Chris slept through....

Chris enjoyed the college again yesterday :-).

Heard from the psychiatrist and we are upping Chris's anti-psychotic in the morning for now. I did give him an extra med last night and he slept through the night the first time in about 10 days :-) (the meds make him tired till he adjusts). I have now locked away all the sharp knives as again yesterday I caught him cutting himself.

Think today we will have a quiet day just cruising :-)

Friday Morning...

I am out of routine and I hate it, I love routine like Chris.... discovered Chris had cut himself some more on Wednesday night. he had new cuts on his arm yesterday morning, they are still on the top of his arms but are getting deeper :-(. He went to the Intermediate yesterday to watch the trolley derby (with his teacher aid) and to collect his books, another kid saw the state of his arms and asked him how it happened -
Chris: "I cut myself"
Kid: "why"
Chris: "cause when things are hard I want to hurt myself, it makes me feel better"
Kid: "when I am sad I eat chocolate that makes me feel better"
LOL I could so relate to that last comment.... speaking of chocolate I have been eating a bit to much of it the last few days....

Today he has the college for the morning, and he is looking forward to that.

Another day over...

And Chris had a wonderful day at the college, well till 1.30pm anyway. He walked out he was smiling and laughing, the learning support unit I think will be a great success for him. We have just been approved another 7 hours a week teacher aid hours so am hoping the school will let him go there 4 mornings a week for the last 2 weeks. Else I think we are allowed to use the extra hours for the teacher aid to come to the house. He is even talking about wanting to do the special Olympics next year. The school is also happy to adapt to his OCD needs as well. Today he even made a pizza and ate it something he would never have done at the Intermediate. And I think he even used the toilet there.... this just means how safe he is feeling in that environment.

Had our paediatrician appointment, today I had not mentioned this but he had low cortisol levels and has been having blood tests etc, he also had a 24 hour urine test a few weeks ago but that has come back normal so we will wait and see what happens and how it is when we go back in 3 weeks. They did a puberty check and he is ok there for now as well. He is still gaining a bit to much weight to quickly which is a concern but we are very closely monitoring him there, the meds he is on is certainly not helping there.

Anyway am feeling much more positive today about it all :-)

Decisions have been made....

Chris had another rough day, and I was rung up at about 11.15am to come and get him, after an emergency meeting Chris will only be going to school minimal hours. He will be doing 2 mornings a week at Otumoetai College and will do a couple of hours at the Intermediate, he will have to have a teacher aid with him at all times and we are hoping to get some additional hours, his current teacher aid will go with him to the college. So today we went and got him a uniform so he looks the same as the other kids. He is ticcing like crazy and the kids were teasing him like crazy today about it. It just breaks my heart when the kids do this.

I am trying to get hold of the Psychiatrist to see if we can up his anti-depressants to get through this.

I am tired and exhausted from all this.... I am sick of battling the education system to find a place where my boy will fit. As for the High and Complex Needs they have decided yet again to get the application up and running again, I think they finally have realised that he has high and complex needs, what I don't understand is why it took him to start self harming again and hit depression for them to realise this.

Been a while....

First of I am sorry about the long delay between posts but have made a decision to update more regular from now on, just that things were going pretty well.

Well what a year... what has been happening quite a lot. Chris had been back at school full time since term 3 with a part time teacher aid. At the beginning of term 3 he decided he wanted to go to school alone, which was not a good move, he started deteriorating and beginning of term 4 we reinstated her.

Chris's tics up until the last couple of weeks have been hardly there, you would not even notice them. Just lately in the last couple of weeks his facial tics have returned. Right now he is not doing well after such a positive year, he has been having a hard time at school with bullying and being bullied.... and things have got pretty bad. He has been having a few night terrors again and his sleeping patterns are all out of kilter. He has also started self harming again and not just at home but also the school.

We are really beginning to think Chris may have bipolar. He fits the bill perfectly and his mood swings are so up and down and he changes so quick, he is going through changes of depression then he will hit a high. Right now he is going through a state of depression and like I said above he is self harming again, he is talking about wanting to commit suicide as he feels it would be better than living right now. Needless to say we are keeping a very close eye on him right now.

His OCD is still bad but has not got any worse, well most days anyway. Next year he is going to college and he is going to Otumoetai College to there Special Needs Unit, where they have like 1 teacher and 2 teacher aids to about 8 students. I think this will be perfect for him he has had 2 transition days and really enjoyed them. He is still going to respite which is great and his High and Complex needs application has been stalled a long story.....

Anyway just a quick update for now and I am hoping to be back at least once a week from now on :-)