About our Daughter

I am mother to four wonderful daughters, ages 17, 19, 21, and 23, and wife to the greatest husband on earth. God has given us a special child to raise one who was diagnosed with early-onset bipolar disorder at the age of seven, though she showed signs of it from the age of fifteen months. She also has ADHD, Sensory Integration Disorder (sensory seeking), Dyslexia, and Non-Verbal Learning Disorder-NOS, all typical comorbidities for a bipolar child. In spite of the trials, she enjoys lacrosse, running (finished her first marathon in October of 2014!), and reading and writing her own books. I will share with you the many joys and sorrows we have faced and will face in the future with the hope that you may find better understanding about this mental illness caused by both chemical and structural abnormalities in the brain. I desire that you will be encouraged by this blog if you are also dealing with a bipolar child. Thank you for reading and sharing in our journey.

How Did You Know She Was Bipolar So Young?

I wrote a long explanation of how we came to this bipolar diagnosis in a child so young under my post of March 19th of 2009. If your child or a child you know bears similarities, please seek out a good psychiatrist and don't wait for "things to get better." Often they will simply get worse, and the longer a child is unmedicated, the more damage their brain can accrue. Early diagnoses and treatment are key to providing these children with a chance at a successful life later as a teen and an adult.
Never change, start or stop a medication without the approval of your child's physician!

Friday, December 7, 2012

Meltdown

So we should not have sent her to school today after she missed a whole morning's dose yesterday.  We discovered around bedtime that she had forgotten to take her morning meds.  I can't give her both her morning meds and evening meds at the same time because that would be dangerous, so usually we try to break up the missed doses among the next day's meds, spreading them out.  But that wasn't enough to get her through the morning and she called me from the bathroom at school having walked out of a class seething mad over her geometry teacher's style of teaching.  He always points out the students who got As on quizzes and tests and has everyone applaud for them and they get homework passes.  This drives Caroline crazy.  She thinks she is being humiliated along with all the other non-A students.  What do you think about this practice?  I have mixed feelings about it.  He also plots all of the grades on a bell curve, without the names, but she thinks that everyone knows she is the one with the lowest grades.  She is a little paranoid.  Anyway, finals start next week so hopefully she can get back on track this weekend.

2 comments:

NikDuck said...

Personally, I think that is a little obnoxious pointing out those that got an A and having everyone applaud??! Homework passes okay, but applauding is a little over the top. I read your last post as well. While T1D and bi-polar are very different, there are a lot of similarities in their rights and how they are treated at school. Like when our daughter is older she is supposed to have the right to re-take a test (or not take at the time) if her blood sugar is too high or low at the time and note the blood sugar on her test. She isn't old enough to worry about that just yet, but it's a lot to think about in the future. Wish you were still here so we could have lunch together and chat!

Megan said...

I would love to hang out with you! Having a special needs kid is such a full time job! I keep wanting to get a job but I would be hard pressed to actually be able to stay at any job all day. I am always needed it seems. Yes, I think the teacher is unnecessarily harsh. He doesn't see it that way but he also has never struggled in math. I am actually going to ask the principal what he thinks because I am sure other kids are having a hard time with this. This isn't a sports team awards ceremony. At least then there is Most Improved, right?