Swine Flu?

So a few days ago hubby and I suffered celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Yeah, "Congratulations", Thanks... NOT!

Not saying I'm not immensely thrilled to add another year to our history, I LOVE being married to the man, but OH... MY.... GOD!

The ordeal started 4 days before our anniversary, and then a couple days after still...

Day 1: I get a phone call that hubby is getting out of work early... in an ambulance. He's having severe pain he thinks may be related to a procedure he had done months ago. I'm freaking out and meet him at the ER. They do an ultrasound, everything looks ok except he has severe bruising and some swelling. Prescribe bed-rest, anti-inflammatory and pain meds.

Day 2: I wake up completely and utterly sick. I'll spare you the details but I spent the majority of my day sleeping and/or in the bathroom. Conclusion: Hubby got absolutely NO help all day.

Day 3: I wake up feeling better, hubby is in more pain, we assume due to not being able to rest the day before. As the day progresses, his condition gets severely worse. BACK to the ER. Dr examines him and agrees with prior prescriptions, but also prescribes an antibiotic and a different pain med.

Day 4: I wake up feeling slightly ill again... just in time to hear the sounds of #2 running to the bathroom to repeat the day I had on Day 2. #1 has a majorly nasty sounding cough and a fever. I proceed to call the sitters we had lined up to let them know the kids will not be coming... and find out that it's probably a good thing because both sitters families are sick as well.

Day 5: Our Anniversary. Hubby still not feeling well, and resolved to stay in bed no matter what so he can get better. He tells #1 that HE will be staying in bed with him because he refuses to rest in his own room, hence being sick for a week. Call third sitter to see if she still wants to take #4... her son woke up with the flu.

In the end, our wedding anniversary was spent couped up with sick kids, a sick hubby, and nothing to do.

I resolved to join the sick bed and gave myself a severe case of SWine Flu.

You Never Stop Needing Your Mom

Mom: You crack me up.

Me: I do?

Mom: After 4 kids, you still ask me for advice, however, its been 15 years since I've had a baby

Me: Well, my other kids never gave me trouble about taking medication. (Baby has an ear infection)

Mom: I think its sweet... You still need me. Of course... I'm not sure how much help I really am, but I try.

Will You Pee In A Cup For My Friend?

So I'm getting ready for work this morning, and the phone rings, it's my business ring so I figure it's either a customer or a telemarketer (that's the only number of our 2 that is listed so telemarketers and survey people call that one). I look at the caller ID and it's a customer, probably asking if I'm open yet, so I answer, This is about the gist of our conversation:

Her: "Hey, you know, you're one of only 2 people I know around here who aren't like a total Crack Whore or something" (and I'm thinking like "oh cool, I've managed to avoid the local stereo type!")

Me: "Ok, yeah" (laughing)

Her: "So I have an ODD request, I have this friend who is on probation, and she has to see her probation officer and she needs someone to pee in a cup for her..." (Ummmm....... seriously?)

Me: (Stumped and stalling for time) "What exactly are they testing her for?" (Racking my brain for an excuse NOT to break the law, without totally pissing this chick off cause I don't know her very well and she's a good customer, and I need the money, LOL!)

Her: "Oh, things like Pot, Coke, Opiates, stuff like that."

Me: (IDEA!) "Oh, shit, I don't think I can... I'm on some prescription pain killers." (SHIT, remembering this chick used to work in a Drs office.... racking my brain for a name)

Her: "Oh, which one?"

Me: (Finally thinking of something I DO have a prescription for) "Tylenol 3, I don't think the test would come out clean cause it has Codeine in it."

Her: "Shit, you're right"

Me: "Sorry!"

Her: (Laughing) "It's ok, Thanks anyway!"

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Ummm. WOW! I immediately called my mom to tell her about that one, LOL. My husband is gonna have a fucking BLAST with this one LMAO...!

Sleep Sex

I was browsing some blogs I found recently and got hooked on this one called "Thystle Says", going down through some of her blog entries, I come across this one:

Thystle Says: What the? (Click it, it's a link, just doesn't look like one!)

Talking about Ambien and the side effects, and I quote:

"Ambien has warnings like "may result in amnesia". No shit. Among reported side effects are "sleep eating" (not awesome) "sleep driving" (kind of awesome) "sleep sex" (awesome for the spouse) and so on. Basically, if you were doing it, or even thinking very hard about it when you fall asleep, you run the risk of doing it while you sleep.

And not remembering it."

And I posted a comment:

"Sleep sex... I can do that without Ambien! That's how my husband and I had sex the first time LOL! No seriously, now I may have to go blog that story... right now..." (Quoting myself, that's great!)

So here I am, blogging the story..

I won't go into all the details of what happened BEFORE the first weekend we spent together, but let's leave it at, we had never had sex (It's TRUE!)

So we made plans to spend the weekend together at my house (it was a long distance relationship, which probably contributed to the lack of adult activities), and the first night we had dinner (or he did anyway, I was still anxious about eating in front of him so I starved), watched a movie, listened to some music, and then it was bedtime.

He was all ready to sleep on the couch, but let's be honest here, my couch was REALLY old and had about 2 inch thick padding with PLYWOOD underneath (second hand of course, and smelled like the storage unit it had been in too), so I said "No, don't be silly, I have a KING SIZE bed, you can sleep in the bed with me, I'm not gonna make you sleep on THAT."

So we went to bed.

And we went to sleep.

Sure, there was some cuddling, but that's it!

About 4am the next morning, I wake-up, and we are TOTALLY going at it!

Apparently he had the same wake-up call I did.

Since then, we have mastered Sleep Sex, and let me say once again:

THANK GOD FOR VASECTOMIES!

Childhood Bipolar, Anxiety, Depression and ADHD

A little background: #1 has had behavioral and mental health issues for a number of years, they really started to become prominent right around his 5th birthday, by the time he was 5 1/2 I had had him evaluated for ADHD because he was acting hyperactive and talking about hearing voices. The evaluation went well and he was diagnosed with an Anxiety disorder and they said they saw no signs of ADHD. Well that was alright I suppose, but how do you deal with Anxiety in a 5 year old, especially when you're dealing with your own anxiety and depression issues and your whole family is going through major changes and you feel like you're completely up in the air, unsure where you will land?

3 years later, he is 8 years old, we have struggled the last few years with lots more turmoil, though a lot more stability and structure as well. We have had case management who have helped us get multiple therapists for him (individual as well as family therapy), a behavioral health professional, etc. It got to the point where he had a total melt down and was hospitalized because his actions were putting himself and other family members in danger.

It was probably the hardest thing I have ever had to go through as a mother.

He was there for nearly 2 weeks, and they put him on Prozac for the Anxiety and Depression he had been diagnosed with previously that their psychiatrist confirmed from what he could see.

There is a strong family history of Bipolar and I had been concerned about that for a few months previous because of some of his actions, I mentioned this to his last therapist and she basically told me that bipolar is a made up condition used as a diagnosis when there's no clear explanation for someone's behavior. FRUSTRATING!

I brought this up to the staff when he was hospitalized and they kept note of it, and I also spoke to their psychiatrist about it, though he only met with my son once or twice.

Since being released the Prozac stopped working, and the psychiatrist my son is seeing now said that that, along with the way I have described his behaviors over the past few weeks (similar melt downs to before he was on meds at all), makes her believe he may have a mood disorder. She said he is too young to be diagnosed Bipolar, but they can put him on Medication to help stabilize his moods and gave me some samples of Abilify (the same medication my step sibling was on for bipolar at age 13).

She also brought up the possibility of ADHD, even though I have had him diagnosed in the past, she said it wouldn't hurt to consider a re-evaluation, or to try him on ADHD meds down the road to see what happens, as it typically goes along with mood disorders.

I didn't think it was even possible that he might have ADHD until yesterday I completely by accident came across this entry on Mommy Needs Therapy... Or A Glass Of Wine - a blog I follow on Blogger - and she talked about a new behavior program... well I will quote her:

"We are implementing a new behavior program with Noah and I'm going to be blogging about it on a new site I'm setting up. Stay tuned for more information! This a big deal for our family and I'm very excited to be working with Debra Sale Wendler the Respect Effect Mom. I met her on Twitter as @adhdparenting. So far I'm very impressed with the program even though it is a lot of work and at times it scares the hell out of me because it's making ME change a lot about myself and how I parent. So seriously, stay tuned!"

I clicked the link to Respect Effect Mom and the FIRST entry on her blog talked about "unofficial red flag ADHD alerts you rarely hear mentioned" and as I started reading through this list I was like OMG THAT'S MY KID!

So I signed up on her site http://www.adhdparentingtips.com/ and Here's hoping for success!

What Do I Do?

So I'm having a rough day, my oldest son is being very defiant, and even took off today on his bike, saying he was running away (I knew he wouldn't so wasn't too worried, and wasn't surprised when about 15 minutes later he called from my sister in law's house crying wanting to come home).

I don't think his meds are working for him, he is on 10mg of Prozac every morning, and it was working really well for awhile, he was like a whole new kid, calm, accepting, and generally, well, normal. But over time the meds seem to be losing their potency and he is going back to his old ways.

I know I have never posted about his old ways, but let's just say, you don't want to know a kid like that. There have been days when I was sure he was either going to kill himself or someone else, and I just don't know how to deal with him when he gets like this!

I have had one counselor tell me she thinks hes got some Cognitive Delays, but he has had evaluations, both psychological and developmental and no one noticed any signs of that. I have researched it on my own and I think she's full of shit and just can't stand to be wrong.

Days like today I feel like a complete failure as a mother, I wasn't able to protect my child from whatever it was that happened to him, whatever has caused this anxiety, depression and general behavior problems. My child talks about killing himself, when he is being punished, He tells me that the reason he can't go play outside is because I am afraid he's going to kill someone... HOW do you process something like that? HOW do you DEAL with something like that? WHAT IN THE WORLD am I supposed to do?

I have spent the better part of today crying, and wishing there was someone else that could deal with him because I just can't do it anymore. I love all four of my kids, but I feel as though I have done everything I CAN do, there is nothing else LEFT for me to do! I just don't know what to do