Great 504 meeting yesterday...followed by 6 hour panic attack!

[airial95]

So - as if the whole BCH thing doesn't have all of us worked up and stressed out enough (worked on my letters this morning!!)

 

I had my daughter's 504 meeting yesterday (thanks LLM for the sample doctor letter!!!), and it couldn't have gone better!!!

 

High points:

- Her K teacher from last year came and was so clear and to the point as to what the issues were and what was needed there was no doubt in anyone's mind.

- Her principal suggested ADDITIONAL accomodations to the team beyond what we were asking for to cover the possibility of extended absence (not a high concern at this point for us - she's one of the few that recovers completely with a 30 day course of abx - knocking feverishly on wood right now!) as well as stronger accomodations for high stakes testing (curse you FCAT!!)

- The DISTRICT rep complimented me on how prepared I was and the clear information I provided on PANDAS - they had all heard of it, but he was of the understanding that it simply made existing OCD worse, but from what we told him and what he was hearing from her K teacher - he learned something new. Not to mention we were so prepared that he didn't feel the need to prolong the process with any additional assessments/testing and was going to support ALL of the accomodations we discussed

- The school nurse asked me to speak to their annual post-planning conference for the district to present and overview on PANDAS. She said 2 years ago she had 1 student with it at another school she subbed in at (incedntally - that was my son), 3 cases last year in her Charter district (we were her first last year), and this year - it was up to 5. While the steadily increasing numbers are disturbing - it's encouraging to have staff that's learning!

 

Cons: NONE!!!

 

I was thrilled walking out of there.

 

Then last night happened. Around midnight, my daughter came into my room scared, she had a nightmare about bugs. When she closed her eyes she "dreamed about bugs, and when I open them my brain is telling me I see bugs all over my floor, I know they're not there, but my brain says I can see them" (This coming from my daughter who likes to catch any and all bugs she sees - but when she flares she aways has a bug fear.) Was she describing a hallucination - who can tell. I let her climb into bed with me, telling her there were no bugs, and if there were, the dogs would be sure to eat them for us. She stayed awake until 6:15 this morning! She kept asking reassurance questions about the bugs, after about an hour or so of that, she rapidly switched gears to asking about the "red light in the corner of the living room (motion sensor from our security system) and why is it "always watching" her. At this point - she was downright terrified, and quite frankly, I was freaked out too. She was freaking out saying she can't go back into the living room with the light watching her.

 

I tested her and told her around 4 AM to go play quietly if she wanted, she wouldn't leave my bed, then I upped the ante - and said she could go out and watch TV (not something we let them do when they wake in the middle of the night), she wanted to go, got about 2 steps from door to the living room and freaked out and ran back into my bed. This morning, she fell asleep for about 45 minutes, and when she woke up, I tried to get her to go into the living room, she made it in there, for all of 12 seconds, before she ran back crying. I got her back to sleep in my bed, and she slept until around 10:30 (I obviously kept her home from school), at which point she pops her head out of my room and says "What about breakfast?" as if nothing happened last night - came into the living room and all.

 

Thankfully we had therapy at the Rothman Center this afternoon, and it gave us something new to talk about - she's never been like this. By the time we were finishing our sessions, she was acting out and getting really hot-tempered (not typical for her), even throwing a toy at me. As we were leaving, I noticed that her cheeks were getting very flush (one of her signs of potential strep). The only other wierd thing was how hungry she was all day - she had breakfast (2 waffles) at 10:30, we stopped for lunch at 12:30 on the way to Rothman (bowl of mac & cheese), ate a whole package of cashews in the car on the way to Rothman, had a back of cheese crackers in the waiting room at rothman, and then complained the WHOLE time we were there/way home that she was hungry. She then proceeded to eat her body weight in chicken tonight at dinner (5 helpings - ate nothing else, but 5 helpings of chicken!). Before bed, she was asking for a snack again..don't know what that was all about.

 

I upped her abx, she was put on a proph dose last week by the ped b/c of rampant strep in her school (3 weeks stratight with double digit cases the nurse said yesterday). I'm hoping this is just a reaction to exposure, but the red cheeks give me pause.

 

I've missed so much work this week with a vomitting PANDAS son on Monday (anxiety), 504 meeting yesterday, then therapy and this today. Don't know if I can swing another day out of the office...

 

I'm a fan of roller coasters, but after over 2 years - I'm ready to get off this one now!!!

 

We got home, and her mood improved, even hung out in the living room for a bit. She's in her bed now reading,

[kimballot]

Arial - so sorry you are on this roller coaster. I am just wondering if your son's vomiting was DEFINITELY anxiety or if there might be a virus in the house.. ?