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, July 2, 2010

Med Change

Caroline has continued to ramp up, to the point of alarming us greatly. On Wednesday, she saw the tdoc, to whom I explained our whole last week, with the dark leanings of her novel, the sensuality, her obsessions, the non-stop stream of consciousness chattering (which is exhausting), and the increase in defiance. She said she would talk to the nurse practitioner who works with Caroline's pdoc (they are all in the same practice), about the symptoms and how we are uncomfortable at this point with relying on increases in the Neuro Science supplements to "fix" things.

Today we met with the nurse practitioner, who we love, and she agreed to go up on the Seroquel, the antipsychotic. We had discusses the pros and cons of increasing the Trileptal (already at 1800mg) or the Seroquel (at 400mg presently) and concluded that the Seroquel would probably work faster. With her first summer camp approaching on Monday, we need to get the mania under control ASAP. So we will see how this goes, as we try first a 50mg increase tonight. Seroquel has the unwanted side effect of rapid weight gain, but with Caroline's activity level , she has managed to drop to a size 1 lately, so maybe she will be OK.

She spent this whole gorgeous afternoon at the pool playing lacrosse with some folks, and when she got home, she showed us her newest friend, a nice girl, on her phone. She is now meeting a lot of the "normal" kids at the pool, and beginning to make some progress in the friendship arena. I wish I knew all of their parents, though. I am very keen on knowing the parents of any friends she makes because I can usually gage whether or not she would be "safe" hanging out with them based on what I know about their parents ideas of boundaries, freedoms, movies, etc.

I am exhausted by this week, I must say, and finding myself turning to my props for stress relief, which is usually buying things. Not a great habit to have at all. But at least they were items on the small scale, but I still have to watch myself. Sometimes I don't realize how stressed out I am until I come home with purchases and realize that I am feeling out of control too. When Caroline spins up, the whole family gets stressed, and everyone's weaknesses show in a big way.

Must turn in now. Good night!!
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