Florilegium

He says he was tested once why would he need another test? Aaaargh.

M's not too bad but not too wonderful either. Took him to the library and got lots of BOT and videos so he can just zone out. Meagan finally rang and she's taking him tomorrow and Friday which is when he will be in the peak of withdrawal. Heh. I'm working tomorrow until 1.30 and she's picking him up at 12 so with any luck I'm not going to see much of him at all. Yes, I know that makes me mother of the year but yeesh, how many times has he gone through withdrawal this year alone? Burned out, totally burned out.

K's oppositional and has flushed cheeks with a rash. Suspect that strawberries are a big issue for him even with enzymes. ::sigh::. He ate heaps last night.

Getting nothing accomplished today except sitting on my arse.

Men who are taking bipolar meds and who refuse to do the blood tests for liver function are dumb, dumb, dumb. If his liver packs up, then he'll get to be real up close and personal with his needle phobia.

Well, I'm anticipating the next few days with such pleasure.

Not.

Saw Michael this afternoon and kicked around ideas about what the fuck we are going to do with M. He's not happy with the tricyclics and wants M off them if we can't get him stable for a long period of time. OK. I can deal with that especially as we are so reliant on the risperidone as well. He said he's printing up a certificate for me about how I am the proud parent of the most medication resistant child he's ever worked with. Well, it beats being accused of Munchausen's by Proxy which is my deepest darkest fear.

So the plan now is to bring M off the tricyclic. It's not going to be pretty and I'm seriously considering doing it in a couple of days which is *brutal* but quick as opposed to spreading it out over 4 days and prolonging the agony. We're going to trial reboxetine, an SNRI similar to strattera which is on the PBS so won't cost me $150. I'm willing to do the trial if it costs me $3.80 ;). I'm not confident at all that this will work but if it does, then we're looking at phasing out the dex and the risperidone so he's on one medication only.

We talked about GF diets as well and he said he's never seen a miracle recovery and that flavours his opinion. I pointed out that he never saw K when K was off the diet. He commented that he thinks our local autism guru doctor doesn't know what he is doing and doesn't know any developmental norms with these kids. Then he said the guy was beneath contempt which I agree with. I still can't cope with how K's friend was dx'ed with candida, given no probiotics and was put on zoloft at 5.

G picked me up from the train station and M had had a rough day. They went to Dreamworld and M micromanaged every detail and had at least 4 panic attacks so it's obvious we're nearly done with the tricyclic -- a personal best of 6 days from start to finish. Awesome. They patted a baby crocodile and are very proud of themselves.

Dear lord, I am so fucking tired. Meagan's still not rung me so I guess that means no respite this week as the new person will only be visiting to get to know us. K's at childcare Thursday and Ma said she could probably get us the full week next week and I am just not going to feel guilty about how he doesn't get a normal holiday like other kids... well I guess if they were normal and I was working they'd be in vacation care so I should think of it that way ;). He's happy at childcare and he's sure as shit not happy at home being hounded by M.

A bird shit on my new fence. Bad bird.

Went and saw my new dentist today and she's lovely and hundreds of dollars cheaper. As in I am paying $200 less out of pocket and she's doing a clean and scale and a large filling while I'm under the anaesthetic. I'm dithering over whether to have a root canal as opposed to having the tooth pulled. Original dentist quoted $880 and she's quoting $550. That's doable if I can bring my phobic self to sit in the chair.

Had major bickering argument with G over vitriolic letter he was going to send his booking agent who has never gotten him any work and who has him listed as a poet instead of a children's writer on her page. Now, while he's completely in the right being acerbic about it won't accomplish anything except piss her off.

Had minor bickering argument that if he puts sugar cane mulch by the pool, we will have a pool full of sugar cane mulch. Less than desirable IMO.

M's pretty revolting after a good day yesterday. Cut his meds yesterday but paid the price today. We watched the bloopers on POTC. Can I have Jack Sparrow as a pet now please?

K went to childcare but was not pleased to be there. I'm working there on Thursday and Friday so hopefully he will be a touch more pleased to be there.

Meagan's being a ditz again and I rang Leanne to discuss what we are going to do. I haven't had reliable respite since February and now Meagan is screening all calls to avoid her ex, I'm a bit reliant on her returning calls. She was supposed to ring me on Saturday to discuss days for this week and so far, nothing. Not impressed. Leanne's organising a new worker so we'll have back-up. I just want my 3 hours a week with no drama!

My yard's not pretty as an overall project. It's pretty in spots but there's a distinct aura of somebody bought plants and stuck them in at random. That somebody would be me ;). I don't have the hang of gardening in the subtropics and I need to severely attack a lot of stuff and either move it or prune it.

I also have too many fucking palm trees. We took out the hideous palms which sucker and never shed last year and this year I'm taking out some Alexandria palms and some other ones I don't know the name of. I'm also going to lose my beloved stump struck by lightning as it's full of termites ::sigh::

The dentist is totally on my shit list. They rang at 7.45 to confirm my appt for tomorrow. For 2 pm. Cue major panic. That would mean that I was coming out of the GA at the exact time that G had to leave to pick the kids up from school. I told the receptionist this and she said they were OK with the kids waiting in the waiting room. Well, I wasn't and I let her know that. They had never told me they did afternoon surgery, they had always talked about morning appointments. She said she'd see if they could do anything and rang me back to say that they have strict rules that once appts are confirmed they never re-organise for any reason and that unfortunately I was the last person to be rung and if I wanted the surgery I just had to deal. Now, I cannot for the life of me see what the big deal would be to ask someone else to swap. I rang Shirl and asked the name of her dentist and organised surgery for July 14 with no problems and no crap. It's set for 11am. The problem with tomorrow was that my mother was away at a conference and Meagan wasn't answering any phones so I couldn't organise any back-up for certain.

G had a funeral to go to at the Gold Coast so I jumped in the car and went to Harbourtown, the outlet mall, and spent a lot of money. I bought a cutlery set marked down from $69 to $28 but I'm wishing I'd bought a dearer set marked down from $199 to $75 as this stuff is awfully lightweight. I bought a wonderful balloon twisting thingy for K's birthday.

M's officially off the planet again. It's a bit totally fucking disheartening to have our bullet-proof med fail in a week. Picked him up from school at 3 and Mel said he'd totally lost it when the other guys wanted to play tiggy instead of soccer. He proceeded to be completely vile for the next 45 minutes until the med kicked back in. I rang and asked for a fax to be sent so that he can have meds at midday. Hoping that works out as G's off to a funeral at midday tomorrow.

Beeyoooooootiful fence is finished. Hideous neighbours are officially pissed off over what I do not know and do not care. We agreed in principle to a metal fence 4 years ago. G cares and apparently thinks he can make a difference. But then he's the optimistic soul who said hello to Maria and asked her if she liked the fence. Ummm probably not, as she just looked at him and walked off down the street. He thinks they think they are gonna be billed for their share but I think like my dad, they are just warts on an echidna's arse. Fencing guy was talking about fixing a couple of things for them but I notice he didn't do it after she ranted at him on Monday. Left us with lots of bits and didn't collect the money for the sleepers.

G went and did his video class for his stupid TAFE course. Now we need to write up the evaluation but they didn't give him any evaluation. Oooooops. Still if we just stick the assignments in, they have to give him detailed feedback on why he failed if he does.

I heart my fence. It is beautiful and only two plants died in the process. The mandevilla will possibly recover but the unusual purple thing is toast. I need to rethink the planting there in any case. The yard is so private!

I'm pissed off that they are trying to charge us $50 for sleepers. It's obvious that the sleepers were necessary because of the rise of the land and they should have been included in the quote. Meredith rang to find out if the fence had begun and if they had done the concrete. I told her that the concrete removal took about an hour and the dump fee was $60 so she's going to argue with the fencing company on principle. $590 was way over. Fencing guy is lovely and doesn't want to charge us. He's a real gem with a dry sense of humour and he loves the fence. He keeps on saying what a shame it is that we are rehanging the hideous old gates. Well, yeah.

M's vile again. Apparently had a 20 minute meltdown yesterday over trivia and today was totally outraged that he had a choice between community access (visiting the local shopping mall) or 30 minutes work in the classroom and then free time in the unit. He very very very strongly felt he should have free time in the unit. Ad nauseam. Increased his meds and he's better. Had a hideous time getting him to school this morning. Bleh. Mel and I decided that he could go to school later but he's adamant that he will go at 10 am and I don't think I'm thrilled about dropping K and then coming back to get get M.

K had a great time in the classroom today and is behaving really appropriately. He wants a skateboard with an engine and he will ride it while playing his flute. Heh.

Fence. Lovely fence. It's been a stress for so long. It wasn't legal so we were always waiting for the letter telling us to get it legal and the neighbour didn't care. The prospect of G, my father and hostile neighbour building fence together. ::shudder::

I'm tired, don't know why. It was a fairly stressful sort of a day. M refused to get out of bed, refused to go to school and it got a tad nasty when I insisted he was going and he was getting out of bed. I went down to the wire on it as he'd talked his way out of going on Friday and I strongly suspect he was reluctant to go back after the dramas of Thursday. Delivered him to school and he was just fine.

Got home and Fencing Guy had pulled down the pool fence. He spent a lot of time putting in posts but by 4pm I was getting very nervous that he wasn't actually gonna put in the panels so that the pool was closed to the street. Eventually at 5.30 pm it was done. The neighbour was harassing him as well as her dog was not pleased at being inside all day. It's looking good and Fencing Guy turns out to be a perfectionist after G's own heart so they're having a fine time babbling about crap. I heart my new fence. I now have privacy in the pool instead of this rickety old wooden fence with major gaps in it.

Got K's hair analysis results too and woooo! He's OK! Virtually undetectable mercury! We don't need to do chelation at great cost. Talked to Tracey and we agreed that continuing the epsom salts baths and supplements is probably enough to deal. He's doing so well overall. He's letting go of rituals and talking. Today he arrived home telling me that he played Yintendo totally unprompted.

Flu continues. Blech. The dentist office rang to see if I was still planning on the tooth surgery on Friday and even though I'm not wonderfully well, it looks like I am committed as the anaesthetist is on holiday until August. Feh. At least I have good drugs organised.

Woot! The fence is demolished! Well, except for the bit by the pool which weirdly enough I wasn't prepared to have demolished today and then the pool is open to the farging street for 3 more days! The fence guy turned up in the middle of the afternoon and asked if he could take the pool fence (and only the pool fence) down and smash up the concrete. Well, no.

Actually. No.

No.

I don't think so. No.

You can pull down the rest of the fence but I'm not living with the pool open to the street for days and possibly copping a $15 000 fine.

He pulled down the rest of the fence and we figured out that he could smash the concrete and throw it over the pool fence and still have everything be safe.

The other big thing was telling the neighbours. Now, our neighbours hate us since we dobbed them into the council for running a car spray painting business in their backyard. The fumes were unbelievable and it went on for weeks one summer. They know it was us because darling M told their foster kid. G's been really panicking about telling about the fence as he's had this fear that they could stop us. Well, no, they can't. He wrote this letter which was guaranteed to put their backs up and I 'forgot' to sign it and put in their letterbox.

Fencing guy grunted and said, I'll tell them. I said, fine! Went inside to tell G that it was all solved and he had a fit at me so I wandered over and Fencing guy was telling them that he needed access and could they tie their dog up and Ray was nodding and smiling. At that point I said, it's a cream colourbond fence and we're paying for it. Ray looked stunned at that. Well, his contribution would have been $1300 so I guess he was stunned.

My flu is on the retreat. I'm really hoping that I am well enough for a general anaesthetic on Friday and to have these bloody teeth pulled. If I have to put it off for another month I'll be pissed off. The surgeon only works on a Friday and there's always a waitinglist. I'm not foolhardy enough to do it in the middle of school holidays either. It's stupid enough to be doing it on the last day of term.

M's back on endep and he was absolutely angelic since Thursday afternoon. We had a performance this afternoon over what he is prepared to eat for dinner but it seemed to me that was just him being a little turdling because he thought he could. Plus he ate half a jar of strawberry jam and I think strawberries are not good for his disposition. He went fishing yesterday with the kids from the unit. They caught nothing. No big surprise there.

K's doing well. I think the epsom salts baths are doing something. He's letting go of a lot of his rituals and he is markedly less screechy. His hair results should be back this week. Dunno if we are going to go for another form of chelation. The doctor I was considering for chelation doesn't seem to be doing it and I'm buggered if I want to spend $100 to be told no. I don't want to do more severe chelation unsupervised and Tracey's pretty clear she's not confident to do it as it's been so many years since she did it.

Another bad day here. M got up edgy but went to school. I was called at 1pm to say that he was going off -- could hear him in the background and he most certainly was losing it bigtime.

Drove to school with G and we agreed that the clomipramine was a failed experiment and it was worth re-trying the endep to see if he was no longer habituated. Gave him one the moment I got there and bingo! He's back with us, ate hugely and was reasonable all afternoon. I made him leave school although in hindsight he probably would have coped. I just need lots of energy sent his way that he will stay stable. I love the unit. I got there and there's no blamestorming or parental blaming, the focus is all on how to fix the problem. I mentioned I hadn't had lunch and they offered me lunch... it's so different to all the other schools we've used.

G took him to a Shrek 2 preview and it was apparently fantastic.

I bought K a TTE eggcup and he is deeply in love with it.

I've still got the flu and can barely talk.

Yesterday sucked with M. He was screechy and hostile for most of the day. Unable to settle to anything and very demanding. G and I had a huge fight in the morning after I felt that G had not backed me up on an issue where I was being fair and M wasn't rational. Didn't speak to him for several hours. I took K to Mi's birthday party and that was nice. Mi's very difficult and violent but K just removed himself when he felt it was necessary. He had a meltdown when people sang happy birthday. Ghod he hates that song.

M had a 3/4 pill the night before but it was evident that it was not cutting it. At about 1pm I gave him a whole pill which in retrospect was too much as he was high as a kite and agitated. Rang and emailed paed and this morning we agreed that we'd try small doses at regular intervals. Getting M out of bed sucked, he threw a major tanty over the concept that he was not going to school no matter what. But his mood shifts so fast! We were talking about school photos and I mentioned that I thought they were expensive and he was just totally fine that K's getting one and he isn't. 5 minutes later he was a screaming spitting ranting loon over something equally trivial and unexpected.

Ma came over at 11 and we d/l'ed pdf files for her research project on vacation care for kids with disabilities. She's perfectly capable of doing it for herself but didn't want to. Grrrr.

Gave M 1/4 tab at 9 and another at 1 pm. He had a dreadful day with zero tolerance for frustration. he went out with G and bought a lego CDRom which didn't run and he just lost it. Took it back and got another CDRom which, dear ghod, didn't run either. G finally got it to work but it wasn't pretty.

Gave him 1/2 tab at 3pm and he's more settled now but being very dramatic about the possibility of no school tomorrow.

I've got the flu and G's got the flu. I hardly slept last night and ended up taking a clonidine at about 4.30am. G went off to teach but was pretty vile about it. Ma gave me heaps of material to use for his stupid online TAFE course so we should manage to knock out the assignments in the next few days.

Lifeline booksale today and woo! Bought about 60 books for $38 and one book was $7 so I made out like a bandit. I got an excellent book on Indonesian cooking with some GF cakey things. The $7 book was Elizabeth Jane Howard's memoirs which I've been looking for, for years. I got Sundrenched Cuisine, a book which my mother and I have had a struggle over for years. She has a copy and won't give it to me. I've got her Nigel Slater and won't give it back until she returns my Julie Sahni which I haven't even freaking read. She just smirks and says it's wonderful but I don't have time to cook that way.

M was revolting as he stayed up until 1am as he couldn't sleep. He comes with me to mind my piles of books and normally is happy to read while I browse but not today. Still the ghastly haul of choose your own adventure books should keep him happy over the holidays. He also bought a choice selection of joke books.

My sister's in hospital with a twisted ovarian cyst. Well, presumably after the surgery she's sans cyst but we don't know as my BIL hasn't let us know. I'm wondering if they took the ovary as well. She's had decades of ovarian cysts and if it were me and they were all on the same side, I'd be inclined to have the whole shooting box removed.

Came home and we organised a vege patch for Farmer K. My father gave him all these seedlings a couple of weeks ago and it will be good to have them planted. As opposed to dead. Apparently I have all the cucumber seedlings and I am responsible for the family cucumber harvest. Shit.

Birthday party for K's friend, Mi, tomorrow. Small and lowkey which sounds nice. Sooooo glad I didn't have to do a party for M this weekend.

Men should be banned from trimming plants. There should be this automatic electric shock when they start whaling on poor innocent shrubs which don't need or deserve attack.

I'm massively pissed off. I have a white Geisha Girl planted by the front gate. I'm totally willing to hear that it needs to be moved when the new fence goes in but I am beyond pissed off to see it trimmed for no apparent reason when I've spent 2 years trying to get it established. Bleating that it has orange berries just like the durantia which I don't give a shit about cuts no ice. The fencing guy showed me where he thought there was going to be issues with plants and the geisha girl was not one of those places. I'm OK with losing some plants when the fences are done but WTF possessed him to start trimming without talking to me?

But I'm already deeply irritated that he's taken to doing yardwork in the late afternoon and then feeling like that gives him permission to be tired during arsenic hour. Ummmm, no, do it earlier in the day and then I don't end up having to do all the kid stuff while he looks faint on the sofa.

It's like having a Stepford child. M is totally sweet, totally co-operative and just scarily nice. I suspect he's still on too high a dose and I need to play with that on the weekend. luckily it's a long weekend so I can do it and get him back stable before school next week.

He had a great birthday. He accepted that we weren't going to Seaworld or Dreamworld today because K is still sick and I didn't want to be too far away if I had to collect him from school. K's in that zone of not sick enough to stay home but maybe too sick for school...

I dropped K at school, spoke with Rebecca about my uncertainty about him being there, spoke with Mel about M. She was totally cool with M having the day off for his birthday and told me how she had told Bonnie that it was impossible to do behaviour mod with M when he's having meds issues. She also said she just adores M, just totally adores him.

We went to the Hyperdome and got tickets for the second showing of Harry Potter. Considering it is opening day here, I expected a totally crowded theatre but it wasn't. Loved the movie, just loved it. Showed up all the faults in the first two IMO. Can I have Snape as a pet please?

Rebecca rang at 1.30 to say that K had banged on all day about his sore froat but was still very active. We agreed we'd pick him up at 2.30 and he's been just fine since then.

OT rang from the RCH. She's a new one and I told her I wasn't keen to come back if she was just doing what the old one did. Complicated muscle exercises are beyond K. We agreed to meet next week and see what we could do in the way of playing and doing some exercises.

A rang to say happy birthday. She just finished shooting on S*********** S* and was happy with her performance.

Ok K wants to go to bed :)

This time 11 years ago I was waiting to give birth to M. The induction was booked but I went into labour at home and gave birth at home.

Life's never been the same since. It's not the journey I was expecting, that's for sure. He's my sun and stars but holy shit, is it hard work.

The last few days have been very hard. Monday was interesting, got to school on Tuesday and Mel said he'd had a shocker of a day and she didn't know whether it was meds or just a bad day. Duh, if he's changing meds, it is a med issue. Got him down to the car and he was totally vile. Swearing, oppositional and completely revolting. Got home, gave him more meds.

OMFG. He was totally disinhibited and high as a kite. Happy but manic in the extreme. Totally not what I would expect from a tricyclic. Rang the paed, wrote an email to the paed, did a websearch and learnt that this tricyclic can induce disinhibition in the early days. hmmmm. Too fucking late now, I'd given him a huge dose. G went off to work, I rang my mother and cried a lot and got on with the evening. At least he was happy while being a total loon. Michael rang back at 6pm and we figured out that he was on too high a dose. Michael was suggesting we change meds again but effexor doesn't thrill me as an option. We agreed that it is one of the mysteries of the modern world that M is such a drama to medicate. I am so grateful to have a paed who believes me and what I report as opposed to what is supposed to happen because M is bizarre.

He had a great day today, went into school at 1pm and was terrific. Very maniacally cheerful but not as abrasive as last night.

K still has the flu, damn it. G had his skin cancer removed but two anaesthetics both failed and the doctor eventually just cut and stitched. He's in a very bad mood but who can blame him? The fence was finally signed off today and the purchase order issued so we have a fence to be built! Now to write the letter to the horrid neighbours. Yay fence!

M's stable but, damn, he's cheerful. Not seeing any impulse control issues although announcing to me that he is just off to have a huge piss is outside my personal boundary of acceptable behaviour. I don't know if I'm experiencing him as fairly manic because he's been depressed or whether he's manic. Sleeping OK though.

K's got the flu and stayed home today. He's got this dear wee husky voice thing going on. He had a playdate with his friend Mi yesterday and oh my! Challenges there for his parents.

G's got the flu but I'm just ignoring that. We had a major barney over the second cell phone this morning. I can't see that we need a second cell phone at $15 (according to him) or $25 (according to me). We never use up the minutes ever on either cell so it just is bloody stupid to spend so much money on the damned things. He'd thrown away the receipt for the recharge I bought last month (yeah that made me ever so happy to hear that. Tax deduction, you twit of a man!). Once or twice a month it's convenient to have two phones but not that convenient.

How can one fencer quote $60 and the other fencer $590? How I ask you? How?

We're now over the magic $5000 mark and the social worker is tearing her hair out over how to fund this. Gah.

File this under some people need to get a life...

I post on a large messageboard. Unofficially attached to this messageboard is a livejournal which is specifically for discussing people and issues attached to the messageboard anonymously. Yech. I've never posted on the livejournal (except once and that was to clarify a lie somone else posted) but I do read it on occasion. It's beyond vile.

Today I'm featuring in a thread because someone has decided that s/he hates me because I post about my kids too much. Person hates me a little less now because apparently I don't post as much. WTF? I have never ever started a thread on the messageboard about my kids, I have never talked about them in detail. I've posted in threads about kids and autism and gifted kids. I'm just trying to wrap my head around how anyone could choose to hate someone for talking about kids with disabilities in threads which are for talking about kids with disabilities. I mean, if you wanted to find reason to hate me, I'm sure there's threads on those boards where there's much more valid fodder. I'm not exactly Ms Happy Shiny Person and I've been in some vitriolic threads there.

Bone tired. Bad week. Tofranil no longer effective, retried endep this morning. Total absolute fucking failure. Tofranil at 11am. 1/2 risperidone this am.

Begin anafranil this evening. Why, yes I do use this blog to remind myself how things have worked out in the past. 1 tab, try 1 1/2 tab in the morning. Weigh him so as to figure out how high dose can go.

Mood swings. Fell asleep twice in car (?risperidone?). totally inflexible and irrational. Able to control self when inducement big enough (FREX went back to school and held it together for the sports hour, regained control in car after I said I'd buy New Scientist if he stopped screeching because I wouldn't take him home... however was unable to hold it together in DVD shop)

::shudder:: DVD shop. OMFG. Dealing with a 20 minute screaming swearing ranting child is not easy in public. I got him to leave school by promising a DVD but he was incapable of choosing one and lay on the floor screeching. He was planning to stay there all day unless I did what he wanted (return him to school. Oh yeah. That's really gonna happen). Eventually got him up by pointing out that sooner or later store security were going to be called.

Man I am so fucking grateful for the existence of pharmaceuticals. I cannot imagine parenting this child without drugs. G went and filled the new script and the pharmacist was assuming we were using this med for bedwetting. If only.