Medication for Your Monday

For all you adoptive mommas out there struggling as we are, maybe, just maybe this post can help you.  After our early weeks of school left our daughter spiraling out of control, we sought out medical professionals and are now medicating Quiet Tiger.

First of all, I'm not one to rush to meds.  Heck, this child has been home for 4 years and we are just now getting around to it.  But frankly, if my child falls down and skins a knee, I'm more the type of mom to say, "Rub some dirt on it.  You're fine."  Surprise, surprise, the spiritual gift of mercy does not even make my gift list, people!  I don't rush my kids to the doctor for every cough, sneeze or sniffle.  I don't even use over the counter meds often.  I'd rather the kids' immune systems do their job.  And while I'm not Miss Holistic, I do think natural remedies are worth a shot first.  I love to try good ol' vitamins and healthy foods and I enjoy trying essential oils before turning to our crazy expensive American healthcare.

Now, normally, I wouldn't share such sensitive, personal medical information out there on the inter-webs for the entire world populace to read, but I know how lonely, how agonizing, how devastating, how painful, how lonely (did I mention that before?) this road is and I have hope that our story can help at least one other family out there take a bold chance to fight for their trauma kiddo.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

I know a lot of docs out there hate their patients consulting Dr. Google for all their ailments.  But friends....

There are plenty of trauma, attachment, RAD, adoption/foster groups out there on Facebook or Yahoo where you can discuss these issues with other families also in the same boat.  Listen in on some of the conversations in those groups.  Ask your questions there.  Then take your research to the web.  For me, I put my focus on well known medical professionals such as Mayo Clinic.  I knew it was time for meds and I even knew which type we needed.  From hours and hours of research, these were our medication options:

1.  Stimulants.  These include some of the well known drugs for ADHD but also help with trauma kids.  An adoption friend of mine reported good findings with these and her beautiful China babe.  Yet I knew without a doubt that a stimulant would not be good for my daughter who continues to head bang in her bed at night.  Nope, a stimulant would not work.  I wouldn't touch those with a 10-foot pole.

2.  Benzodiazapines.  Benzos for short.  These are more of a temporary drug.  I knew that we needed something longer term.  Short term meds were not going to solve years of trauma for our Quiet Tiger.

3.  Anti-Depressants.  Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!  We have a winner.  Anti-depressants are not stimulants and they are not a short-term drug.  In fact, in my research, I learned that children on anti-depressants long enough have often been found "cured" (if you can believe it) of their anxiety issues and lead healthy adult lives, medication-free.  An anti-depressant is what I wanted, what we needed!

GO PREPARED

So, on a Friday afternoon, I went to the pediatrician and told her everything that happened.  I had it all typed out, dated with daily activities, including all the destructive, negative behaviors we had been enduring at home.  Document, document, document!  Think: spreadsheet, or at the very least, bullet points.  Easy to read, concise, yet detailed!  Every dirty, grimy, poopy little detail.  Every single little thing Quiet Tiger did, I had documented.

But don't forget to include all you have tried!  Every single thing we tried: essential oils, L-theanine tabs from The Vitamin Shoppe, melatonin, weighted blankets, sensory outlets like sit-n-spins/trampolines/rockers, I had it all documented and printed and handed the paper to the doctor.

My doctor got it.  She did.  She's an adoptive mom.  She understood.  And, I would be remiss if I didn't quote to you what she said to me.  Get a load of this:  She leaned in to me nose to nose, like a close-talker, and whispered to me (so that Quiet Tiger wouldn't hear too much),

"I give you China moms a lot of credit.  

You China moms see it all.  You China moms go through it all."  

Yep, I broke down in quiet sobbing, head in hands, shoulder shaking tears.  

Finally, someone understood me.  

Finally, someone heard me.  

If her words don't tell you that she knows, that she has other patients reporting the same, that I am NOT CRAZY, friends, I don't know what does.

I told her that was time for help.  

I told her this was the last straw, 

that I couldn't take it anymore, 

that my daughter couldn't take it anymore.  

Our doctor is very soft spoken and a bit wishy-washy, in all honesty, but she did agree to trying meds.  I had to agree to taking Quiet Tiger to a Child Psychologist, and I agreed and then she agreed to the meds.  She turned the computer screen towards me and showed me 2 anti-depressants -- Prozac and Zoloft -- that are FDA approved for children.  But she was clearly VERY UNCOMFORTABLE medicating a 6 year old child.  I, on the other hand, was demanding it, completely comfortable with it.  No qualms whatsoever.  She showed me the FDA specifications for Prozac, stating that it was approved for ages 7 and up.  She wasn't comfortable with prescribing it for a 6 year old, although she would if I agreed to it, if I wanted it against medical advice (I would have).   But then she showed me the specs for Zoloft and it was FDA approved for ages 6 and up.  She still hesitated, biting her lip.  Yet I nearly jumped up from the uncomfortable plastic doctor's office chair.  I tapped the computer screen a few times and stifled a shout but said solidly, "That's it.  That's the one I want.  Zoloft.  That's the one."

FIGHT FOR YOUR CHILD

Doctor Wishy-Washy continued her hesitation but I stood firm.  I wasn't angry, I didn't raise my voice.  In fact, I broke down in tears when she told me that "Love isn't enough to heal these kids."  Tears.  She gets it.  She really does.  She only agreed to give Quiet Tiger half the recommended dose of Zoloft for a 6 year old.  I could live with that.  It was better than nothing and I felt if I pushed for the full dose, she'd send me away empty handed.  After all, we could start small and only go up from there if it didn't end up helping as much as we needed.

We left the office with meds.  We left the office with help.  We left the office with renewed hope, hope that had been lost in that fast-flowing downward spiral after only 3 shorts weeks of public school.

Friends, believe me, I am documenting each and every day on this medication.  Another spreadsheet.  I call it my Quiet Tiger Zoloft Diary.  The pharmacist told me that it takes 4-6 weeks to take it's full effect, but we were only given enough for 20 days.  Dr. Wishy-Washy will want to see us before giving us a renewable prescription, so we'll have to succumb to another office appointment (and pricey bill, I'm sure).  After our first round is complete, I will be more than happy to share my findings with you, even if we find this isn't the right med for Quiet Tiger.

Please keep us in your prayers!

School Girl UPDATE

Here we are well over 1 month into school and I'm just getting around to posting our very first update.  There are a few reasons for my delay in posting.

1.  We wanted to give it a good amount of time before posting our findings.
2.  We've been busy and have had our hands more than full at home.
3.  We've been actively pursuing professional help.

Week I

The first week of school seemed to go really well for the most part.  Quiet Tiger's schedule starts at 7:15am when she gets up.  She normally gets up on her own.  We brush teeth and get her in the shower.  Then dress and have breakfast.  We head out to the bus stop at the corner at 8:30am and the bus arrives 10-15 minutes later.  I know she is one of the last kids on the bus.  School starts at 9:15am and releases at 3:45pm.  She takes the bus home and she is also one of the last kids off the bus, arriving home between 4:30 and 4:45pm.  After that, we enjoy a snack while she talks about her day.  She unwinds outside in the sandbox or with a cartoon on Netflix while I make dinner.  We eat at 6-ish, then it's bedtime at 7pm.  No time for anything else, let alone breathing, on a school night!

But that first weekend things started to twist and turn for our Quiet Tiger.  My boys and I usually camp out in the living room on weekends.  They are too old to sleep in our room, so this is the next best thing. We've tried to include Quiet Tiger, but she cannot handle it (for reasons that are much too lengthy to explain).  That Saturday morning was when it all began, when the twister that is Quiet Tiger started spinning.  I heard her come downstairs that Saturday morning and get into food that had mistakenly been left out the night before.  When confronted, she lied about stealing the food, despite being caught with her sticky fingers in her mouth and evidence of said sticky fingers in the bowl.  When confronted, she goes to that far off place and starts raging and that's exactly just what happened.  Uncontrollable RAGE.  Just an hour or so later, I was folding up blankets in the living room and found my afghan with a huge, grapefruit-sized hole in it, right next to Quiet Tiger.  I had used that afghan the very night before for our campout, so I can attest to it's being intact.  The dogs had not been playing, wrestling, or anything that morning, and I could eliminate them as the culprits.  Quiet Tiger has a history of destroying afghans (from her preschool days) and although she lied about it, we knew she did it.  (The next day she admitted it.)

I sent an email to her school social worker to document what had happened because we quickly recognized the signs of the downward spiral.

Week II

The second week of school seemed to go well.  Again, the weekdays are so jam-packed that there is hardly any time for bad behaviors to well up.  But oh, the weekends....

The weekend brought on the spiral and we dealt with more crap.  And this time I mean it.  Quite literally.  Crap.  Insert poop emoji, except it wasn't funny.  Not funny at all.  Quiet Tiger began pooping in her pants.  Just as she had when she was in preschool.  She was not sick.  She did not have a fever.  She had not gotten into dairy or juice or anything that causes her uncontrollable digestive issues.  She had to keep her wits about her, to keep control of herself, all day long, all week long at school and when the week was over, in the safety of her own home, she couldn't control herself, her thoughts, her anxieties any longer.  She decided to find that control in her world by controlling her bowels.  Oh, Jay and I were NOT HAPPY!

She did it once.

Then she did it twice.

That second time was so bad [grossness alert...], she played with it and smeared it all... over... her... room, and the mess was so bad I had to throw away her sheets.  Not only that, the carpet was so trashed from her poop painting, I was forced to rip up the carpet in her bedroom.  You can imagine my disgust.  Plywood subfloors will be just fine enough for her until we can budget for new flooring.

Week III

Week three was supposed to be so much fun at school with a field trip at the end of the week to the apple orchard.  But instead of the weekend spiraling out of control, our daughter started to spiral during the school week, pooping her her pants again.

Week IV

I learned that Quiet Tiger lied to her teacher about pooping in her pants, claiming it was a stomach ache.  And then on Wednesday, she forcefully broke her glasses on the bus ride home from school.  Keep in mind, those glasses are for school only and were supposed to stay at school.  And Walmart optical doesn't do insurance, so we'll be paying for a new pair of glasses.  That Friday, the teacher called me and told me that Quiet Tiger and a classmate argued with each other while they were in reading group.  I believe the reading teacher's words were, "This was the worst I had seen in my career."  Keep in mind that the other student was equally to blame, and I have no idea how long this reading teacher's career has been, but still deplorable behavior.  And that weekend at the cabin we had more out of control behavior, more poop, you name it.

THIS MOMMA HAD HAD IT!!!!

I called our local pediatrician who is a fellow adoptive mom.  One of her nurses called me back and told us to schedule an appointment with the doc (which I did) and also to call our insurance for a referral to a Child Psychologist who could further diagnose our daughter (which I did).

Unfortunately, the closest psychologists to us only work part-time and did not return calls or emails promptly.  We met with the pediatrician on Friday afternoon as soon as the apple orchard field trip was over following Week 3 of school.  I told the pediatrician that I didn't care if I came across as "THAT MOM," but that my husband and I had had E-N-O-U-G-H.  I gave our pediatrician my goals:

1.  Diagnosis

2.  Medication

3.  Therapy

I had to live with 1 out of 3.

I didn't get #1.  Our pediatrician is knowledgeable of attachment disorders, but told us we'd need to seek not only a Child Psychologist but also maybe a Child Psychiatrist to diagnose our daughter.  I told her I was waiting to hear back from 3 professionals in our area, but that we'd definitely get on someone's schedule for professional help as soon as humanly possible.

After some degree of pushing (and a brief breakdown complete with a few shed mommy tears) our doctor hesitantly agreed to #2 -- trying prescription meds.  I'll write about this more in my next post because there is much to tell and much to share with you fellow adoptive trauma mommas who are in the trenches with me.  It's a post I don't think you'll want to miss.

Number 3, therapy, may come with the help of that Child Psychologist.  It has been a fight after fight after fight to get information from our insurance and our EAP.  We had our first appointment today and I have to process and unpack all that is in my brain before I post about that!

Yep, we've been spiraling out of control around here.  I'd classify this as an F5 Quiet Tiger Twister.  As much as I couldn't believe it, it didn't take me by surprise, if that makes any sense at all.  It definitely put us at the end of our ropes with numb fingers and no net underneath us.  Left me feeling completely empty with nothing left to give a single soul.  A fellow RAD mom said exactly how I feel:  "I feel like a failure all the time."  It's not a fun way to live, people.  But this is the life of attachment disorder.  I had hoped beyond hope that this year would go smoothly.  I just don't think it's going to happen without some professional help.

Keep praying friends!

And stay tuned for my next post about medicating.  Maybe what we are experiencing can help others.