The Adoption Process...

We have our home study completed and have been sending it out to multiple agencies. We completed our home study through a private agent instead of an agency. Our agent does not do the child search, only the home study iteself. So now we are seeking out multiple agencies who will take our home study and help us find the right child for our family. This is a long, slow process, but I know that the right child will be presented to us at the right time. We will wait and see what God will do!

Ready...Set...Here We Go!

I received a call last night from our pediatric neurologist, Dr. M. Reardon, here in Austin. He called around seven. He sounded like he had had a long day and was tired, yet he still took time to call and talk to me. Fifteen minutes we were on the phone. He prescribed Trileptal for Judah. I will pick it up at the pharmacy today. Dr Reardon was so patient, so understanding, and so reassuring. I truly did not expect a call last night. I thought perhaps not until Monday would I hear from Dell Children's Neurology. I was impressed, but more than impressed, I was deeply grateful.

So, I will make a run to CVS and pick up this RX for Judah. I can't help but feeling a little nervous. I know that seizures are not uncommon. In fact, SO many people have seizures for multiple reasons, especially children with autism. Not all children with autism have seizures, but many do. It certainly isn't rare. There are so many people in the world that take seizure medication and have taken it for a number of years. Why am I so nervous about this? I guess there is one difference: Judah is my son.

Here we go...

A New Development?

For the last couple of months, Judah has been having "episodes" of behavior that are out of character for him. Neil and I have been watching and keeping track of this behavior, trying to figure out what triggers his 45 minute, unconsolable "tantrums". The first time we noticed it was when Neil and I went out on September 17th for a late celebration of our anniversary. Our sweet babysitter, Lindsey, was here and we were ready to leave when Judah began crying and acting nervous, almost fearful. We all racked our brains trying to figure out what was going on and what triggered his becoming so upset. He is typically able to be calmed fairly quickly. Not that night. It took a good 40 minutes to finally get him to a point where we could leave the house. Lindsey was great! She took such good care of both our boys. Before Neil and I reached our destination, I received a text from Lindsey that he was laughing and acting as though nothing had happened. For me, it was a "note-to-self" moment.

A couple weeks later, I went upstairs. Judah was in his jammies standing on the arm of the sofa, watching a movie. When I looked at him, I asked him if he was sleeping with his eyes open. He was standing perfectly still, not moving a muscle, not batting an eyelash (Judah is rarely still). I proceeded to walk over to the Little Tykes desk where our two new family members resided in their cages. Our two new gerbils, Little Joe an G-Force, were chewing up the aspen shavings that covered the bottom of their cages. Judah had been quiet, unmoving up to this point. Then all of a sudden, he began screaming and running around the room as though something had frightened him. He ran over to me after I called his name and opened my arms. He let me hug him for a split second and then resisted with all the strength he had, trying to get away. He continued running around the room, beating on the floor and the wall, screaming the whole time. Neil came upstairs, and all I could do was watch Judah. I felt helpless. Neil couldn't calm him either. We brought him downstairs, wrapped him in a blanket, gave him some milk, and held him tightly. He continued to fight and resist as though something had scared him. I took him back upstairs, turned off the lights and turned on some soft music. Still holding him tightly, wrapped in a blanket with his sippy cup of milk, he slowly began to calm down. It took a good forty-five minutes before he was completely calm again. After he was calmed, he acted as though nothing had happened.

This type of behavior occurred multiple times in the weeks that followed: couple times at school, on the bus, and a few more times at home. We took him to pediatric neurology for an EEG, where they futiley tried to induce a seizure. Although seizures were not confirmed, our pediatrician seems convinced that what Judah is experiencing is, indeed, a form of epileptic seizures. Our pediatric neurologist could not definitively say that Judah is having seizures, but from what we described and reported from the school, seizures were certainly not out of the question. We were given a number of options with which to proceed. We could bring Judah in for a 24 hour EEG; we could start him on seizure medication, and see if his "behavior" stops; or we could watch him and see if his episodes continue, increase, or decrease. At the time, we opted to watch him and continue tracking his behavior. He is still averaging these strange behaviors about once a week.

A couple nights ago, we heard Judah crying upstairs just after we had put him to bed. Neil ran back upstairs to check on him. He seemed scared and mad, constantly wringing his hands. He was tired, but couldn't stop crying. He was unable to vocalize any feeling or emotion other than crying. It was as though he could not use any verbalizations that he knew. His gestures and signs became more pronounced and succinct. He could only cry. Gradually, he calmed down again and was able to use the jargon and verbal approximations that he typically uses. Once again, all was well in his world, and he acted as though nothing had happened.

After talking to my friend, who also has experienced seizures, Neil and I have decided to put Judah on seizure medication. Worse case scenario: the medication doesn't work, and his "episodes" continue. We then take him off the medication. On the other hand, maybe the medication will work, and he will not experience these long, grueling moments as often, if at all. We will, also, know for certain that he is experiencing seizures. Yes, I will call neurology tomorrow and request seizure medication for Judah.

Laughing at our "Calamities"

Now that summer vacation is over and school is back in session, I actually have a few minutes to do a little thinking (and writing)! I have been reflecting on how much Noah and Judah have changed over this past year, and I've had a few chuckles over some of the "calamities" created by these two, although at the time, humor was no where to be found.

Reminiscing back to the two weeks before last Christmas, I recall two little boys who enjoyed their water play in our three bathrooms when no one was the wiser to their goings on.  Neil and I woke up one morning to the bath tub in the master bedroom filling slowly with what looked like sewer water.  It was brown and, well, I'll spare you the details.  One of us sat down to use the toilet and once it was flushed, the water in the tub rose as an overflowing creek bed does when it rains.  Needless to say, we didn't try that twice.  Neil checked the other upstairs bathroom, and it, too, had a tub full of...the same stuff.  The toilet in that one, also, caused the the waters to rise in the tub.  I went downstairs to use the commode in the powder room next to the kitchen.  I noticed upon entrance, that the water from upstairs was leaking down through the vent in the powder room.  Drip, drip, drip.  Water was dropping right onto the toilet.  I opened the lid with hopes to somewhat contain the mess by having the water drip into the toilet instead of on and around the floor.  I called for Neil.  Neil hurried downstairs.  As we stood in the kitchen watching the water drip down from upstairs, one more thing caught my eye.  There were water marks on the wall between the bathroom and the linen closet.  I touched the wall.  It was wet and soft.  Not good.

Our first few phone calls were made to our landlord.  Then we called the home owner's insurance.  It wasn't long before we had someone standing in our bathroom ready to evaluate and assess our situation.  Our landlord also made his way to our home.  All the toilets were plugged.  The tubs were backing up because the water from the toilets had no place to go, so sewage was coming up through the drains in the bath tubs. Meanwhile, water had soaked the carpeted floor between the powder room and the kitchen.  The gentleman who had been called by the insurance company, pulled up one of the toilets upstairs and as well as the one downstairs.  He used the "snake" to see how far he would be able to go down the hole before he hit some blockage.  Nothing had been revealed downstairs.  Good news.  However, upstairs was another matter. As he pushed the "snake" tool down the hole, there was definitely something blocking, plugging the toilet.  He decided to put a camera down there so we could see what it was.  As I stood there watching the screen, I recongnized some of toys that were in our play room the day before.  Bummer.  "This is going to cost us big time", I thought. 

$1200 was the deductible for all the plumbing to be corrected and the water damage in the wall and the floor downstairs.  "Merry Christmas", I thought to myself. Could be worse, though, I suppose.  Two weeks later, after we arrived back from our vacation, Neil went to Home Depot and bought three sets of door knobs that locked with keys. This way, the boys will not be able to get into the bathroom to cause any more damage or messes, for that matter.  This could also prove to be a challenge for potty training in the upcoming months. Neil exchanged the regular door knobs for the the new ones with keys. Now we keep each bathroom door locked at all times, and when people come to visit our house, they have to either ask to use the restroom or take a key with them!

A Day in our Lives

I was recently sharing with a friend various situations that occur in a typical day here in the Siedschlag family. We had a good laugh over some of the crazy actions and interactions that take place in our home, although I am not always laughing at the time! Taking my dear friend's suggestion, I am going to share them with you so you, too, can laugh with us at some of our "calamities"!

Let me take you on a brief tour of our home first. You won't know all the rooms, specifically, but you will have a better feel for how our home functions and what one may find when entering our house. When you walk in, there is a small entry way with the formal dining room immediately to your left, only we utilize this room as an office and a "quiet get-away" room. On the desk, you will see stacks of papers waiting to be filed next to our computer. This room always looks the cleanest! The living room and the kitchen, just on the other side of the wall, is where much of the action throughout the day takes place. Upstairs there is a decent sized game room where we keep most of the toys and a small library of books. Our bedroom is utilized for more than just snoozing. It is also a room for "trampolining", wrestling with Dad, watching movies on a very small TV, and unwinding at the end of the day. We also have a pretty large back yard surrounded by "neighbor fences" which allow everyone to see what everyone else is doing in their yards! Actually, I believe this is meant to encourage community.

I do shampoo and vaccuum the carpets once a week. I vaccuum the upholstry once a month. I mop the kitchen floor once a week and clean the whole kitchen using Mr Clean with Febreeze disinfectant once a day. I wipe down the fridge, microwave, and toaster oven to show off a little shine, even if only for ten minutes! I wipe the table with a wet rag and then go over it again with Orange Glo wood polish. If I am feeling energetic, I will even use a little Orange Glo on the coffee table and book shelves. Once in a blue moon, not because it rarely needs it, but because within less than an hour one would never know I did anything, I will take some Windex to the patio door. It's amazing how much more light comes in when it's clean! ;-) Actually, I have a daily cleaning schedule so as not to become too overwhelmed:
-Mondays, I clean the floors downstairs.
-Tuesdays, I attempt to get around ten loads of laundry done.
- Wednesdays, the upstairs floors get done along with cleaning the bathrooms.
-I originally set aside Thursdays for "small" projects like filing. Usually, Thursday becomes the day I finish whatever I haven't been able to get done thus far.
-Friday evenings we host a game night, so I made Fridays "mopping days".

One would think with this routine, our house must look close to emaculate most of the time. Not so. There are days you would walk in to our home and never know that a a dish rag or broom even exists in our household. Toys from upstairs that have been dragged downstairs, cups of water on the coffee table and TV stand, containers of Goldfish crackers on the floor, and a few more piles of "stuff" that need to be "filed", or maybe tossed are all common visuals that one would experience while taking a small tour of our home. Uncooked spaghetti noodles on the floor, rolled oats on the carpet, water on the kitchen floor, fruit smeared across the kitchen table, mud tracked in from outside, a dirty pull-up missing from someone's bottom, chocolate chip cookie smeared on places other than the face, dumped spices in the sink, lotion and soap pumped out into the toilet and upset plants are, also, possibilities of what one would have found in the recent past. We have since been able to remedy some of these challenges. I will share some of these stories and what we did to "fix" the problem with you. I truly hope that the following stories will encourage you if you have a child with autism or at the very least make you laugh!

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