Thursday, January 14, 2010

Sickness or Being a Teenager

The last couple of days have been a little rough and I am not sure if it is the sickness creeping back in or McKenzie just being a teenager. She has been cranky and irritable in the morning, afternoon and evening. Not to the volume that it has been in the past- no emotional meltdowns or rages -so it makes me think that maybe she is just being a hormonal teenager. I mean we all get cranky and irritable at times. And she has had to make quite an adjustment this week. First of all, she has been out of normal school for 52 days. Second, she had been sleeping until 9, 10, or even 11 o'clock every morning. Now she has to be up at 6:15 a.m. The other night she was falling asleep on the sofa at 6:00 p.m. I couldn't even get her up to come eat dinner with us. On top of that she is 22 lessons behind in math and her school is not giving her the 504 adjustments that she is suppose to be getting for her ADHD. (I did call the school today-hopefully will hear back soon). And finally, she is 13 with hormones flying. I know her period is right around the corner. So again, I ask the question, is this her being a typical teenager with some added stress? My gut tells me yes, but it is bummer that she was just doing so well and now she has to deal with all of this added stress. And we do too! Bummer for us as well. It is also hard to know whether to try the two other things that I wanted to do. One, being take her off the vyvanse which has been reported to make bipolar kids more angry and also can cause more anxiety. Two, being up her intuniv to 4mg. I did put a call into her doctor to ask if I should try one of these things and which one do we try first. Hopefully, we will get some direction today.

I also need to find her a high school in town for next fall. So she has a school to go to if and when she returns from Meridell. That is going to be hard work as I know she cannot attend the regular public high school. We would loose her completely. Thank goodness there are a lot of charter schools here in AZ. I guess I need to get working on that as well.

Someone told me that Kenzie could just get evaluated at Meridell with tests, etc. and not attend there. This also might be a possibility. Another thing to add to my list to do-call Meridell. We are still working on getting better insurance. Hopefully, that will happen soon too.

Lots to do-keep moving forward with my eyes fixed on Jesus!

4 comments:

  1. Take her off the Vyvanse! It is way too stimulating. At this point, I would never do a stimulant with Caroline. We have tried and it always messed her up. And I agree about public high school--we would lose Caroline too. We are doing everything we can to keep her in private as long as we can afford too.

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  2. We are-starting tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes. Our pediatrician is out of town until Monday so we can't try the 4mg.of intuniv yet. But I want her off the vyvanse for at least a week before we do anything else new so I know what is happening with what medicine.

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  3. Yes, I understand about trying to figure out which medicine is doing what. It is so complicated.

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  4. I think you are right to keep her in private school. I wish that I had done that. Drugs are an even bigger enemy than bipolar.


    When my bipolar daughter was 16 she started to drink and do drugs. It took me another 4 years to find out. The shrinks thought that it was the bipolar getting worse.

    Now I know that a hair test could have told us what many urine tests did not. The hair tests go back several months not just 24 to 48 hours.

    I hope you never need this information but it could have made a real difference in our lives.

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