Poor kid can't catch a break.

Owen's had a cough for months. It gets better and worse but it's always there. His dr and I have been keeping an eye on it for quite awhile. He had an ear infection a little while ago (at the same time as the cough) so he was on antibiotics. The ear infection went away, the cough stayed. We chalked it up to a bug/virus. Except it still hasn't gone away. Thursday night it got really bad (he also had a mild fever). Since we had a big weekend and beginning of this week I took him to the dr on Friday morning, just to rule out any throat or ear infections before the weekend. All was clear, just the cough and mild wheezing. We went home and kept an eye on it. A week later, it's still not better. So, back to the dr this morning (I also wanted to talk to him about the evaluation Owen had done).

First the dr wants him to have a chest x-ray done just to rule out anything odd going on. He said he's seen kids who had a cough for months and when they finally get a chest x-ray done they find out they asperated a piece of a toy or something. It would be rare, but possible. So he's going to get that done probably tomorrow morning.

The dr fully expects the x-ray to be normal. If that is the case, his next guess is asthma. Right now he's calling it "reactive airway disease"... basically Owen is coughing and wheezing and we don't know why. We are going to try albuterol and see if it helps. If it does, we lean more towards asthma. If it doesn't... we'll brainstorm more and try to figure out how to help this cough/wheezing.

As far as the evaluation he just had goes... the dr and I pretty much agree on it. PDD-NOS seems to fit. Owen has some quirks. He has some signs of autism. He doesn't have enough to meet the criteria for autism. But yet, he's not quite typical either. For now, pdd-nos fits. With the adhd- as the dr said.... he could walk down the street and point out a dozen people within 5 minutes that he can diagnose with adhd. It means nothing. Yes, we'll keep it in mind. No, we are not going to medicate him. It may be a way to explain some of his quirks, sure. But maybe it's not. Who knows. Same with OCD. Just another "roll your eyes and keep it in mind" type of thing. Am I going to jump up and medicate him? Not a chance. Will I keep that possibility in mind? Sure.

For now we are going to try to find some sort of behaviour therapist he can start seeing to work on some of his major issues.

Soooo... that's the update for now.

If you hand out diagnosises (diagnosies?) like candy, eventually the child will take one. Right?

Today we had the long awaited evaluation in Louisville. This is said to be one of the best places for an evaluation around (Cincinnati children's is the other) so I was very very hopeful when we went in. I got up at 5:45 this morning just to get him there on time. And what do I learn?

-pdd-nos provisional diagnosis
-adhd provisional diagnosis
-"possibly ocd too, but I think we'll wait another year to give him that one"

Uhhhhh.... yeah. Whatever. Basically they said that Owen wasn't showing enough signs of autism for that diagnosis (YAY!) but he had enough to get a pdd-nos diagnosis (which is what we assumed was going to happen before we even went today). But they also said that alot of what I've been saying is autism/pdd-nos symptoms are actually adhd symptoms. Hmmm... not sure what to think about that one. The OCD one I kinda laugh at. Only because the kid is 5!! Seriously! OCD??? His OT and I have joked about OCD before, but neither of us were serious. The provisional part of those basically means that he meets the criteria for them right NOW, but that could change in the future so they could take that diagnosis away.

Some of what they said made sense. Some of it just blew me away. They were not even willing to talk about therapy options for the "adhd", they just insisted he needed to be on meds. At just barely 5 years old. Hah. Not going to happen. Just for laughs I did read the papers they sent home with me about ADHD. One of the biggest side effects of these meds is lose of appetite and decreased weight. Yeah.... that's just what he needs. Right.

Updates, good and bad

First the bad. Jason went back to the surgeon this morning for a re-check. They took off the cast and did a new x-ray. Based on that and how his thumb looks, the dr said that it's not healing properly so he's going to have surgery on Monday morning. He'll put 2 pins in. So, that sucks big time. Any positive thoughts for a speedy recovery would be much appreciated!

The good news... we've been trying to get Owen an evaluation at the Weisskopf center for a long time. Last month they told me another 6-8 months. I told his pediatrician that and he gave them a nice little call ;) (Owen's ped rocks by the way!). I got a call yesterday asking if we could be there Tuesday morning!!! So, his eval is Tuesday morning. Woo!!!! Bad news on that one is it's about 1 1/2 hours away and we have to be there at 8am. Yikes! But, we'll do it :)

The hopeful news.... Owen's school is, well, not doing as well as I originally thought they would. I am not too happy with their progress on the evals so we hired an advocate for him. I just signed the paperwork this morning and right now that advocate is sitting down having a meeting with the head of the special education department for our county. After that he's going to see the principal at Owen's school and demand an alarm is put on that door (the one that I put the alarm on but was promised a permanent alarm would be put up "soon".... 7 weeks ago). So.... we'll see how it goes! I'm very hopeful that he'll be able to help us.

The other bad news... the advocate isn't cheap. I did get him to lower his cost and spread out the cost over the next 3 months. Add onto that though the cost of Jason's thumb. Thumbs apparently aren't cheap ;) I don't know what the ER visit is going to cost us yet, we're guessing a couple hundred. Each surgeon appointment costs $20 (he's had 2 so far, will be having many more in the following weeks). The surgery, not including the cost of the anesthesia person, will be about $850. He's also going to need some physical therapy after all is said and done to regain the use of his thumb. I believe that's a $20 co-pay each time too. So, after all is said and done, we're looking at probably $2000-2500ish out of pocket. Yikes! To compound that fun little fact- Jason can't work his weekend job until he's completely healed. Now, the weekend job we don't NEED to survive. We use that for play money, mostly. But losing that job for a couple months and having about $3000 in unexpected bills (Jason's thumb and Owen's advocate) isn't cool. But, we'll survive. I talked to Jason a little about me getting a second job but he doesn't think it's possible because he's not going to be able to do anything with that hand for weeks so he wants me home to help him.

But, we have a roof over our heads, food in our fridge... we'll be fine. And THIS is a huge reason why I've been playing my little couponing game. We can survive for at least a month without buying anything other than fresh fruits, milk, eggs and some meat. We have plenty of frozen veggies, some frozen and canned fruit, pastas, tons of cereal and breakfast bars, nuts, peanut butter, crackers, etc etc. We have plenty of TP and PT for awhile. And I've been working on Christmas gifts for Owen (working sales and coupons) so even if we don't have the money to buy anything else for him, he'll have a good Christmas.

Breathe in.... breathe out..... we'll be fine :)

Weekend pictures

Here's a handful of pictures from the weekend. Saturday afternoon Jason and I actually got to go out.... without Owen.... which happens like twice a year. LOL. Jason's parents watched him at our house. We went to a horse racing place with a friend. It was fun. I bet on 3 races. My first one I picked Owen's lucky number (10). I had a $2 bet and won $9.60 on it. Woo! Then I bet 2 more $2 bets on 2 more races and lost both times. But it was fun. Afterwards we went out to dinner.

Sunday we went to the Louisville Zoo for their Halloween party/trick or treat. Owen LOVED it. Had a blast and wants to go back every day. LOL! Here he is sitting at Shrek's castle.

On an elephant.

On the carousel, which was haunted so it went backwards.

"Where's the train? We need to ride the train". LOL. That was the focus of the whole thing. The train is at the end and is, of course, his favorite part!

Playing checkers at Cracker Barrel after dinner. Yes, he insisted on wearing his costume to dinner ;)

Back from the ER. Again.

This time was Jason. He was playing soccer tonight. We aren't sure what happened (either someone kicked his hand, the ball hit his hand or his hand hit the ground). But he took off his glove after that play and his thumb was in a very abnormal position. Took him to the ER, where we found out he broke his thumb. He's in a soft cast right now, he sees the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow. They don't think he'll have to do surgery to correct it, but he'll need a different cast for sure. Cast for 4-6 weeks. So, for those keeping tabs.... Jason was in the ER in June for his ankle, Owen in July for his cut, Jason in October for his thumb.... fortunately I'm just the taxi driver :) No more, please!

More birthday pics!

Lots of more birthday pictures, starting from where I left off....

Just some of the cupcakes I had to make. Holy cow.

Very thrilled with his book collection being expanded :)

His cake

Blowing out the candles

And helping cut the cake.

He didn't eat any cake, but he certaintly enjoyed the ice cream!

After that party we went home and he unwrapped the rest of the gifts from Jason and I.

Mom getting frustrated with all the tiny pieces to the castle. Come Christmas, Jason gets toy constructing duty for sure.

Who do you think likes the castle more?

Success! He loves his castle! Of course, we don't do weapons so we took away all the knives and swords. He did get to have the catapult, which he loves.

He's a magician! And a cute one too ;)

The following are from his party at Chuck E Cheese's on Saturday.

He was loving the air hockey table. It was just his size.

He insisted the other night that he wanted to look at a book while he was falling asleep. I went to check on him a little bit later and this is what I found. How cute!!

That's it for now!

Happy Birthday Owen!!

I can't believe my little baby is 5 years old already! Where does the time go? Here's a little sneak peek at pictures. Owen was up bright and early this morning. LOL!

For months Owen has been talking about a "birthday tree", which is like a Christmas tree. Except it's for your birthday. What a cute imagination! So, we couldn't disappoint him and made him a "birthday tree". The ornaments were stickers I found on clearance a couple months ago. We stuck them to thick paper, punched a hole and used some gold stuff to tie a loop in each. He was SO excited when he came downstairs and saw his birthday tree!

He's not excited at all..... no..... LOL!

He got to open one present this morning, the rest are for tonight. He opened up a Thomas DVD (shocker!) and was thrilled. Now he's watching it to give mama a little break since it's so darn early. And I stayed up late making tons of cupcakes (pictures to follow...).

More pictures after his birthday! Have a great day :)

Oh, one more thing. I read Owen a bedtime story every night. Last night I went to go read him one and he told me "No mama, you go lay down in the bed. I'll read you a story. I'm a big boy now!". And he did! He picked out the book (Bread and Honey) and read it to me. He needed help with one word and that was it! Of course, after he was done he told me "Okay mama, now you can read me a story". Stinker! Of course he got it :) I took a video of it, but it's too long to post on here. Bummer.