EEG

A new journey with Gabriel began last October. He was suspended from school three times.  His behavior warranted the suspensions if he wasn't an atypical child. Even the school staff told me that the suspensions weren't appropriate for him because he was only acting out due  to anxiety/autism.  

I didn't matter what they said though because he sat at home with me for several days. The problem is that unlike a typical child, Gabriel won't understand to stop the behavior simply based on a suspension at school. It wouldn't matter if he sat in his room all day or went to the circus.  He wouldn't change his behavior because he wasn't at school.  Instead, he lost out on vital learning time and his anxiety grew. He couldn't transition well and it is the schools responsibility to figure why he is acting out and how to fix it.  The school failed to follow through and we ended up with a half day school situation. 

I made medical appointments to rule out anything causing his outbursts.  It took months to get into the child development center.  It was at this point that we learned about medication to lessen his outbursts and Gabriel was diagnosed with ADHD. We were referred to ABA (that hasn't started yet) and we got a referral to have an EEG completed in order to rule out seizure activity 

I have called for the EEG since January. I finally heard from Nemours yesterday regarding a neurologist and EEG appointment.  The scheduling person apologized for all of the problems but she set up the appointment immediately. 

I decided to allow Nemours to win me over. It's a brand new children's hospital 32 minutes from our home. That's if you know where you are going, which I did not today so it took longer to get there. 

I arrived and found out that Gabriel wasn't scheduled for an EEG.  ~sigh~ 

Nemours won me over. The neurologist made sure we got the EEG done and the staff was wonderful and full of patience. 

If I could only say that the EEG was as easy would be nice. Instead, Gabriel screamed, cried, and hit me.  He made himself vomit several times. 

I was surprised that even the Despicable Movie didn't distract him.  Another staff person took Lane and Alex out of the room because the tech thought they looked scared. Alex was mostly upset that he didn't get to do the EEG. 

Gabriel thought the wires were needles that the tech was going to stick into his head. We showed him the probes.  We took our time. We even tried to show him the process of the probes on Alex. It didn't matter. 

Shortly after the EEG was complete, Gabriel met Shamu.  If only Shamu had arrived 40 minutes earlier, it would have been a great distraction. He hugged Shamu and told him that he loved him. He also stared down Shamu's mouth and declared that a person was in there.