Bumps in the road

Lane has been on his medicine or about 3 weeks now. Saying these past weeks have been an adjustment is quite an understatement. Lane, Dave and I have been on a roller coaster ride trying to get his dosage evened out. After starting, Lane was wound tighter than a yo-yo, unable to calm down at night. A quick call to his Dr and we cut that dosage in half in order for his body to become acclimated to the medicine. He seemed to do great on the new dosage and after several days we felt comfortable enough to move him back to the full dosage. All seemed to be going well until the evening when he would begin to come off the medicine. Almost instantly, Lane would turn on a dime and scream in rage, throw things, kick, yell, you name it. Honestly, it was as if I was looking at someone else's child. On his worst day pre medicine, he had NEVER acted as he was then. Dave and I found ourselves restraining him until he was able to calm himself down enough just to complete the tasks we had asked of him.

As his mom, I felt a huge amount of guilt for putting him through these struggles. I doubted my decisions and doubted my parenting in general. Who would do this to their kid? Who could sit by and see their child with such inner turmoil all because I decided that we would try the medicine in the first place. Needless to say, I called the doctor ASAP in the morning, to try to see where to go from here. He told me that it was ok to go back to the half doses, as they seemed to work just as well and Lane experienced little if no amount of "crashing" at all.

So here we are, half doses every morning. He has seemed to be doing good so far. He even spent the weekend with his dad for the first time since being on the meds. I haven't yet asked him if he too saw a difference in Lane's behavior and focus while on the medicine. Though, I am expecting to hear good reports. It is was so incredibly hard to let him go away this weekend, not knowing how his dad would react to Lane if he did indeed have a major meltdown. It is no way putting down his parenting, it is simply that he has not had to face the circumstances that Dave and I have had to deal with on a daily basis. It is so easy to tell someone situations that you go through, but in reality, they have not a clue until they go through it themselves.