Quote:
Originally Posted by Mistress
I'm sorry you had to go thru this. Proper evaluation and diagnosis is key when dealing with something like this. Part of the problem is not enough time to properly get to the root of the problem, writing a prescription and shoving the person out the door.
|
I walked into the situation when I married the ex and adopted Scott...something didn't seem quite right and for some reason I didn't know enough about Ritalin and the reasons for it to even ask any questions...I should have asked but I didn't know WHAT to ask or to whom the questions would have been directed to...
It took the kid, running at full-tilt kid-speed, smacking his forehead onto a crossbar on a "Jungle-Gym" on the school grounds to get to the root of the problem...the teacher saw it happen...we (and the school and doctors) think just before he reached the crossbar, he went into a petit mal seizure, hit the bar and landed flat on his back. The teacher apologized to me when she described it, but she said he looked just like a cartoon character...smacking his head on the bar and momentum carried his feet forward enough and up that he flat-out one-point landed on his back like Willie Coyote in a Road-Runner 'toon.
When we got to the hospital (You bet, they called an ambulance and had his neck in a brace and his body on a back-board!) they already had him wired up for an MRI and EEG to see what was left of him...
He ended up with one hell of welt on the forehead, no fractured skull, but it was the EEG that showed some disturbing brain patterns...after a night of sleep deprivation, he went back in for another, deeper scan and that's when they nailed it as Petit Mal Seizures...Depokeen was prescribed, and after a round or two of proper re-dosing, we managed to get the right amount in him for the right time periods. Then, within 6 weeks, we had newer, improved teenager (Oh goody!
). No more Ritalin and the moodiness disappeared. Then the re-learning of social graces had to begin...
The public schools are the real problem when it comes to working with the kids...all they want, or have time for, is to dope the kids to a reasonably equal level, toss assignments at 'em and hope that something, somewhere, sinks in and stains a few cells of gray between their ears...
Other than that...they're on their own. The strong survive and weak are eaten alive...