Because you are all lovely, caring people, you're probably wondering how Jack is doing. The short answer is: better. The longer answer is a little more involved.
We started with our general provider, who gave us a referral to see a neurologist at Children's. The best thing I can say about the woman we saw was that she really, really liked Jack. She congratulated me on my superior powers of observation and pointed out that if Jack was in a different kind of household with a different kind of mother, he'd probably be put on heavy drugs for ADD. She was very sweet and attentive and kept saying things like "Clearly, he's fabulous!" She genuinely liked him and that was all very heart-warming, but not very useful from a medical standpoint. The good news is that Jack consistently aced all the neurological tests and his chart states "perfect upon examination." So nothing wrong with his brain.
The conclusion of Kindly Neurologist was "You're a fantastic mother, keep doing what you're doing and come back in four months. And by the way that will be $237.00 please."
My next move was to take him to Dr. White, my lovely chiropractor. It was abundantly clear after x-rays that Jack's neck was grossly out of alignment and in such a way that Dr. White assured me it was affecting blood flow to his brain. Jack has received two adjustments to his spine, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that his spine is now in perfect alignment, and on our third visit Dr. White said that Jack didn't need a third adjustment because he was still holding perfect alignment. The other good news is that Jack's headaches seem to be less frequent and, when they do come, less intense. We are always able to nip them in the bud and avoid the vomiting stage.
The bad news is that he still gets headaches. I'm grateful that for the time being they stay headaches and don't progress to full-on migraines. Dr. White suggested a blood allergy test to look for foods that might bother Jack, as allergies can be common migraine triggers. We are learning more and more about how to manage his situation, and were even able to take a two-hour road trip to Lake Wenatchee for a little vacation thanks to the miracle that is Dramamine. I'm not normally a big fan of giving my kids medicine for every little ache and pain, but I am a huge fan of being able to drive for a couple of hours with no one vomiting.
Another tool we discovered(thanks to Anna) is something called Migrastick, which is a little vial of essential peppermint and lavender oils. When Jack feels the first signs of a headache(which he is getting better and better at recognizing) we dab a little oil on his forehead, temples, and the back of his neck. Usually, ten minutes later he feels fine. If not, we break out some chewable ibuprofen and carry on with our day. I'm trying to train him to feed and water himself more independently, and all in all things are improving. I feel like I need to catch my breath a little before we seek out further treatment, which will most likely be with a naturopath. I received so many e-mails full of concern and recommendations, and I'm so grateful for all of them. Thank you all for caring about my son, I deeply appreciate it.
And speaking of appreciation, I had a rather tragic invitation to appreciate my life a lot more than I have been recently. It's embarrassing how easily I can lose my perspective, and the depth of awfulness sometimes required for me to get my head back on straight. For a while there I felt like I was in a storm of difficulties, trying to manage Jack's migraines and allergies while keeping Jack and Matteas from killing each other, all while feeling misunderstood by my husband. It was not a good time. And then Kayleigh blew into town and we had an amazing two weeks together, full of food and conversation and insight. I realized how important it is for me to make space for myself, to take a break from the daily grind and do things that feed my soul. I also realized I need to spend more time talking to my husband and less time talking about him. The night before we went on vacation I finally came clean to him about something I've been upset about for years. Literally, years. It's really not that juicy in terms of content, but the principle was that I didn't trust him with my wounds and it was driving a wedge between us. It was a small wedge at first, and the space it drove between us was so small I thought I could overlook it but the more I overlooked it the more the space grew, until one day I looked up and saw that the small space had become a large chasm and that I needed to make a choice: keep drifting, or reach for my husband.
I chose to reach, and he met me with open arms. I thanked him by getting snot all over the shoulder of his black t-shirt on account of all the blubbering that ensued, but he didn't mind. He just held me while I blubbered and whispered really nice things to me, and I realized what a fool I'd been not to let him comfort me a long time ago. He would have if I'd asked, but I refused to ask. Life had to push me to a really dark place before I would admit I was in pain.
So now we are quite in love, Jack is doing much better, Matteas is his charming self(and he's now three years old) and we are working on our master bedroom and reading C.S. Lewis together out loud. All this goodness was thrown into sharp relief by a visit to the park the other night, just the boys and me while Aaron was out. Two little boys were at the playground, 5 and 2, and they immediately befriended Jack and Matteas. Their dad and their grandma were with them, who seemed like kindly, if odd, people. Turns out they were very odd, and very sad. The grandma, not bothering to make the usual playground small talk, launched into a detailed account of her son's nasty divorce which is apparently being driven by his hateful wife who detests him and abuses her children. She blurted all this out while the kids were playing right next to us, and I was torn between trying to be kind to her and protecting my kids from someone else's tragedy. When it was time to go, Jack volunteered to give the dad our phone number so we could meet again. "Oh," I said, "we come here all the time so I'm sure we'll see you guys again." I made a mental note to avoid the park on Wednesday nights, which is apparently the one weeknight Hateful Wife grants her soon-to-be-ex-husband custody of his own children.
We headed home and I put the boys in the bath, and fed them watermelon while the warm water soaked the dust from the park off their skin. I told Jack that next time he meets a kid he likes at the park, he needs to ask me if it's okay to exchange phone numbers before volunteering that option. He asked me why, and the best I could do was to say that there are some friends that we make a part of our lives, friends we have over for dinner and plan vacations with, and then there are friends that are just park friends. He didn't really understand, and it suddenly hit me that we are rapidly getting to the part of the show when I will have to explain Harsh Realities to him, to teach him about things I don't want him to know. He was only a year and a half when Karoly shot himself, wasn't born yet when my oldest sister left her five boys. He hasn't had to process any deep personal tragedies yet, and I was overcome with a wave of gratitude that, for all my complaining, my struggles are really all within the range of normal. I may struggle in my relationship with my husband, but if I struggle it's in order to have a better marriage. The boys might drive me crazy with their fighting, but they can only drive me crazy because I am here being their mom every day, not just Wednesday nights. We struggle still, but generally it's in a thriving kind of way, and whatever else may happen I know we will at least struggle together.
Friday, August 27, 2010
All Within the Range
Because you are all lovely, caring people, you're probably wondering how Jack is doing. The short answer is: better. The longer answer is a little more involved.
We started with our general provider, who gave us a referral to see a neurologist at Children's. The best thing I can say about the woman we saw was that she really, really liked Jack. She congratulated me on my superior powers of observation and pointed out that if Jack was in a different kind of household with a different kind of mother, he'd probably be put on heavy drugs for ADD. She was very sweet and attentive and kept saying things like "Clearly, he's fabulous!" She genuinely liked him and that was all very heart-warming, but not very useful from a medical standpoint. The good news is that Jack consistently aced all the neurological tests and his chart states "perfect upon examination." So nothing wrong with his brain.
The conclusion of Kindly Neurologist was "You're a fantastic mother, keep doing what you're doing and come back in four months. And by the way that will be $237.00 please."
My next move was to take him to Dr. White, my lovely chiropractor. It was abundantly clear after x-rays that Jack's neck was grossly out of alignment and in such a way that Dr. White assured me it was affecting blood flow to his brain. Jack has received two adjustments to his spine, and there's good news and bad news. The good news is that his spine is now in perfect alignment, and on our third visit Dr. White said that Jack didn't need a third adjustment because he was still holding perfect alignment. The other good news is that Jack's headaches seem to be less frequent and, when they do come, less intense. We are always able to nip them in the bud and avoid the vomiting stage.
The bad news is that he still gets headaches. I'm grateful that for the time being they stay headaches and don't progress to full-on migraines. Dr. White suggested a blood allergy test to look for foods that might bother Jack, as allergies can be common migraine triggers. We are learning more and more about how to manage his situation, and were even able to take a two-hour road trip to Lake Wenatchee for a little vacation thanks to the miracle that is Dramamine. I'm not normally a big fan of giving my kids medicine for every little ache and pain, but I am a huge fan of being able to drive for a couple of hours with no one vomiting.
Another tool we discovered(thanks to Anna) is something called Migrastick, which is a little vial of essential peppermint and lavender oils. When Jack feels the first signs of a headache(which he is getting better and better at recognizing) we dab a little oil on his forehead, temples, and the back of his neck. Usually, ten minutes later he feels fine. If not, we break out some chewable ibuprofen and carry on with our day. I'm trying to train him to feed and water himself more independently, and all in all things are improving. I feel like I need to catch my breath a little before we seek out further treatment, which will most likely be with a naturopath. I received so many e-mails full of concern and recommendations, and I'm so grateful for all of them. Thank you all for caring about my son, I deeply appreciate it.
And speaking of appreciation, I had a rather tragic invitation to appreciate my life a lot more than I have been recently. It's embarrassing how easily I can lose my perspective, and the depth of awfulness sometimes required for me to get my head back on straight. For a while there I felt like I was in a storm of difficulties, trying to manage Jack's migraines and allergies while keeping Jack and Matteas from killing each other, all while feeling misunderstood by my husband. It was not a good time. And then Kayleigh blew into town and we had an amazing two weeks together, full of food and conversation and insight. I realized how important it is for me to make space for myself, to take a break from the daily grind and do things that feed my soul. I also realized I need to spend more time talking to my husband and less time talking about him. The night before we went on vacation I finally came clean to him about something I've been upset about for years. Literally, years. It's really not that juicy in terms of content, but the principle was that I didn't trust him with my wounds and it was driving a wedge between us. It was a small wedge at first, and the space it drove between us was so small I thought I could overlook it but the more I overlooked it the more the space grew, until one day I looked up and saw that the small space had become a large chasm and that I needed to make a choice: keep drifting, or reach for my husband.
I chose to reach, and he met me with open arms. I thanked him by getting snot all over the shoulder of his black t-shirt on account of all the blubbering that ensued, but he didn't mind. He just held me while I blubbered and whispered really nice things to me, and I realized what a fool I'd been not to let him comfort me a long time ago. He would have if I'd asked, but I refused to ask. Life had to push me to a really dark place before I would admit I was in pain.
So now we are quite in love, Jack is doing much better, Matteas is his charming self(and he's now three years old) and we are working on our master bedroom and reading C.S. Lewis together out loud. All this goodness was thrown into sharp relief by a visit to the park the other night, just the boys and me while Aaron was out. Two little boys were at the playground, 5 and 2, and they immediately befriended Jack and Matteas. Their dad and their grandma were with them, who seemed like kindly, if odd, people. Turns out they were very odd, and very sad. The grandma, not bothering to make the usual playground small talk, launched into a detailed account of her son's nasty divorce which is apparently being driven by his hateful wife who detests him and abuses her children. She blurted all this out while the kids were playing right next to us, and I was torn between trying to be kind to her and protecting my kids from someone else's tragedy. When it was time to go, Jack volunteered to give the dad our phone number so we could meet again. "Oh," I said, "we come here all the time so I'm sure we'll see you guys again." I made a mental note to avoid the park on Wednesday nights, which is apparently the one weeknight Hateful Wife grants her soon-to-be-ex-husband custody of his own children.
We headed home and I put the boys in the bath, and fed them watermelon while the warm water soaked the dust from the park off their skin. I told Jack that next time he meets a kid he likes at the park, he needs to ask me if it's okay to exchange phone numbers before volunteering that option. He asked me why, and the best I could do was to say that there are some friends that we make a part of our lives, friends we have over for dinner and plan vacations with, and then there are friends that are just park friends. He didn't really understand, and it suddenly hit me that we are rapidly getting to the part of the show when I will have to explain Harsh Realities to him, to teach him about things I don't want him to know. He was only a year and a half when Karoly shot himself, wasn't born yet when my oldest sister left her five boys. He hasn't had to process any deep personal tragedies yet, and I was overcome with a wave of gratitude that, for all my complaining, my struggles are really all within the range of normal. I may struggle in my relationship with my husband, but if I struggle it's in order to have a better marriage. The boys might drive me crazy with their fighting, but they can only drive me crazy because I am here being their mom every day, not just Wednesday nights. We struggle still, but generally it's in a thriving kind of way, and whatever else may happen I know we will at least struggle together.
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