Good / bad weekend
This weekend started out real well for Liam. Friday he was very good all day. Jill went shopping and grandma McIlwee came over while she was out. Liam was very good for her as he just played with toys and his brothers. Friday we went to my nephew Ryan’s birthday party where Liam was completely fine there. All the boys had a great time over there as they all played outside and their favorite, video games.
Saturday Seamus had a soccer game where he had another outstanding game. This team was tougher than all the others so far. Seamus’ team fought hard and was ahead 3-2, but lost 5-3. Seamus had 2 goals and his friend Eli had 1. One of Seamus’ goals was hard fought in front of the goal. His persistence paid off as he finally got it in after 3 attempts! Seamus’ coach was even pleased as this was the most excited I’ve seen him after a goal. Way to go Seamus!
Now Liam the whole time was very well behaved at the game. The rest of the afternoon he was home with me while Jill went out grocery shopping. He took a 2 hour nap and was good all afternoon. At some point, he picked at his gums again as his blanket had several blood spots on it. Jill brought home dinner and everyone ate well. The kids played until around 8pm when we finally got them to take a bath. Liam is usually asleep around 9:30, but last night he wasn’t. He stayed awake with Jill until 10:45 pm. We were both perplexed as to why it took so long for him to go to sleep. Well, after I thought about it, I realized I gave him only ½ tablet of Risperdal on accident. It was too late to give him another tablet. My first reaction was, lookout on Sunday.
Sunday rolled around and Jill and I immediately noticed a difference in Liam. He was very hyper, extremely anxious over so many things, and very impulsive. He would scream and grunt more often than in the past week or two. His impulsivity was back like it was a couple weeks ago. It was almost unbearable at times. Just as you would correct him for doing one thing, he was somewhere else doing something he shouldn’t do. We took all the boys to Lowe’s to look at a few things and he was a handful there. It was constant reminders to Liam to control himself. This made for a long trip to the store. Once we got home the kids played outside for a while and Liam’s impulsivity was like it was earlier in the spring. He would not listen, he would just run off on his own, and when he would see one of this brothers touch a toy he wanted, he would drop what he was doing and run over to them screaming at them. This repeated itself several times.
Missing that whole tablet last night really did make for a long day. I expected it, but also thought that maybe just missing ½ dose wouldn’t be so bad. As bad as we feel about medicating Liam to “help” him, when he is not medicated, we see a huge difference in how he acts and behaves. Un-medicated, Liam’s attention is horrible. If Liam had this attention span every day, he would not be able to learn anything. Jill and I keep asking ourselves often if we are doing the right thing. It is days like today’s that we believe we are. Hopefully one day in the future we will be able to look back see we did the right thing, hopefully….
Saturday Seamus had a soccer game where he had another outstanding game. This team was tougher than all the others so far. Seamus’ team fought hard and was ahead 3-2, but lost 5-3. Seamus had 2 goals and his friend Eli had 1. One of Seamus’ goals was hard fought in front of the goal. His persistence paid off as he finally got it in after 3 attempts! Seamus’ coach was even pleased as this was the most excited I’ve seen him after a goal. Way to go Seamus!
Now Liam the whole time was very well behaved at the game. The rest of the afternoon he was home with me while Jill went out grocery shopping. He took a 2 hour nap and was good all afternoon. At some point, he picked at his gums again as his blanket had several blood spots on it. Jill brought home dinner and everyone ate well. The kids played until around 8pm when we finally got them to take a bath. Liam is usually asleep around 9:30, but last night he wasn’t. He stayed awake with Jill until 10:45 pm. We were both perplexed as to why it took so long for him to go to sleep. Well, after I thought about it, I realized I gave him only ½ tablet of Risperdal on accident. It was too late to give him another tablet. My first reaction was, lookout on Sunday.
Sunday rolled around and Jill and I immediately noticed a difference in Liam. He was very hyper, extremely anxious over so many things, and very impulsive. He would scream and grunt more often than in the past week or two. His impulsivity was back like it was a couple weeks ago. It was almost unbearable at times. Just as you would correct him for doing one thing, he was somewhere else doing something he shouldn’t do. We took all the boys to Lowe’s to look at a few things and he was a handful there. It was constant reminders to Liam to control himself. This made for a long trip to the store. Once we got home the kids played outside for a while and Liam’s impulsivity was like it was earlier in the spring. He would not listen, he would just run off on his own, and when he would see one of this brothers touch a toy he wanted, he would drop what he was doing and run over to them screaming at them. This repeated itself several times.
Missing that whole tablet last night really did make for a long day. I expected it, but also thought that maybe just missing ½ dose wouldn’t be so bad. As bad as we feel about medicating Liam to “help” him, when he is not medicated, we see a huge difference in how he acts and behaves. Un-medicated, Liam’s attention is horrible. If Liam had this attention span every day, he would not be able to learn anything. Jill and I keep asking ourselves often if we are doing the right thing. It is days like today’s that we believe we are. Hopefully one day in the future we will be able to look back see we did the right thing, hopefully….
posted by Jim McIlwee at
8:20 PM
1 Comments:
Jim, that's all you can hope for. Doing the right thing. You've been showing love, compassion, and remarkable patience with Liam. I'm absolutely floored when I read this blog...it's amazing just what you have to go through during a single day.
You're a better man than me, that's for sure.
By
Chox, at 6/07/2005 09:18:00 PM
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