Wow.  I can’t believe I haven’t written about this.  Emma’s on a new medication!  It’s kind of big news around here.  Well, you know how she’s swallowing pills now (another milestone that deserved its own post, by the way).  Since she started swallowing pills, we decided to try a medication that we once tried about a year and a half ago.  This medication was wonderful.  It gave her the focus and clarity she lacked( by the way I’m talking about an ADHD med), and it didn’t cause her to act (or feel) drugged or lethargic.  I. Loved. It.  Problem was, she didn’t love it.  This pill came in a capsule form, so back in the day (you know, pre-swallowing-pills), we would empty the capsule and dissolve it with her other pills into Sunny D (which is, by far, the sweetest tasting juice I have found).  This pill was so bitter, she refused to take it.  She wouldn’t swallow the syringe with the dissolved medicine.  Brett and I tried it.  We didn’t blame her.  The stuff was horrid.  The most bitter and metalic tasting medicine you could imagine. Which begs the question, if you’re gonna make a kid’s medicine, please make it palatable.  Am I right?  Whatever.  That’s another story.

Okay, so back to the present.  The girl is swallowing pills!  We thought, “hey, let’s give this old medication another try!”  And we had precious few days before school started to get this medication in her system.  So we tried.  We waited for a few days.  We increased the dosage (yes, this is all under her psychiatrist’s supervision). It started working better.  In the first week of school, we had her taking it in the morning.  She took it in the morning last time, though the doc warned us that this could cause drowsiness.  Duly noted. After getting up every morning last week around 5:30, and falling asleep every chance she got in the car, we decided to switch to a night time dosage.  She slept in longer.  She wasn’t falling asleep in the car.  She didn’t want to watch TV all day.  She’s got more energy.  And….(drumroll please)…she’s got that focus that we’ve been waiting to see.  Hallelujah!!  Now, we’re not holding our breaths here.  She’s still getting acquainted with the school schedule.  Things could change.  But, so far so good!  I only hope this is the beginning of a successful year in 1st grade!!

Before school got out, which was just last week, I wanted to think about summer goals I had for Emma.  I will set some goals for myself as well.  And Mason, well he’s along for the ride!  Although one thing we’ll work on is writing his name.  Anyway, back to Emma.  I decided I was going to keep it easy.  I mean, it’s still summer!  She has 2 goals.  The first is to swallow pills.  If you remember this post, you’ll know that it’s not something I really know how to teach.  It’s interesting, though, that she started taking an interest in preparing her medicine.  She will take it all by herself, but the preparation is where the time commitment comes in.  There’s the crushing and dissolving of pills.  And juice and applesauce are heavily involved!  So her taking an interest in preparing is a good first step.  On Sunday, I simply asked her to swallow one of her pills, the cortef.  And she did.  It took a few big gulps of juice, but she got it down!  We are now halfway to that goal.  She will swallow her cortef and levothyroxin.  My next goal (starting next week, perhaps?) is to work on getting her to swallow the capsules.  Undeniably bigger in size, but perhaps easier to swallow because they’re gel-coated and slippery?  We will see.  It might be a struggle that involves a reward at the end.  As well it should.  Wish us luck!

Her last goal is to move out of the pull-ups at night and into underwear.  We have pull-ups mostly for insurance as she’s dry in the morning about 98% of the time.  But I figure that if she has any accidents, cleaning it up in the middle of the night will be a lot easier if we don’t have school the next morning!

And, as far as Emma’s habilitation gal, so far so good.  She met with Emma on Monday and said Emma did really well working.  I think that having a routine of work will help a bunch.  She will work Mondays from 9-12 while Mason and I are out of the house.  We’re going to shoot for Tuesdays as “field trip” days.  And Thursdays Emma’s hab gal will have both kids.  But I will insist they work at least one hour.  Mason can do a lot of this stuff already.

So, that’s my plan as of now.  Of course things can always change!

Do you have any goals for the summer??

Sometimes I feel like this is Emma. Poor girl takes 4 pills in the morning, one at lunch, and 5 at night (not to mention the patch on the bum in the morning and the shot in the arm in the evening). During those times, our kitchen becomes a little lab of crushing, dissolving, mixing, and sprinkling. We do anything to make pill-taking easier on her. But, it’s time to move on. My goal is I need to teach her to swallow pills. I asked her OT about it and she had these suggestions: practice with little candies and use a straw to drink from.  It hasn’t worked thus far.  She is looking for the m&m in her mouth, and kind of hides it in her cheek.  Not because she wants the candy.  I think it’s because she is afraid to swallow it.  Understandable.  My girlfriend, Marshelle, has promised to teach her.  Her grandaughter learned to swallow pills when she was 2.  And you should see the amount of pills she has to take….much more than Emma.  Until that happens, though (she’s in California), I am looking for tips.

Do you have any tips on swallowing pills?