Details of last Friday's visit

I realized that I better update on the details of Friday's visit before it was time to go down again and then I'd really be getting behind! This past Friday was the first visit we had, and he had been down there a total of 11 days.

They wanted to observe him in school there as well as his interactions with the other kids on his meds. We all know they weren't working, but they needed to see where he was. After a few days of that, they slowly started pulling him off of them, and they are still in that process of getting him off of everything to see him at baseline. Obviously an angry child off of meds is not an easy thing to deal with, and they have definitely had their hands full.

In the therapy session, his doctor and I discussed him - without Eli present for the first half of the meeting. She said that it was evident that he is very bright. He has done a lot of talking about history and President Lincoln. He has really amazed them, and his teachers said they are constantly shocked at some of the things that he knows and says - especially for his age.

He also is able (when he is in control of his emotions and feelings and having a good day) to tell you what he should do when he gets upset, what "coping skills" he has learned, and he will tell you how they are supposed to help calm him down. The bottom line is that he has shown the staff and the doctors there that he KNOWS the right thing to do. If he could just stay level headed enough to be able to think about what he knows then we would be making big progress.

Halfway through our meeting, Eli got to come in and that part was really strange. He was really withdrawn and didn't really talk. Once our meeting was over he started really warming up, and we spent the day playing and reading books, playing pool, air hockey, baseball and on and on. I did have him go back to school in the afternoon, because I didn't want my visit to completely throw him off of his routine, but once school was over we resumed playing and I did a few mommy things like clipping his nails and inspecting his hair to make sure he was washing it and so on. It was good to just SEE him and love on him and have time with him.

They did do an EEG, but the results weren't back in time for our meeting, so I am sure I will find out the results of it this Friday. One interesting thing that I witnessed was the fact that even though there are many children there, he is more content to play alone. Even when invited or tossed a ball to play and join the group, he gives the ball back or takes it and goes his own way. That is heartbreaking as a mother to see, but it gives me more relief in the sense that he IS in the right place, and this is the best thing we can do for him at this point.

I just made my reservations for this Thursday and Friday, and my mom and Chase will be going down with me this week.

The one thing that we found was that Saturday after I left, Eli had a horrible day. He was angry, and lashing out, and it made me question whether my being here and visiting was in his best interest. We will see how this weeks visit affects him; hopefully it was a fluke and he simply was having a bad day. But if he has the same pattern this Saturday and next, when Norman is able to visit, then I will have to strongly consider taking Chase and going home to DC and making our visits less frequent.

I keep praying that whatever I am supposed to do...whatever is in Eli's best interest...will make itself clear. Perhaps Eli is showing me that the visits are too much for him - at least right now. Only time will tell. I am anxious to see him again though...anxious to talk to the doctors to find out if they have discovered anything new that might give us some answers or help. I know that is too much to ask at this point, but I keep praying for it regardless. Hopefully we'll know more Friday...