Colin Happenings & diagnosis'

Since it's been almost a full year since I actually posted many comings and goings, not many of you would even know all the problems we've delt with Colin. A while back, our pediatrician diagnosed him with a general anxiety disorder. Our days/nights and basically everyday life was affected by How Colin woke up in the morning. If Col wasn't Colin in the happy form, you were doomed. It wasn't worth it to try to make it better, or fix it, Since there was NO "fixing" it. Someday I'll write about our October Dream Cruise Vacation from Hell with the kids. Caden wasn't quite as bad as Colin, but Colin... oh man. Needless to say, Mike and I could NOT wait to get home, and get back to work. Col's sensory issues, OCD, anxiety and over-activeness were too much for this family to handle for 10 days straight out of the house. It was not pretty, and Yes, we did have ugly words with others who commented on our child.

So.. our pediatrician (who is wonderful by the way) agreed that Colin needed SOME sort of med to even him out. However she didn't feel comfortable enough to distribute an anxiety med to such a young child. We were given a million referrals, none of which would either take our horrible insurance, Or, those who would take said insurance, did not accept pediatric psychiatric patients. :-( We were put on the waiting list to get into the psychiatric program at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, NY, but that list is months, almost a year long. Knowing he, and us needed help sooner, we turned to catholic charities, In Buffalo. We met with a counselor a couple of times before being refereed to the dr in the office for a psychiatric eval. And... that day (dec 27th 2011) Colin was his typical usual hyper overactice, anxious self. We were shocked to learn that with all of the things effecting Colin (OCD, anxiety, ADHD, meltdown, tantrums, depression to name only a few) that Colin fell on the Autism Spectrum as well. Colin has Aspergers. Thankfully, we were able to get him not only on one med, but 2. Some pretty strong ones to be honest. We are at the lowest possible dosage we can be at right now, but the one med, is used in adults over the age of 13 (with a different dosage obviously) to treat Bipolar disorder & Schizophrenia. What??!! I freaked when I read this. SO of course, I read the ENTIRE 10 page phamplet that came with it, to find, that it ALSO is used to treat Autism Symptoms in Children under the age of 10 *whew* I felt much better about that. He was also put on a 2nd med to help with his anxiety and Hyperactivity.

1 week later, the meds are doing what they should. Colin is like another child. He can be loving occasionally, he is much more relaxed, and he is much more focused. It's evened him out, and made daily life bearable for all of us involved. He still needs to go for medical testing to rule out anything else, as we had to do with Caden. He is scheduled for his EEG next Tuesday the 10th. Then we need to do an EKG and numerous blood works. I am doing only one at a time, only because remember that horrible insurance I mentioned? Yea, will it covers only 15-20% of all of these tests. Add up the EEG and EKG alone and we are well into the thousands and thousands of dollar range. We'll do it was we can , but for now, I couldn't be happier that we were able to end 2011 on a positive note, with not only meds for Colin, but a diagnosis as well.