I thought that I'd take a little time to give some background to those who are reading this blog to tell you how we got to this point. Lets go back, way back..Well, not really, just about 7 years back.
In early September 2003 I found out that I was pregnant. HUGE SURPRISE for me. I won't go into details but measures were taken to prevent pregnancy..Obviously, God had other plans.
My pregnancy was pretty normal, I think. Compared to my second the only difference was that he moved sooo much more than my daughter. Also when I was about 20 weeks and had an ultra sound they found a "spot" that was concerning to them. I was told that it could be nothing or it can sometimes be a sign of down syndrome or something similar. I turned down an amnio. They did another ultrasound at 28 weeks and the "spot" was gone. Other than that, everything was normal.
My world was forever changed when he was born on May 14th, 2004 at 2:43pm. He was my world. A few weeks after he was born the non stop crying started. For hours on end..into the night..My mom and I would take turns walking and shhing him..crying, crying and crying..Diagnosis: Colic.
Lets fast forward a bit..He crawled on time, walked at 13 months(on my birthday!!) and seemed like a normal baby. When he turned 2 and only said a few words, I was concerned. We found out from the ENT that his adenoids were so infected, it was affecting his hearing. So he had surgery to remove those and within two weeks started talking up a storm!
When he was about 18months or so, he started having tantrums..Which is not uncommon for kids his age. Except his lasted for over an hour most times. You couldn't calm him down, couldn't distract him like most other kids. I thought it was strange but people told me it was because he was nonverbal.
After he started talking and expressing himself better, I thought that the tantrums would get better, but they got worse. He started hitting and kicking and biting me alot..Things had to go a certain way or he would get angry. Clothes had to go on in a certain order. I walked on egg shells because I didn't want him to have a tantrum. People told me it was my fault. That I needed to discipline him. I did. I put him in time out, took things away and spanked him..nothing worked.
In Dec of 2006, I got pregnant with my daughter. Things only got worse. The tantrums, it was more like abuse. We would be sitting together reading a book or something and he would snuggle with me, then the next minute, punch me in my face! For no reason! When he was having a tantrum, anything he could throw or bite or grab, he would. You would have to hold him down while he was having a fit in order to keep things from getting broken, him hurting you or from hurting himself.I asked the doctor about this and he told me that Landen was reacting to my being pregnant. He did recommend a therapist. So we went to this this guy. He proceeded to tell me that I need to lock my son in his room while he was having a tantrum and not let him out until it was over. Well first of all, we lived in an apartment at the time and all his toys and such were in his room so that wouldn't work. Second, he hardly wanted to go into his room to sleep so if I used it as a timeout room, he'd never want to go in there! Needless to say, we didn't listen to this guys advice.
My daughter was born August 23, 2007. From the get go he wasn't a typical big brother. He didn't want to hold her(He had turned 3 in May). Didn't want anything to do with her actually. When I would nurse her, he would throw everything he could at us. He started 3 year old preschool a week after she was born. I'll never forget the words from his teacher after picking him up "Boy, he never slows down does he? He just keeps moving all the time!" Boy was she right!
**The one thing I'm forgetting to tell you is that up until this point, he has only slept through the night once in his life..He was about 5 months old at the time..He was still waking up 3-4 times a night**
He did okay in preschool but was getting more and more defiant as time went on. I was doing some research and found something called "Oppositional Defiant Disorder". Fit him to a T. I gave his teacher and my mom some handouts about it and asked what they thought. They both were like "well i see some similarities but i don't think he has this. I think he's just all boy." Oy, would I get tired of hearing that phrase!
In March or April 2008, I don't remember the exact date but I will NEVER forget it. My daughter was in her high chair eating a snack and I got Landen ready to brush his teeth. About 5 seconds after starting, I hear him growl and come darting out of the bathroom throwing things! He picked up a metal Easter basket with a plastic handle and chucked it across the room! It hit his sister square in the head! She immediately started screaming and bleeding everywhere! To the ER we went for her! It was so close to her eye and she was so tiny they didnt put stitches in it but used a glue instead. What happened while he was brushing his teeth that caused him to have an outburst like this? The water from the toothbrush dripped onto his hand and he didn't like it.
In May of 2008 we went for the kids' wellness checkups and I brought this up to the doctor. At this point, he said, I think maybe we should have someone talk to him. Yeah, you think?!?!?!
So to UNMC we went to be evaluated by a social worker. To make this long story shorter, he was diagnosed with ADHD and ODD to start with. Man, my mommy instincts were sooo right!
So we began therapy. They wanted to put him on medication right away but I was against it. So we did therapy instead. I pulled him out of 4 yr old preschool because he was having too many fits and it wasnt right for him. I searched and searched for a place for him to go and low and behold our therapist suggested a place, literally right around the corner from our apartment. Behaven Day Center..specially for children with behavior problems. Boy was that an answered prayer! It took a bit but things got much easier to handle! Things weren't perfect by any means but much easier to handle. He still had many emotional ups and downs but it was easier.
In August of 2009, Landen started kindergarten, something I didn't know would happen before. It was awesome! I did start him on Ritalin for school. It truly helped him focus and do better in school. It helped tame down the hyperness. But the mood swings never went away. The doctor wanted to try to switch his "sleep meds" to something that might help his moods..BAD mistake! He was awake for over 40 HOURS..No, that's not a typo, thats 40 STRAIGHT HOURS of being awake. It was scary! Back on the sleep meds we went.
Landen made it through kindergarten with relatively no problems..A few OCD issues but those were handled quite well by the teacher. People used to give me excuses for his behavior: 1) I'm too easy on him, 2) he's reacting to the changes in his life, 3) He's just putting on a show for you...and blah blah blah sooo many more!
**I'm leaving out most of the daily "battles" because they are the same every day. Just the fighting, the mood flips from one minute to the next. The biting that would make me bleed, the hitting of the sister, the tantrums of little things, the anger if I said the wrong thing to him..this happened on a daily basis**
I brought up bipolar disorder to his doctor during this time..She told me that he had some symptoms but those were probably related to his sleep issues and that I should stop reading so much.
Then in 2010, he started 1st grade and things were going well until about Thanksgiving. Then he started having issues with transitioning and finishing a project. If he didn't have time to have it done, he would throw things on the floor and rip up his project. That has escalated into hitting his teacher and throwing things across his classroom and flipping chairs.
After fighting to get an appt with his doctor to adjust his meds, we got one. NEVER again will I wait like that! They told me that if things got too bad, I could take him to the emergency room! I DON'T THINK SO!!! The doctor blew all of my concerns off, upped his meds and sent us on our way. They didn't work.
The next week he was in In School Suspension for hitting his teacher. We seen a new therapist at a new clinic on the 2nd of March and here we are now.
I hope this answers some of the history about Landen..If not, let me know and I can answer any other questions for you.
Here is the link for Behaven Day Center that I talked about:
http://behavenkids.com/