Wait…What?

As of last week, R is on new meds for his ADD. The Patch, which served us so well for about three years, just wasn’t getting the job done any longer. Why, we just don’t know. We may never know.

What we DO know, is that R was sleepwalking through his life. He just couldn’t engage with people to any real degree. The best he could manage was a tangential interaction. Either the conversation would be full of non sequiturs,  or R would talk on topic  but with his back to the conversation. On topic and face-to-face was just too much, it seemed. We tried a couple months with a higher dose of patch, to see if that helped. It really didn’t. In hindsight, R just became more of a zombie. In recent weeks, R spent most mornings not in class but in the principal’s office, in time-out. Classroom situations just were not working for him. The school was suggesting that we send him back to neighborhood school. We were starting to consider home-schooling.

It was really pretty bad, all-in-all. R was just plain non-functional on any social level. It was like he saw the world just as the third Stooge, Curly did. You know, Curly: “I’m trying to think, but nuthin’ happens!”

So back to the child psychologist we went. Based on the results we saw (or lack thereof) from the higher patch dosage, he suggested we change R’s meds. So last week we started the new protocol. It’s a pill. It’s not as time-released, which means that R’s meds stop having an effect about dinner time; then we coast down the drug slope until bed time. The Doc assured us that we’d have fewer side effects from this med. He assured us that R would eat; that he’d sleep better; that he’d be more engaged.

He was right.

My son has an appetite again. He eats his meals in minutes, not an hour. He gets things done on his own initiative. He starts his homework by himself, and finishes it promptly. He takes a bath and remembers to wash his hair without being reminded. He can hold multiple instructions in his head at the same time.

It showed in his gymnastics performance over the weekend. I’d mentioned that he seemed to be ‘present’ in his routines. He’s been absolutely ‘present’ ever since. He’s much more kinesthetic – more active – on the new meds, but his head is in the game. I’ll make that tradeoff. The increased activity is within the window of normal; on the patch, R’s thinking and behavior was NOT normal.

It’ll take a couple weeks to establish the new normal in the classroom. I’m encouraged that behavior will change in class as it has at home. All around R, people are responding with “wait…what? Oh, sure!” First they’re caught off-guard by his different level of interaction. Then they’re approving, accepting and encouraging of him. It’s a good dynamic. R is in a better mental place.