Use your words

I’ve not been getting much sleep.

M seems to be going through some kind of sensory phase with his “blankie”. First of all, he has an already challenging bedtime routine where he has to touch certain air vents twice and pull the fan string 4 times (why 4?) before throwing 10 stuffed animals to the center of his rug from bed. Then, and only then, will he even attempt to lay down. We have to dress him in very warm footie pajamas because he will only sleep with one blanket which he has now outgrown length wise. Before, we’d lay it on him a certain way and he’d be fine. All of the sudden he’s melting down and begging us to flip it over and over. His little fingers search up and down the sides and top clearly looking for a bump in the fabric, but we don’t know what exactly he’s looking for. This has resulted in us melting down ourselves because he can’t tell us what he wants. He’s also getting up in the middle of the night or very early in the morning because the blanket isn’t “right”. Last night he was at his door whining at 1:30 am. I somehow talked him back into bed without waking up S across the hall. Unfortunately for me, once I’m up I am up. I fell back asleep sometime after K’s alarm went off but it was time to get up within an hour.

Needless to say, I am tired and irritable. I can feel myself bubbling over so I’ve been trying to remove myself from situations that set me off. It’s not been going great. Hopefully this passes soon and we move on to our next WTF problem. M’s speech therapist has noted a steady regression in his last month’s worth of sessions. I’ve also started recording whatever shaking noise I am hearing on occasion over night. I finally witnessed one in person yesterday morning. His whole body started convulsing for about 5-7 seconds while sleeping and then just stopped. It happened again a few minutes later. Are these dreams or seizures? His EEG came back clean recently but something is definitely going on.

Today was my appointment with the psychiatrist I was referred to by my sleeve team. She doesn’t think a bi-polar diagnosis fits me. She thinks my anxiety is what’s driving my depression. I am going to continue taking my Wellbutrin but add this new medication, Buspirone, in twice a day to level me out. I hope this works for my family’s sake, especially S’. Our relationship needs some serious repair but in order for that to happen I need to get myself under control.

Yesterday I saw my nutritionist to go over my diet trial logs. I have lost 13 lbs since I saw the surgeon originally, which is too much. I have multiple co-morbidities, but the insurance company has a strict cut off of a 35 BMI. I actually need to up my calories and gain a few pounds to stay in the comfortable range for approval. This is why I don’t like counting calories to begin with. I start focusing too much on the numbers and not enough on the food and usually end up eating too little. For now on I am just going to list my foods and portions on my log.

K and S leave Thursday for the Cavs game in Cleveland. The mini-trip was a part of S’ Christmas. Originally, I was supposed to go with him. We were going to stay in a nice hotel, have a nice dinner/breakfast and enjoy the 2 days but plans have changed. S decided he wanted to sign up for a competitive rec basketball league that starts next week. It was more expensive than any other league he’s been a part of so we’re going to have to forego the hotel. I am not comfortable driving that distance back after the game in the dark, so K is going to take him. Once again….I am out of a break. This isn’t anyone’s fault but I really do wish it were me going instead of K. We could also really use the bonding time.

On another note, we are considering going on a summer vacation. We haven’t been in a couple of years because M’s needs. The only way I think this would work is if we were able to find a beach HOUSE not attached to anyone like a condo. We would need a bit of a yard and some space with a close location to the beach. A pool would be nice too as we don’t know how he’ll react to the sand. We need this as a family, but we are really concerned it’s going to throw M too hard before school starts back up. Any beach recommendations?