My sweet little Myffy is now a big three year old girl! Turning three has become an interesting rite in our family because besides being a significant milestone for any child, at three our kids also age out of the Arizona Early Intervention Program and age into a whole new set of agencies and services. Especially now that Myffy has her official diagnosis of ASD.
Myffy's party was super fun. We decided to keep it small and a bit on the down low since that is what usually works best for both kids. In the past when we have packed the house for a party that is usually when Lu gets overwhelmed and needs to retreat, and even Myffy seems to prefer smallish play dates to having tons of people around. And this way everyone got to have a couple of turns on the pony.
It was really nice to see Lu and her best friend from school playing together. Can I tell you how exciting it is to write 'best friend' about Lu? But it's true! They hang out at school and have been having regular play dates on the weekends lately. The best thing is that her friend seems to really enjoy Lu's company without getting frustrated or bored by the lack of conversation. They jump on the trampoline together, paint together, draw together, swing together, run around together and basically just hang out, together! It's so great. And at Myffy's party they rode Lu's pony together.
As the Birthday Girl Myffy of course got lots of pony rides! In the past she has only seemed vaguely interested in the pony, sometimes wanting to get up with Lu if Lu is riding, but never all that interested in riding herself. Today all that changed. Which is probably good since Lu is going to out grow Cinnamon someday and like all other things between siblings, Cinnamon can get handed down.
I love how happy she was to be up there and she even said 'yeehaw' and 'giddyup' like Jesse from Toy Story, and then said 'more riding horse Mom,' when she wanted another ride. Gotta love an expanding vocabulary!
In the midst of all the activity of Myffy's birthday and starting her new school with her own IEP and services and everything, some new things have come up with Lu. Lu seems to be having head aches. Regularly. Pretty much daily. But not constantly. Intermittently. She shows her distress by pressing her fists against her forehead, sometimes hitting, sometimes pressing her palms hard against her eyes. She has started hitting her head on the wall again which we haven't seen in ages except for a little bit during the failed food trials last summer. She has also been saying "eyes" a lot while opening her eyes wide as if to show me. I have looked for something in her eyes but have not seen anything. Sometimes she rubs them. Often she cries. And she is grinding her teeth loudly. The teeth grinding is actually the first thing that we noticed. It's been going on for several weeks. We saw the dentist (an ordeal in and of itself) who saw nothing in his exam to make him think it was dental pain, but suggested we get dental xrays- something they have never been able to accomplish with Lu before. We saw a new doctor who had several ideas but wanted dental xrays first. A dose of valium and versed later we were able to get decent xrays on the second try. The dentist was so thrilled with actually being able to work on her that he asked that she have versed before every appointment. Sigh. We also saw her GI doctor to have her mic-key button replaced. Which is completely terrifying to Lu. That doctor also suggested that we sedate Lu before every clinic visit. Even just the check ups. I'm really struggling with all of these requests to medicate her. I understand why they ask. She is difficult to examine, difficult to work on, distressing to other clients and clearly expresses her terror. But seriously, how much sedation can one little 5 year old take? I'll probably come back to this in another post.
But back to the headaches: her dental xrays came back with a little decay showing, not enough to cause pain and not even enough to warrant filling right now. The dentist suggested filling it at her next cleaning which he thinks he can do with versed. Otherwise we have to book her into the hospital with full anesthesia to have a small filling done. The new pediatrician wanted to rule out dental pain before xraying the sinuses and then moving on to other imaging, like MRI or CAT scan. And then there is the possibility that she might be developing migraines. Both her paternal grandmother and a paternal aunt have migraines. Which of course won't show up on any of these scans. The symptoms are affected by a dose of children's ibuprofen which I though would rule out migraines, but the doctor says not necessarily.
This is one of those many, many moments when I wish that Lu could communicate enough to at least tell us a little more about this pain. Where is it? What does it feel like? Is it there all the time and just gets worse and better or does it completely come and go? Is it all of a sudden or does it slowly build? Is it a sharp pain, or more like pressure?
Oh and then yesterday I got a note from school in her bag saying that they tried to test her eyes and recommend that she see an eye doctor. One more possibility. If she has vision problems, that could be causing pain too, right? So today my list is full of new appointments to make and new conversations to have with various doctors. And probably a call or two to the new secondary insurance company since we were informed last month that Lu's old Medicaid insurer Capstone (who we never had a single problem with) was suddenly no longer her insurer.
In more exciting and upbeat news we are also starting to prepare for our long awaited trip to Disneyland! I've ordered Lu's tube feeding supplies to be delivered early and her prescriptions as well. I've started making checklists for packing to make sure we have everything we will need for the kids and Dahanna for as many contingencies as I can imagine ahead of time. I need to find out where the closest stores that carry allergen free foods are relative to the hotel and figure out which foods to just bring with us. I'm nervous but excited. I really hope they will love it. Fingers crossed!
