Autism Makes Kids Do Weird Stuff

At least he is talking out of his mouth now! :)

He Said "Hi!"

I am so excited! Cohen has always had a lot to say, he just never opened his mouth to say it - literally - until now.

He's still "mr. mumbles," but now his sounds have syllables, rhythms, and sometimes you can decipher what he is trying to say. One evening, a few days after Halloween, he went out with his dad and when they came back, I opened the door to a hummed "trick or treat." And a few mornings later, he popped up at the foot of my bed and murmured "Mommy, time to wake u-up!"

And now he is opening his mouth and saying - SAYING!!!! - "hi!" We can actually hear his little boy voice!

Yes!

Sometimes it's the simplest things in life...

Blah!

Sickness. Strep throat. It's horrible! It won't go away! Agghhh! Four weeks now of cycling strep. Bright red rashes. Everywhere. Puke bucket for Hannah last night. Jenna in rare form. First round of antibiotics a BUST. Test still positive. Cohen - so far so good...

I really want to get back on track, but I can't because kids keep coming home sick - and me, too. I hate being sick. Taught two classes in a row at the gym on Sat and I thought I was going to keel over. Seriously felt my heart beating everywhere and something suspicious rising in my throat... that would have been embarrassing. :-0

I plan on posting a year in review. Lots to share over the past twelve months! Will do it. Really, really soon...

Uh-oh. I hear a little voice calling my name...

Gotta go!

PS. Really missing Aunt Joan right now!!!! :(

Quality Kitchen Time

So, I was playing kitchen with Hannah a few minutes ago.

While taking my order, she informed me that I could get my own drink from the "drink-a-nator," because it makes drinks in one minute instead of one hundred.

She served me on a beautiful red dirt-devil dustpan.

And she courteously sprayed air freshener for me when the "restaurant" got too stinky from the spit-balls "those silly boys" threw onto the ceiling (with lots of eye rolling...)

Best service I've had in a long time.

:)

Man, I missed blogging!!!

Where did the time go?

Is it Feb already? Wow.

Time has been flying by and I forgot to post about it. Huh. I hope to keep blogging, but for some reason, it's been hard lately. This is really the only journal I have of what goes on around here, so it has been nice to go back and check dates, look at old pics, etc. To see the pics with the comments is great - kinda like scrapbooking, except that takes time I absolutely do not have now.

We are all doing well. We caught this cold/flu thing, but I think it's flushing itself out of our house. Finally. Craig went to Miami for work for three days and I've been working the night shift at home. Ha.

Cohen has been doing the head movement/vomiting thing still, though it seems to be less often now. He has lost weight. Now he is going through some testing. Two weeks ago, it was MRI with sedation (MRI looks fantastic, by the way!)

Today, we go back to the hosp. to take out a pH probe. Cohen was not a happy camper, waking up from anesthesia yesterday with this tube in his nose and down his throat. The nurse passed him to me, told me to keep his hands away from his nose because they hadn't officially taped the tube down at this point - first, they needed to x-ray it and see if it was positioned correctly. Let me just say, in the off-chance that your child ever needs one of these, that this is SO NOT A GOOD IDEA!!! I haven't even mentioned that he was heaving after every breath, which made the whole maneuver that much harder. Well, I managed to bind his hands, but his head was another story and I kid you not, within a minute of me holding him in my lap, he managed to rub his nose on my arm and work the darn thing out.

I was so upset. I absolutely, face red, hands twitching, breath steaming through my nostrils, could not believe this! I raised my voice, ummm, just a bit, and told the nurse she should never have passed him off to me like that without someone sticking around to help. I refused a repeat. It just wasn't going to happen. I was done. We were done.

Ah, but once I vented, I was okay. Relatively. And the nurse told me she understood... maybe she was just trying to be nice, I don't know, but the point is, Cohen had to go through the whole thing all over again. Awake.

And mad. Very, very mad.

But, after all is said and done (and with a few wrap thingies on his arms to keep his face out of reach) we actually MADE IT THROUGH THE NIGHT! Yay! I definitely had my doubts.

So today is going to be a great day! No pH probe in about, let's see... two and a half hours. Yes!

The countdown begins...

Til later...

A New Symptom? Or Complication?

I started to post about our Christmas, just haven't finished yet. As with a lot of things this week, it'll have to wait a few days. I want to include pics but they are so darn slllooowww to load. So a quick update instead. For now.

Cohen has had a rough week and a half. We had two visits to the ER last week. We went to the hematologist yesterday only to get a cool IV and IV bag to lug around with us for the rest of the evening. Not fun. At least Cohen only gets one needle stick now that he has the port-a-cath. I put numbing creme on before we go and he mostly gets mad when he's being held down. A lot less pain, a lot simpler. At least one thing is going better for him.

The problem? Cohen has been going through "spells." I bet there's a better word for them, but that's the only one I can come up with right now. His head rolls around on his neck like a bobblehead doll, then snaps back on his shoulders as his chin jerks up to the ceiling. The movements have gotten worse over the past few days, more pronounced, more constant. Last night, they lasted for about an hour before Cohen threw up all over the place. Again. He has thrown up nearly every day since the day after Christmas. This couldn't possibly be self-stimulating behavior, could it? Do these kids actually make themselves sick doing this?

Something tells me the answer doesn't stop there.

We go back to the hematologist this morning, then to the neurologist immediately after. They ran some tests yesterday to check kidney and liver function. We found out yesterday at the hematologist's office that during one trip to the ER, Cohen had a high number of ketones in his urine, which was probably from dehydration, but, well, I don't know... we have been pumping him full of Pedialyte when he can't hold down his food, but now, Cohen will seem fine immediately after he eats (running around, dancing, humming, being a silly boy...) only to get sick a few hours later -- after the head stuff happens. He's lost two pounds already.

The question is this: what is coming first, the nausea or the head movements? And since he can't talk to us, we just don't know. Hopefully, one of the docs today will help us figure this out. But I have a feeling this might lead to yet more tests.

I have to be honest, I was freaking out last night. Just a bit. I love this little guy so much and I just want him to be okay. I'm sure everything will work out. I just wish it didn't take so long.

I will write more later. And post pics too. We really had a great holiday. I hope you did, too!

What is this?