Gavin’s side effects are getting worse

After four days of being on his increased dose of Clozapine, it's pretty clear that his side effects are getting worse. The side effects in question revolve around the bladder control issues, extreme dry mouth and weird mouth movements (that could just be the result of dry mouth). Gavin and I had to get our blood work done this morning after dropping Elliott off at school. Emmett stayed home but that's another post. On the way home from bloodwork, we got an appointment for Emmett with the pediatrician. We got home, picked up Emmett and Lizze before heading right back to where we had our bloodwork done. In the afternoon, Gavin and I picked up Elliott from school before parking the car for the day. My point is, we made…

0 Comments

This morning was all about the bloodwork

After taking the Elliott to school this morning, Gavin and I had to both have bloodwork done.  Gavin's bloodwork was related to his meds and other various health issues. Mine was just a followup cholesterol check before my next check up in a couple weeks.   Both of us had to fast and by the time we had the blood drawn, we'd fasted for 14+ hours. That really sucked but you gotta do what you gotta do.   I'm excited to get my new numbers because my cholesterol went from 217 down to 160 per my last doctor's visit.  I'm hoping it's even lower now.  ☺️ Gavin is having his cholesterol, Lithium and complete CBC checked from this blood draw. He needs this in order to continue receiving his next…

0 Comments

I feel horrible because I can’t take hearing about his delusions and hallucinations anymore 

Gavin's been really sorta out there, even more so than normal. He's wanting to update us as to what's going on in his world, much more often than before. I don't have the ability to adequately express, just how exhausting, demoralizing, heartbreaking and overwhelming it is to constantly hear about all the things he's doing.  It's a constant reminder of just how bad the situation is and how powerless we are to help him. Anymore, I'm having to tell him that I can't listen right now. I don't know what else to do because I can't take any more. Lizze and I try to take turns listening, so the other gets a break but Gavin likes to tells us both at the same time. This has become what feels like…

0 Comments

Marriage counseling didn’t happen today

Today's been one of those days where absolutely nothing goes as planned. For starters, both Elliott and Emmett were home sick. There's something going around and we were one of the lucky families to catch it.   Having the boys home meant that the appointment we had for marriage counseling would have to be rescheduled and that sucks.  Lizze and I have been looking forward to this appointment because we're anxious to learn as many tools as we can to help us better navigate all the things in our life that can impact our marriage.   Obviously, the boys come first and  getting sick wasn't really anything anyone has any control over.   It appears that everyone is feeling better and should be returning to school this morning. I love…

0 Comments

It’s not easy to remain positive in the face of heartbreaking news but giving up is not an option

It's pretty obvious that I've been thrown off since Monday's appointment with Gavin's psychiatrist. As a parent, it's so hard to just shake it off because it's dealing with the life of my child.   At the same time, life goes on and never slows down just to let me catch up.  I sorta have to grieve on the run because while I'm struggling to process the bad news, there are a million new things that must be dealt with and an infinite amount of things still piled up in the back burner.  Between the heartbreaking news about Gavin, living with Gavin's incessant over-sharing and everything else going on, I've just sorta crashed.  I'm struggling to remain positive. Hopeful that someone will think of something, that could help Gavin or…

0 Comments

We have our first marriage counseling appointment today

When Lizze and I decided to put our family back together, there were a few things that we wanted to make sure we did.  Lizze and I don't have any major issues between us and the reasons for our separation didn't really have anything to do us. It was a combination of several things but that's not really the point.  One of the things that we wanted to do differently this time around was to be more cognizant of our own needs and make sure we take better care of ourselves and each other.   It's so easy to get wrapped up in taking care of all the kids, that we fail to take care of ourselves.  Marriage counseling is being employed as a means of gaining new tools to…

0 Comments

What happens when you have not one but two IEP meetings in a row? 

Putting aside all of the heartbreaking events from the first part of this week, Lizze and I had to focus our attention elsewhere today. Unfortunately, it wasn't anything super fun.  We spent the late morning, early afternoon knee deep in IEP meetings. You heard me right. Meetings,  as in more than one.  O_o It's not as bad as it sounds. IEP meetings at my kids school are a breeze compared to our experience with the public school system. There's no such thing as a fun IEP meeting. Just like there's no such thing as a fun root canal.  That said, I don't really remember having too much trouble with IEP meetings at this school over the last decade.    Today wasn't any different, aside from doubling up on everything to…

0 Comments