large part of them that believes that she's coming back because that's what she did last time. Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. They're holding on to hope where there isn't any. That's probably pretty normal for any kid. Kids with Autism, however, tend to generalize and that's playing…

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We spent the morning with @AkronChildrens behavioral health

We just got home from Emmett's appointment at Akron Children's Hospital a little while ago and Emmett's appointment went really well. There were no major changes to his medications for right now. We feel as though there is simply too much going on at the moment to judge whether or not he needs a different medication regime. While I was checking him in, he spent some time with a service dog. It was a positive experience for him and he's still talking about it. Much of the appointment was simply taking a detailed history and trying to get mett to open up about what he's going through. There was focus on two main areas of trauma in his life. The first being all the behavioral issues that Gavin experienced when…

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