The good news you ask??
We are on the up and up, Mason is feeling pretty stinkin good most days! Why??
After the whole “Dr” mess of wanting to put Mason in BC Children’s Youth and Child Pysch Ward at 3.5 years old, we decided we needed some new Drs. that where wiling to try new things not just hide him away.
We had already talked to a new Private Pediatrician about taking on Mason’s care and she had wanted to take some time to read over Mason’s extremely large file and research his Rare Genetic Syndrome. So when we received the call from her office saying she wanted to take him on while we just in the mess of the “Pysch Ward Incident”, we were really looking foward to meeting her and getting help to work with these other Drs.
When we met her she was kind, open, straight forward and had a number of tests and Drs. she felt Mason needed to have and see. We were instantly impressed that she had gone into such detail with Mason’s file and was already wanting to fill in the gaps. Since we first saw her in Mid October she has set up more appts with Specialists and changed and gone over medications. We are waiting for some tests to help us understand Mason and his issues with sleep.
After our first two visits with the Dr. she brought up the fact she believed Mason had severe ADHD, and she thought there was enough severe symptoms to be a full diagnosis of ADHD, not just parts of his Autism. She wanted to do an asessement, talk to and have his teachers and all his workers fill out questionaires. So everyone took part and Mason at 3.5 received a diagnosis of ADHD and we were warned that it was pretty severe do to the sheer amount of symptoms at his age.
Then the talk about Medication finally happened. We had been asking his other Dr. about ANY kind of medication to help him calm down, the violence that he caused himself and distruction of the house and others was just so much for a three year old. The fact that Mason was completely unable to play with anything on his own even for a minute or two was another issue. Developmentally he could do alot, but functionally in everyday life just getting his own pants on was a HUGE struggle for him. Preschool was both fun and very hard for him, his full time worker at school’s main goal was to get him to sit at one activity for 2 mins. That is NOT a long time people. Mason at the start of January new three colors, and a few numbers. That was it! Our old Dr. just wanted him to go to the Psych Ward then… He now knows all his colors and alot of his numbers! We are working on the Alphabet 
Our new Dr. saw the need and had Mason checked out by Cardiology, because yes no one had ever checked out his heart even with all his different health issues! Cardiology gave a clean bill of health, PRAISE JESUS! So after some discussion we decided as a group to put Mason on a Drug similar to Ritaline, but called Biphentin. It has far less side effects and is drug that can be released all day long so there are no “high and lows”, no over drugging at one point of the day and not enough later.
The changes were immediate and they shocked all our pants off! Mason is generally alot happier during the day and his violent tempter tantrums are much less than they used to be. Mason is able to to play for much longer periods of time, and when I say play I do mean “Mason play”. Which is way better than it used to be.
Mason has changed in the following ways:
- Mason is able to sleep through the night, most nights!
- Mason is playing by himself, he plays with toys very different than most but I am NOT complaining.
- Mason is nicer to his workers, there is not so much screaming, hitting and scratching. His workers are actually enjoying him.
There has been one shocking thing through Mason being medicated, he is far more Autisic than we though. It turns out Mason’s AHDH was so severe that he couldn’t even see everything or much going on around him. It’s likely that he was so unregulated all the time b/c he couldn’t focus for any length of time to see what was there right in front of him. This is makes me so sad, and so happy he is medicated. I know having ADHD myself and being not medicated at the moment while carrying our fourth little man, just how hard and frustrating it can be to not be able to function very well. And Mason is far worse than me.
So Mason is showing so many more typical signs of Autism than we all previously thought, but this okay. We know have a Child that people can actually work with, we can work with the typical Autism features now. Everyone on a whole is happier including Mason.
My little boy is the happiest little boy he has ever been!
Does this make Mason easy to do deal with? No, but easier and we can see a light that is shining down on him now.
Mason loves to line and catagorize EVERYTHING in our house. I though I would show you some of the things he has actually been able to do now!
This was the first thing Mason did when he got his meds, he was sitting in his room and saw these out of order in his closet. What you can’t see is that Mason also opened every last one of these bottles, getting through three child protections. That takes FOCUS!! LOL He only ruined $100 of Pedialite.
Mason and Carter making Snow angels at Church on the main stage!
Mason posing with me to have his picture taken, SO NORMAL!
This picture and the next show all the cars lined up on end, the way Mason believes everything in the house should be!
Mason’s out in the Snow, melt down and strip down. And no he didn’t get sick I made him go inside right away! And yes he is walking around in the snow in his socks and doesn’t even notice.
My favorite little Spiderman!
*I understand COMPLETELY that everyone has the right to their own opinion. However, if you feel like you need to leave a negative one, please just write it on a piece of paper and throw it our]t instead. We have had to make some very big decisions and we are happy with the outcome and so is Mason! Medication has been the right decision for our health, Mason’s health both Mentally and Physically.
