March of 2010: Guerro my middle son was kicked out of Catholic School. After many pleadings from us to the Head Nun...there was not much else she could do. She had tried everything, but his violent outburst in class and disobidiency still kept on occuring. Due to being a Catholic School she did not have the resources or the man power to deal with him. The last episode was so horrible he called her very bad names that a child his age (6) should not even be saying. and he kicked her and threw a chair in his classroom. Just because they told him to line up.
We kept him home for the remainder of the school year instead of transferring him to the public school system.
After this incident, I made an urgent appointment with his pediatric physician that specifically only sees kids with ADD/ADHD. I had gotten him diagnosed early in the school year because his regualr ped. could not get him evaluated until he started school. And so our journey began in August 2009.
Although as a mother I always knew something was different about him... He just wasn't normal compared to other kids his age.
Clue # 1- He was constantly on the go from the time he woke up until the sun went down
( I was pregnant with twins when he was 9months old to 18 months and I only gained 20 Lbs. since I was constatly chassing him)
Clue#2- What 2 yearold drives a Car- Literally drove our Car... Thank God we were on a dead end street when this happened. ( I shall have to blog about this someday)
Clue#3 - Now he is almost 3- and he chopped the tip of his pinky off. I remeber going to the emergency room paniced that they would call the department of child and family..because honestly how does a child cut his finger off.
There were other incidents as well...but a story for another day,.
There were other incidents as well...but a story for another day,.
And there were many other inceidents...I could go on and on.
Well I kind of always joked that he was my ADD child and it turned out he was he was horrible the first few weeks of school, although I had made an appt. witht he special ped. since his physical but of course there was a 3 MONTH wait list. So they nun did nto allow him to go to school until he was diagnosed officially and put on meds. So I call the doctor's office franitcly telling them he would not be allowed to go to school until he saw the specialist, so two days later we get a call to come in around 11: am. And we got to see Doctor Blair (an angel). He prescribed Concerta and off we went. and then we had to finish the eval on our regualr appt date. But he went back to school and was doing fairly well. But then our lovely insurance decided that they would not pay for the Concerta and we had to put him on straight ritalin. That my ladies was a disatrer. That is when the tantrums yelling screaming throwing stuff name calling started. I told the social worker what was going on and she didnt pay attention she kept on saying well when he is back on the concerta he should get better. Well he finally turned 6 and we were back on concerta and nothing really changed. He was still haveing the tantrums. I raised the quesetion again. and she still didnt pay attention to my concerns. So when he finally got kicked out and was able to talk to Doctor Blair again. I expressed my concerns and it helped that the hubby went with me, cause to be honest I tend to sugar coat things. He is very straight to the point. So our special ped. was very concerned especially with this last incident and moved over to the psych department. Yes the Psych Deptartment. As we talked to Doctor Blair he made us answer more questions.And we answered yes to many questions that put our son in realm of
Early Onset Ppediatric Bipolar.
Well I kind of always joked that he was my ADD child and it turned out he was he was horrible the first few weeks of school, although I had made an appt. witht he special ped. since his physical but of course there was a 3 MONTH wait list. So they nun did nto allow him to go to school until he was diagnosed officially and put on meds. So I call the doctor's office franitcly telling them he would not be allowed to go to school until he saw the specialist, so two days later we get a call to come in around 11: am. And we got to see Doctor Blair (an angel). He prescribed Concerta and off we went. and then we had to finish the eval on our regualr appt date. But he went back to school and was doing fairly well. But then our lovely insurance decided that they would not pay for the Concerta and we had to put him on straight ritalin. That my ladies was a disatrer. That is when the tantrums yelling screaming throwing stuff name calling started. I told the social worker what was going on and she didnt pay attention she kept on saying well when he is back on the concerta he should get better. Well he finally turned 6 and we were back on concerta and nothing really changed. He was still haveing the tantrums. I raised the quesetion again. and she still didnt pay attention to my concerns. So when he finally got kicked out and was able to talk to Doctor Blair again. I expressed my concerns and it helped that the hubby went with me, cause to be honest I tend to sugar coat things. He is very straight to the point. So our special ped. was very concerned especially with this last incident and moved over to the psych department. Yes the Psych Deptartment. As we talked to Doctor Blair he made us answer more questions.And we answered yes to many questions that put our son in realm of
Early Onset Ppediatric Bipolar.
So now what, we got a referral to see a pediatric Psychologist. Did the background on this lady to see what exeperience she had and so far she has turned out ok.
I have learned that a mother's intinct never lies when you sense something is not right.
As to how latinos play a part in this ordeal is that most do not believe that children can have metal illness of any sorts and that medication should not be given to children. "los quieres traer todos drogados" You want to have them all drugged up. No if you had the option of having a child without temper tantrums or hitting his sisters for no reason and I mean hitting them, and the medecine helped wouldnt you give it to him.
My Mexican Parents have finally excepted this after almost two years of seeing me struggle with my son but I wish there was more awareness of these diseases in the hispanic community.
