The String Is the Thing
Last week, I did a pretty good job of keeping my blood sugar levels in the desired range. This week, not so much. I've been all over the place, and part of it has to do with my need to feed. Stress makes me hungry, and if I don't have "appropriate" snacks at my disposal, things can get ugly.
Like yesterday, when I discovered the bowl of jelly beans our receptionist had put out on the counter were NOT your mother's jelly beans, but Starburst and Life Savers jelly beans. Two handfulls of them were enough to spike my post-lunch reading to 187. Then there was dinner at Panda Express with Bob following his psych appointment, which mounds of rice left me at 167 post-dinner.
So today, I decided to be good. Which involved making a trip to my nemesis, WalMart, at lunchtime.
See, string cheese has virtually no carbs. Meaning I can eat all the damned string cheese I can stomach. And on my last sojourn to the Evil Empire, I picked up a big ass bag of string cheese that was, by far, the best string cheese in the industrialized world. Low-moisture, kind of dry, salty. Top knotch. Meaning I had to return to the Evil Empire today to procure some of this manna from heaven so I'd keep my fat hands out of the jelly bean bowl this afternoon.
As for the psych appointment yesterday...I feel like my train is permanently derailed at the Frustration Station. When I picked Bob up from school, he advised me he'd had a good day, and that he hadn't had to go to the office all day long--"but Brandon did!" (Kudos to you, Brandon, for taking the focus off Bob, however briefly.) I didn't have a teacher/adult email to confirm or deny his claim, but I chose to believe him. When we got to the psych office, he started bouncing off the walls. He continued to do so as I talked to Dr. Moo (my personal name for him) about the events and downward spiral of the past couple of weeks. I expressed my recent wondering if we shouldn't just take Bob off everything to see what his baseline behavior is, considering he's been on something every day for the past 3 years.
Then Dr. Moo pulled something I hadn't expected him to this soon. "Well, you've tried ADHD stimulants and they don't work. You've tried antidepressants and they don't work. And you've tried the mood stabilizers and they don't work. Perhaps therapy would be a better option?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Therapy? Buddy, we've DONE therapy. We did therapy for two straight fucking years. We did individual play therapy. We did parent/child therapy. We did everything but make the kid lay on a chaise and talk about his childhood. I've presented you with a 6 year old who clearly displays all the symptoms of bipolar mania in children, whom you have seen exactly three times, and you're already throwing your hands in the air and suggesting therapy?
I was hungry. And tired. And bearing in mind that, being largely pregnant, I'm a little quick to anger these days. So I gently, very gently, suggested..."wouldn't it make sense to try a different mood stabilizer?" You know--since they're all different? Since no two people react to one in the same way? Since their efficacy tends to wax and wane over time? Since he's only been tried on two atypical anti-psychotics and one drug known for low side effects and even lower therapeutic benefit?
"Well, yes, there's always that."
So the recommendation was made to half Bob's Abilify dose for the next 10 days--partially to wean him off gradually, and partially to see if he didn't benefit from a lower dose. After that, we'll get labs (goody, can't wait) and then try Depakote.
Depakote? That's some heavy shit, from what I know about it. Which isn't much. So I turned to my resident expert on anti-convulsants--My Epileptic Brother. Apparently, he was put on Depakote at a rather young age and stayed on it for almost 11 years. According to him, the only side effect was weight gain--and knowing my brother as I do, I'm relatively certain he did little to counter that. Which is why he was recently found to be pre-diabetic and taken off the Depakote in favor of a different medication that doesn't cause weight gain in hopes he could shed some of his lardass. However, his opinion was that Depakote was much more effective and easier to take.
I'm still unsure. I have a lot more research to do before I'll willingly let my kid start swallowing something that could have him injecting insulin in 10-20 years. But that's the catch-22, isn't it? Give him the drugs now, and risk long-term health problems? Or don't give him the drugs, and have him eventually be the healthiest inmate in solitary?
It's all making my head swim. At least db finally got around to paying his child support (only 30 days late--good job, db!) so that's one less thing for me to stress over.
And Moosebaby? He's got 8 weeks til eviction. I think he's getting a little crowded, as his movements have been a lot more deliberate lately and a lot less like he's trying out T-Kwan's Dance Moves. Seems the stage must be getting smaller. Get used to it, kid, this barge only has so many square feet.
Like yesterday, when I discovered the bowl of jelly beans our receptionist had put out on the counter were NOT your mother's jelly beans, but Starburst and Life Savers jelly beans. Two handfulls of them were enough to spike my post-lunch reading to 187. Then there was dinner at Panda Express with Bob following his psych appointment, which mounds of rice left me at 167 post-dinner.
So today, I decided to be good. Which involved making a trip to my nemesis, WalMart, at lunchtime.
See, string cheese has virtually no carbs. Meaning I can eat all the damned string cheese I can stomach. And on my last sojourn to the Evil Empire, I picked up a big ass bag of string cheese that was, by far, the best string cheese in the industrialized world. Low-moisture, kind of dry, salty. Top knotch. Meaning I had to return to the Evil Empire today to procure some of this manna from heaven so I'd keep my fat hands out of the jelly bean bowl this afternoon.
As for the psych appointment yesterday...I feel like my train is permanently derailed at the Frustration Station. When I picked Bob up from school, he advised me he'd had a good day, and that he hadn't had to go to the office all day long--"but Brandon did!" (Kudos to you, Brandon, for taking the focus off Bob, however briefly.) I didn't have a teacher/adult email to confirm or deny his claim, but I chose to believe him. When we got to the psych office, he started bouncing off the walls. He continued to do so as I talked to Dr. Moo (my personal name for him) about the events and downward spiral of the past couple of weeks. I expressed my recent wondering if we shouldn't just take Bob off everything to see what his baseline behavior is, considering he's been on something every day for the past 3 years.
Then Dr. Moo pulled something I hadn't expected him to this soon. "Well, you've tried ADHD stimulants and they don't work. You've tried antidepressants and they don't work. And you've tried the mood stabilizers and they don't work. Perhaps therapy would be a better option?"
Are you fucking kidding me? Therapy? Buddy, we've DONE therapy. We did therapy for two straight fucking years. We did individual play therapy. We did parent/child therapy. We did everything but make the kid lay on a chaise and talk about his childhood. I've presented you with a 6 year old who clearly displays all the symptoms of bipolar mania in children, whom you have seen exactly three times, and you're already throwing your hands in the air and suggesting therapy?
I was hungry. And tired. And bearing in mind that, being largely pregnant, I'm a little quick to anger these days. So I gently, very gently, suggested..."wouldn't it make sense to try a different mood stabilizer?" You know--since they're all different? Since no two people react to one in the same way? Since their efficacy tends to wax and wane over time? Since he's only been tried on two atypical anti-psychotics and one drug known for low side effects and even lower therapeutic benefit?
"Well, yes, there's always that."
So the recommendation was made to half Bob's Abilify dose for the next 10 days--partially to wean him off gradually, and partially to see if he didn't benefit from a lower dose. After that, we'll get labs (goody, can't wait) and then try Depakote.
Depakote? That's some heavy shit, from what I know about it. Which isn't much. So I turned to my resident expert on anti-convulsants--My Epileptic Brother. Apparently, he was put on Depakote at a rather young age and stayed on it for almost 11 years. According to him, the only side effect was weight gain--and knowing my brother as I do, I'm relatively certain he did little to counter that. Which is why he was recently found to be pre-diabetic and taken off the Depakote in favor of a different medication that doesn't cause weight gain in hopes he could shed some of his lardass. However, his opinion was that Depakote was much more effective and easier to take.
I'm still unsure. I have a lot more research to do before I'll willingly let my kid start swallowing something that could have him injecting insulin in 10-20 years. But that's the catch-22, isn't it? Give him the drugs now, and risk long-term health problems? Or don't give him the drugs, and have him eventually be the healthiest inmate in solitary?
It's all making my head swim. At least db finally got around to paying his child support (only 30 days late--good job, db!) so that's one less thing for me to stress over.
And Moosebaby? He's got 8 weeks til eviction. I think he's getting a little crowded, as his movements have been a lot more deliberate lately and a lot less like he's trying out T-Kwan's Dance Moves. Seems the stage must be getting smaller. Get used to it, kid, this barge only has so many square feet.
posted by Mitzi Green at 11:23 AM
4 Comments:
(((((((HUGS)))))))
You poor thing!
I promise you one day, very soon, it will get better.
Hang in there hun!
Okay Mitzi, I have gone from NEVER commenting on blogs too going underground!! Hang in there....and yes I have had cocktails tonite!!!
Joanie
Only 8 weeks left. Damn that went fast. For me. Probably not so much for you.
Hoping the string cheese and new meds work well . . .
Those Starburst jelly beans are diabolical! I don't even like jelly beans and I can snarf down a whole bag without blinking an eye!
Also, though I don't know a whole lot about Depakote, during my stint (13 YEARS ago) working at a children's center for kids with behavioral and/or learning disorders, I recall we had a number of kids on Depakote who all seemed to respond well to its benefits.
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