Thursday, September 14, 2006

Concerns about Jacob & Ben

Jacob was the EASIEST baby - never ever cried, never ever got upset, very laid back & easy going. I remember a friend even called me once after a playdate to check that he was OK because he cried during the playdate and she said she had never heard him cry before!

when he turned three things changed *drastically* - a lot I initially attributed to him just being very very 3 - but then three & a half came along with no noticable improvement, 4 - no change, 4.5 no change, and here we are at 5..... still the same.

withdrawn, strange outbursts, uncontrolable screaming, high highs & low lows.... and some speech & communication issues too.

The rabbi & the kindergarten teacher thankfully have approached me with kindness and concrete ideas but everyone before this has said "there's *something* wrong, we don't know what it is & we can't help you"

When I took him to the school district initially (On the Y's insistance) they said there is nothing wrong with him. My doctor (a GP who is also a friend & who also has 3 boys) says he's a normal kid - but I know he's not. He's been asked to leave 2 preschools & been threatened to be asked to leave at 2 others (one of which, the Y, we pulled him out of & one we just managed to hang in till camp started LOL)

so anyway after camp the rabbi (the camp director) approached me and said "I feel he has special needs but I don't know what they are" and within a week of kindergarten she called me and said "Well I can't do diagnoses but in my 35 years as a teacher I've seen a lot of kids with these kinds of issues and this is what they had..." and she mentioned aspergers and tourettes. I also said I have wondered if he's bipolar and she said it could be that too.

the next step she felt - after I fill out all the paper work she sent me - is neurological testing.

truthfully I'll be happy if I have an answer A) if he needs medicine or special help I want to get it for him... and it will be NICE to be able to say to the people who say to me "can't you control your kid?" "Yes, I'm trying but he has XYZ"

So I'm GLAd he'll get the help he needs & I KNEW somthing was wrong (though I didn't know what)

Ben's teacher feels he still has a lot of delays - gross motor & fine motor. she said that with preemies they'll catch up and then when other kids move ahead they have to catch up again. so she's refering him for testing as well.

He also DOES NOT eat. I mostly ignore it but it really is starting to be an issue. he is constantly tired and weak and complaining that his legs, etc hurt & I know it is because he isn't getting proper nutrition. He tastes things different from other people too I think - like he'll say that something that is sweet is sour & he'll spit it out.

I was flipping through the channels last nigh & caught a bit of "real life stories from the ER" and they had a kid who had scurvy!! Same story - will NOT eat... and the social worker came in and told the parents "you're the parents, you have to act like it. Of course he doesn't want brocolli but he needs it" and I was practically in tears watching it because I can NOT make them (Bens the worst but Max also...) eat heathy foods. at least Max will eat some things - some fruits... plus eggs and a bite or two of chicken. Ben nothing. no fruit, no veggies, no protein other than dairy. I give him vitamins but I know that isn't enough. He'll eat cream cheese and jelly, macaroni & cheese, cereal, bagels, and waffles. and that's about all I can think of. yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, ice cream. not smoothies though - I've tried.

Thinking about pediasure...

1 Comments:

Blogger bazanna said...

oh gosh, i'm so sorry, i didn't know you were dealing with all this...well, ok, i didn't know it was THIS bad. LMK if you wanna talk sometime. i don't have any answers but maybe we can chitchat and come up with ideas.

September 23, 2006  

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