Thursday, December 8, 2011

Randoms.

It's been a busy one today and I'm having a bit of brain fog.  I have a million random thoughts.  Any attempt at organizing them will fail.  So, I'm just going to haphazardly share them.

I've been daydreaming of sending B to school.  Being room mother at Christmas parties.  Having mornings to myself to get things done.  Not worrying if B is learning enough, if I'm depriving him of something, if not going to PE and Music will somehow ruin him for life.  Then he does something amazing like read a short book, tell me Sputnik was the first space probe, solve addition problems,  count to 39 and my daydream bubble pops.  I keep thinking about last year when he couldn't count to 10 and couldn't say his ABC's.  He told me he wants to always have school at home.  He's doing very well.  Jilly is too!  She loves everything about school, except for the listening to the teacher part.  We're still working on that. :)

We took a trip to Disney at the end of October with my sister and her boys.  It was so much fun!  B adores his cousins.  I love that they treat him like a big kid, yet will carry him when his legs get tired.  On the plane ride home, B's tics and stims were out of control.  He even had a vocal tic.  It was a rough ride.  These tics and OCD behavior hung around long after the trip.  I was beginning to wonder if we needed to find a PANDAS specialist.  We took him to Dr. B and he told us to increase his probiotics to 3 and slowly increase the Olive Leaf Extract.  Probiotics kill yeast and OLE goes after strep.  We did this and in about a week or two, he was back to baseline.  Dr. B is brilliant!

Dr. B is so brilliant, that I am now a patient.  I am seeing him for an all day long, feels like I need a nap an hour after I wake up fatigue.  I'll get the test results back in a week, then I'm sure B and I will be food buddies.  B is very excited about this.  I'm not so much.  I've known for awhile that there are some foods I react to.  Mostly my favorite foods. *sigh*  Maybe this is the push i need to be even more creative with my cooking.

Jilly turned 3 last month.  Three!  I can't believe it.  The age of 3 has brought with it the love of coloring and a nurturing of baby dolls.  She is a little momma.  She loves to shush us all the time, "Shhh!  My baby's sleeping!"  B said to her, "I love you even when you do naughty things."  I do to.  She is adventurous and fun. Sometimes that adventure and fun leads to boredom in the timeout chair.  But when she looks sadly at us with those big blue eyes and ask for a hug, we all melt.  She really is a sweetheart.

I've been learning more about PANDAS.  Basically, if B is exposed to strep, he forms antibodies.  These antibodies cross the blood/brain barrier and attack his basal ganglia.  It's similar to what happens to the heart in Rheumatic fever.  It's so important that he not get strep.  Other illnesses can trigger a flair as well (which might make it PANS?  Any PANDAS moms help me out here.)  Right now he's fighting a cold and his OCD is heightened.  Over the past 6 months, B's speech has been affected.  He now pauses extra long on words, drawing out some syllables.  I don't know why or if this is permanent.  I'm going to talk to his doc about it when we have our appointment.

That about wraps up the randoms.  Hopefully a good night's sleep will clear this brain fog and my next post won't be so all over the place.