In the Beginning

You bring your new baby home, all giggles and smiles. New to the world, nothing wrong just your typical baby... a little late bloomer. late talker, late walker. You believe that nothing is wrong and just chalk it off to a late bloomer, no biggie. Until your doctor asks you about his words he can speak and you say mama and babba and dadda. You are informed those are words. Well now. Ok still no biggie you take your child home, sit him down and start using flash cards and talking grown up to him. You see other's do and then you get nothing. He just looked at me like "I'm not gonna talk" and that's what he did. He chose not to. You go back to the doctor and they give you a referral to infant developmental program and you answer all these questions and they come back and tell you... 1) your son needs speech therapy 2) needs occupational therapy (because he wigged out when the staff tried to touch him) 3)needs physical therapy (because he has 3 or more developmental delays). You still think that ok this is just normal and we can get him to where he needs to be. You start to think about all his little quirks that you have to deal with. Likes pears but not peaches creepy texture. Likes McDonalds hamburgers but not hamburger from home, too grainy. Better yet, no bumpy foods. Doesn't like to brush teeth, tooth brush feels too foreign. Doesn't like food too cold or too hot. He can watch the same show over and over again and pitch a fit if you make him watch something else. Loved (still loves)Disney Channel, would pitch a fit when he couldn't see the mouse ears at the bottom of the t.v screen. Would pitch a fit when you wanted to watch something..the list goes on and on. At about the age of 3 things really began to take a nose dive. Anger. He would throw things, hit and punch, push and pull just to get his way. Did I mention I was also signing for him because he still refused to talk. It's not that he couldn't, he just didn't want to. Major outburst in pre-k, wait specialized pre-k. IEP's and child study teams. All this for a little 3 year old. He controlled everything. If he was having a bad everyone was guaranteed to have a bad day right along with him. Tweaking the IEP helped, he became the help to a couple of students in his class who needed help. Finding tasks in the classroom also seemed to help and then the attempt to "mainstream" him into a regular pre-k classroom in preparation for Kindergarten. It work but behavior still was a major concern and Caleb has a lot of control still. Kindergarten was a handful, but he pulled it off and mention that he might have ADHD, I simply disagreed and dove completely into finding out what exactly was going on with my son. After months of testing and therapy, he was diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder w/ Mania. We out ruled Conduct Disorder which was extremely frightening and coupled the Bi-Polar Disorder with Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Oppositional Defiant Disorder, in a nutshell basically states that he doesn't like persons in authority or responds to authority. The difference that worked in his favor is he is able to understand remorse, had/has friends and understands consequences. Persons with Conduct Disorder are not able to show/understand remorse, no fear of consequences and are unable to establish meaningful relationships with parents,family or peers. Relief for me and my son, who obviously had enough hurdles to jump over and a friend of his was diagnosed with conduct disorder and it is very scary to deal with. First thing was to find medication what worked for him. A mood stabilizer. First up, Abilify; which was the first drug proven not to make patients gain weight. At first the Abilify was working and then the school made a few complaints about his behavior and then the meds were increase, not much but enough to make him have a total melt down in the classroom. I mean this little boy actually picked up his desk and threw it and threw himself on the floor and pitched a major fit. So out went the Abilify. Hello Respiridal, which caused MAJOR weight gain. I had a happy go luck scrawny 6 year old who gain 75lbs in a span of 2 months. It was sad, but the medication was working. Luckily for us the meds therapist left the practice and the replacement was a flake and then the next therapist was like he is too big and the medication isn't helping/making it worse and place him back on the Abilify (long enough to help him loose some weight) but ultimately the Abilify was not a good fit and he is currently taking Trileptial coupled with Vyvanse (for better focus ability)and Chlodine (for sleep). It seems like a lot to have him on so much medication, but he needs it. It is our hope to have him off meds completely - if it's possible. I don't want all my hopes and dreams go out the window for him. Medication is not the cure all for his behaviors, he needs to learn how to control himself. This is only the beginning, we still have a ways to go...