Tag: medication
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How Much Can You Handle?
Sometimes there can be an odd sort of symmetry to life. Something happens in one part of life and then is unexpectedly mirrored back to you in a different part of life. We’ve experienced this recently with the exact words, “How much can you handle?” coming first from the man-child’s psychiatrist and then from my husband’s…
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Hard Choices and the Space Between
It’s been almost 3 years since we made the decision to use medication as a tool to help my son manage his mental health. 3 years of the trial and error that is inherent to the delicate balance between brain chemistry and drug efficacy. 3 years of weighing potential and actual side effects against positive…
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Lessons from a Ghost of Christmas Past
We had a truly great meeting with my son’s psychiatrist yesterday. For the first time in the 18 months he’s been under the care of this doctor, my son actually looked him in the eye while he was speaking. And he smiled. And he laughed. And it was amazing. It’s still not a place he’d…
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Maintenance Dose
377 days. That’s the total number of days between the date my son was first prescribed psychiatric medication and today. In those days the type of medication has changed 3 times and the dosages have been adjusted 7 times. And today, on day 377, the psychiatrist sat across the desk from us and told us…
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In Case of Emergency
Yesterday was the first day of school. And predictably at the end of the day the kids came home with the stacks paper – some of it actually needed my attention, and much of it went straight into the recycling pile. Among the items that needed my attention was the reminder to send in an…
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Once Upon A Time…
Once upon a time, there was a 10 month old baby boy who took his first assisted steps up and down the aisle of a church during Vacation Bible School week. The hands he held were those of a sweet little girl who would grow up to be one of his favorite baby sitters, as…
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Back on Track to Black
My son began training in the martial art of ninjitsu when he was 7 years old. From the very first lesson he loved it and was hooked. By the time he had trained long enough and showed enough mastery of technique to advance to his second belt, he had declared his intent to become a…
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It Might Be Time for a Dream Catcher
When I was 11, my grandfather had a brain aneurysm rupture. He was hospitalized for days before he died. The entire time he was in the hospital, I had a horrible dream each night that a masked man with a gun was threatening to shoot every person in my extended family. That dream was my adolescent brain’s…
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Ripping Off The Bandaid
These are the lessons I have learned since deciding rip off the bandaid to share both my son’s diagnoses, and our family’s journey, with the world. A “label” isn’t always a bad thing – We spent a long time not wanting to “label” our son, and therefore were not straightforward with him, ourselves or others. This came from a…
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Hope (& Prozac) for the Journey
Last Thursday, we were here. And we were scared and lost and looking for even a glimmer of hope. Today, my husband and I were back at the psychiatrist’s office to discuss his thoughts on diagnosis and treatment. We didn’t actually find out anything we hadn’t already been told or suspected. His diagnosis was confirmation of autism spectrum…
We're All A Little Broken 