Just a little update on The Scientist.
We’re through with most of our appointments for a while (meaning 3 weeks). We’ve seen the psychologist (neuro-psych eval), the audiologist (auditory processing disorder), the pulmonologist (sleep study), and the psychiatrist (medication management). Everyone but the pulmonologist was in SLC, some of them we’ve seen multiple times. I’m exhausted and sick of the road.
The Scientist did test positive for auditory processing disorder (APD), meaning that while his ears hear fine his brain hears things wrong. The testing for APD was amazing and appealed to my science geeky side. He sat in an audiologist sound proof room (I don’t know what they are really called, I hope you know what I’m talking about) and the audiologist and I were in another room connected with a mirror and sound equipment so we could talk and he could not hear us or if it was on he would be able to hear. They played a tape with different words coming at him from different directions and he had to respond with what he heard. He didn’t miss a large number of them, but the ones he missed were significant. Fortunately there is a computer program to recognize significant patterns in which words/directions/sounds are being missed.
Recommendations from APD point of view are having an FM system in the classroom and The Listening Program. I’m hoping that our FSA account will pay for it, otherwise we’ll have to wait a while and I’m done waiting.
The pulmonologist started him on neurontin and iron supplements (his ferritin level was low, well WNL but low for her cut off for kids who are symptomatic) and it’s been working wonders. It’s made a big impact not just on his sleep but throughout the whole day. Our last trip to SLC we left the meds at home and while he still slept, I could tell he didn’t get the quality sleep that he does with the meds.
The psychiatrist went off on kids on neurontin before I was even able to say how well it was working for him and some of the specific changes I’d seen. I didn’t really care for her bedside manner, but we’re going to her for medication management not therapy so I’ll deal with it for now (just so long as she doesn’t take away the neurontin) She also started him on Vyvanse.
This is where the story gets entertaining.
We are on day 2 of Vyvanse and this morning was amazing. The Scientist was picking up before I even finished getting the words out of my mouth that he needed to, and he picked up more than I asked. The insight this kid has is amazing to me. He came up and said how weird it was that when I asked him to picked up he just did it. He also mentioned that it feels strange to just do what is asked without waiting until people are angry and upset with him.
It’s weird and feels strange from this end too. I’m sure I’ll adjust though.
So many of the things he has said through all of this have amazed me. I couldn’t figure out why he was working so hard for the psychologist and decided it was because she has been trained on how to get the most out of kids and obviously does a wonderful job of it.
That wasn’t it, he worked so hard because in his words “what’s wrong with me Momma” He knew that something was different and equated different with wrong. When we talked about things we discussed good days/bad days not “what’s wrong”
This entire journey has been weird and feels strange.
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