In November I went to my therapist for my three month medication check up. She likes to check in on how I am doing and make sure I am on the proper dosage of medication. These take about 20 minutes of my time and really aren't a bother... although I sometimes wonder if they have me come in so often just so they can see the little boys! They love playing with the kids.
My therapist thought everything sounded great although my anxiety had been a little high. We just chatted and she offered to write me a script for anti-anxiety medication to get me through the rough holiday season. I declined it then but promised to call in if I felt I needed it. I really felt confident that I wouldn't, though.
Darned if I shouldn't have taken the script and chugged a whole bottle right then.
On Tuesday Cole had a follow up appointment with his ENT. (I say "his" because we are now the proud patients of TWO ENTs.) We still have some concerns about his speech development and our birth to three program encouraged me to ask about more in depth hearing and possibly an ABR.
At the ENTs office, the audiologist tested his hearing as best he could on a 2.5 year old who hates people in white lab coats, sitting still and cooperation in general. He passed the exam and his ears looked perfect. He's grown several inches and gained a few pounds too, which we were all thrilled about.The ENT said that it can often take children until they are 4.5 to 5 to catch up on speech if they had a hearing loss related to ear infections, which Cole did.
BUT I have a history of hearing loss in my family. Coupled with the fact that he hasn't made as much progress as we would like, the ENT wants me to bring him back in six months for another hearing test. He passed the exam as much as he can without being "heavily sedated" for the ABR.
Yeah, as soon as they said "heavily sedated" I was like, "Oh, we can wait six months. I'm cool."
The next day, Adam had his foot surgery. He has a condition where the bone in his ankle "flakes" off and loose fragments of bone hang around in his joints. It's not exactly pleasant and every few years they have to go in a suck out the bone. (I offered to do it on the kitchen table with a sharp knife and the vacuum. He said no, even after I offered whiskey as an anaesthetic. Whimp.) The surgery takes a few hours and is at an out patient clinic.
I was fine when we were at the clinic, even thought the place smelled like a hospital (read: sterile. Read also: NICU). I kept my mind off everything by grabbing a snack (stress eating) alone and sewing the ears on a stuffed cow. The real problem came when they brought me back to the recovery area.
Adam was sitting up in bed, shivering, attached to heart and respiration monitors and an IV.
For a moment, he wasn't there and I was with baby George, watching the monitors.
I had to take a few deep breaths to compose myself, reminding myself that this was my husband, not my son. My son was home with his grandmother, being spoiled rotten and enjoying himself.
But I still watched the monitors, remarking on his heart rate and breathing to the nurse. I felt my heart rate rise and I willed myself not to have a flashback or panic attack.
It worked and we drove home fine.
But when Sandy Hook happened, that was IT. I was DONE. I was dreaming at night that my daughter and niece were in school and hurt. I dropped the kids off just fine, but I was more worried than normal and stress eating.
I called in for the anti-anxiety medication and picked it up. There was only one problem... it would make me very, very sleepy.
Now, this is a common side effect of the medications I can take. Normally, it isn't a problem and when I sleep at night, I feel better in the morning. Win-win. But I know from experience that I am hard to wake up at night... and my husband would be doped up on hard-core painkillers. Even without the pain killers, he couldn't walk. If there was an emergency at night, neither one of us would be able to help the kids.
Sigh.
I never took the medication and muscled through somehow. It wasn't ideal. My in-laws ended up coming one afternoon just so I could nap. My parents were in town for a few days and helped to wear the kids out and took two of them for the night. I still didn't sleep well but the help was valuable.
Thankfully, Adam recovered well and will be getting his stitches out soon. He's more mobile and is back at work. He had to wear a "boot" and use crutches as needed but he's no longer laying in bed all day, watching Star Trek on TV. I hit a wall last week and took a 3 hour nap on New Years Day.(Snuggled with Camille and Cole... it was sweet!) I'm still tired and run down, but a few days of some good vitamins, food and the kids back at school should help!
Still... I wish I hadn't had to muscle through on my own. I wish I could have gotten some sleep. It wasn't the most fun filled holiday season ever, but we made it through and plan to enjoy 2013.
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