This Week and Elizabeth's Diagnosis....

This was a pretty crazy week! Monday was school and Theater class, Tuesday was preschool/school and in the afternoon I dropped Devin off with my cousin Mary and Liz and I went to her pediatrician for a behavior consult. So for almost a couple years now we've known something was up with our Miss Elizabeth's behavior, and a little over a year ago she was diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but her pediatrician thought it was more than just that and told me she suspected ADHD. So we tried treating her behavior with modification techniques and by taking her to see a child psychologist, and we did this for a whole year, but her behavior and symptoms have only worsened over the last year, so at Elizaebth's wellness check a few months ago we talked a little about it and decided to schedule a consult. At the consult We re-evaluated Liz for ADHD(we had only done the paper eval last year), this year she scored even higher for ADHD and Dr. Sandvig also did a behavior evaluation, which also placed her at having severe ADHD. While she was doing that she noticed some sensory things as well as some motor delays. She told me she highly suspected  Elizabeth too has SPD(sensory processing disorder) and referred us to get an OT(occupational therapy) evaluation. She also strongly urged me to start Elizabeth on some medication for her severe ADHD. She told me it wasn't fair to Liz to expect her to act in a way she was literally incapable of acting(due to the ADHD) and that I'd done my best to treat it without meds and it just didn't work.....because she NEEDS them. This was really hard for me, I really didn't want to medicate my 6 year old.....but her pediatrician made a really good point that I just couldn't argue with, so reluctantly I agreed to put Liz on Concerta(which I myself have actually been on and loved....I should probably go on it again too! ;) ) We're really hoping it will help her feel more calm and be able to focus more when she needs to. I should add that I couldn't hear out of my left ear all that day, it was really annoying! Wednesday morning I called my ENT and got an appointment for that afternoon at 3(or else I was going to have to wait two more weeks....um no thank you!) Then I called the Primary Children's Outpatient Rehab Clinic in Bountiful to schedule Liz's OT evaluation. They told me they just had a cancellation in Taylorsville at 10am(it was 8:30.....it takes 45min-an hour to get to Taylorsville, and no one was dressed yet) and they wanted me to try and get there 15-20 minutes early to fill out paperwork(that I'm such a pro at now!), but since it could be more than a month before another appointment became available I took it! It was a super crazy rushed morning(that neither of my kids handled well) but we managed to get there about ten minutes early(kicking and screaming!). The OT eval showed that Elizabeth does indeed have SPD, she's about half seeker(needs lots of sensory input) and half avoider(can't handle very much input) this is possible because they look at 7 senses(sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch, vestibular, which is where you feel dizzy, balanced and such and proprioceptive which is knowing where your body and parts are in the space around you) Liz was seeker in a form of touch, vestibular, proprioceptive and oral/taste. She was avoider in sight, hearing and smell, and another type of touch. The evaluation also showed that Elizabeth has Dyspraxia, which is essentially when you struggle with the gross and fine motor skills on one side of your body, in her case the right side of her body. The thing is if one side doesn't work right you can't do things that require both sides of your body to work together. So she was given a referral to do OT and then if needed PT(physical therapy). We'll do those in Bountiful though as it's MUCH closer, though the therapist who did her evaluation really wished we lived closer so she could be Liz's OT. :) We got home about one had lunch, the kids played for an hour then it was off to the ENT. My ear was "full of crap!" and because of that I had a 25% hearing loss in that ear, and there was so much "crap" we had to go to the procedure room so he could use the little vacuum to suck most of it out(oh how I HATE that thing!!!). He told me that my ear was very infected and that there was possibly a hole in my eardrum.....awesome....;/  Then he put antibiotic drops in my ear, sent an oral and drops antibiotic prescription to Walgreens then we were done and off to Bravo where we just made it in time for piano and tumbling. After classes we went and picked up my meds and went home....oh my what a day!!! After we put the kids to bed Tony and I went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner! Today Devin went to preschool with just a little whining, and Elizabeth did so well for school we were able to make up some of the work we missed yesterday! After lunch, Elizabeth did a little more school(WOW!) then got in the bathtub and played all afternoon. Devin played in is room for a bit...tried to con his way out of naptime, got upset when I didn't go for it, I calmed him down and he fell asleep(too bad he was "really really nots tired" that's exactly what he whined over and over before he fell asleep ;) ) No big plans for tomorrow except Liz's favorite pizza night! I'll have to add this weekend to the next post. Sorry no pics....gotta get better about that!