Life can change in an instant

It has been over 3 weeks since I blogged and my life has changed in that time. I haven't desired to blog because I am still struggling to come to terms with what has happened and I don't want to acknowledge it as real. 

On June 5, my 10 year old son woke up completely deaf in his right ear and suffering from vertigo and tinnitis.  A trip to the pediatrician gave us a diagnosis of possible inner ear infection and a round of antibiotics.  The vertigo improved fairly quickly and we thought we were moving forward, but by Wednesday of the following week he still couldn't hear anything and after a few people expressed concern I started doing research on the internet.  What I found panicked me and I called a neurotologist from our old church at night to ask him about what I had found.  He confirmed my fears and said to get my son to his office first thing Thursday.  An audiogram showed absolutely no hearing in his right ear (at over 100 db).  Daniel was diagnosed with Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss - a condition whereby you lose hearing suddenly - often when waking up in the morning.  It can range from moderate to profound loss and there are many possible causes.  Unfortunately in 90% of the cases, a cause is never identified and it is considered ideopathic.  Sometimes hearing returns within a few days on it's own, sometimes it never does.

We started treating him aggressively.  To have any hope of reocvery through medication it must be started ASAP.  They won't even bother treating you if your loss started over 2 weeks before you come in. Daniel went on large doses of oral steroids and was given an intratympanic injection of steroids through the eardrum. That is the treatment most thought to help in these cases. He also took an antiviral as it is thought that often SSNHL is a result of a viral infection and that it is a re-infection of the chickenpox virus.  But we were told from the outset not to get our hopes up.  SSNHL usually affects those between 30-60 yrs. and the recovery rates in children are very low.  The fact that he had vertigo is a negative indicator of recovery as is his profound loss.  Last week we had an MRI to check for a possible tumor or ear malformation that would make hearing loss from a bump on the head more likely.  Nothing was found on the MRI, nor did any of his bloodwork show anything.  Daniel had taken a few blows to the right side of his head and ear in the 5 weeks preceding it - the last one just 3 days before he lost his hearing, but the dr. doesn't think any of them could be the culprit.  You can lose hearing from a blow to the head but usually it would be from a car accident or something that ended in fairly serious concussion or skull fracture.  He was scuffling with his brother and actually hit himself with his fist when defending himself from his brother beaning him with a pillow case - hard to believe he could do that much damage.  So that leaves us with ideopathic sudden hearing loss - no identifiable cause.

Last week he had another audiogram and there was some improvement but not a lot. He went from hearing absolutely nothing to hearing at 90 db.  That is still profoundly deaf.  This week I tried having him talk to me on the phone using his right ear and he couldn't hear a thing, so things can't have improved very much, and from all the extensive reading I've done, usually the gains are made in the first 2 weeks, sometimes up to a month.

So I am struggling with having a child who already struggles with attention issues, and now has a further impediment to hearing and paying attention. You would not know it to see him.  He hears perfectly out of his other ear and can follow conversations, hears me calling him around the house etc., but he cannot localize sound - so he doesn't know where I am calling him from.  He is my most active and coodinated kid - good and aggressive at sports, but he is impulsive, so I worry about him running into the road without looking and not hearing a car. If his hearing doesn't improve any more they say he is a candidate for a cochlear implant which would give him back stereo hearing, but that involves a fairly invasive procedure of screwing a rod into your skull, not to mention it is horrifically expensive, and then I wonder whether my active child would smash it by mistake playing basketball or something.  So many emotions are roiling around inside me now and I am struggling.  I am especially concerned about his constant tinnitis that I am afraid will make him go insane if he has to deal with it for the next 70 years. I want a do over.  I want to redo the last 2 months and see if we can change things.  We have another audiogram in 2 weeks. I am still praying for a miracle, but it is looking more and more like that is not God's plan.  I need strength and peace - I am exhausted mentally, physically, and emotionally right now, just drained and depressed.

Currently ADHD: A Survival Guide for Parents and Teachers By Richard A. Lougy, David K. Rosenthal see related

Why am I here?

I wonder if I should continue this blog.  I originally got on to converse with friends and only one still blogs.  And now I either have nothing to say or no time to write about it.  I used to enjoy chatting with others and reading their blogs but now ... and yet I'm not that thrilled with facebook.

I am wrestling with a number of personal & spiritual issues right now.  My ADHD boy is driving me insane and I really struggle to enjoy him.  He requires constant managing and is defiant and self-pitying. I feel sorry for myself because I don't want parenting to be this hard.  I resent feeling trapped by him - my husband and I cannot even go out on a date because each time we do my eldest daughter ends up in tears because he won't mind her.

I also feel like we're/I'm failing as parents.  Both my boys are complaining about scouts.  Do we just let them quit? The younger hasn't given us any reason to quit except that it is boring, which isn't a reason that works for me.  He is supposed to go to cub scout camp in 3 weeks and I can't wait, but he is resentful. I feel that for him, scouts is no longer fun because it now requires work and for ADHD kids mental effort is avoided. And yet I feel camp would be an adventure and he loves adventure. For my elder son he wants to be close to home always which is why I wanted him to learn to be away from me.  AND he quits everything he starts which is not how I was raised.  Also, I find that when they don't have these things to do, the only thing they want to do is play video games and watch tv - again, not something I support.

My daughter I am trying to get into a tennis camp to give her a chance at going out for high school tennis in the fall. Unfortunately there is nothing where we live, so this will involve large amounts of driving for me. Are we doing too much? I wasn't involved with all these extracurriculars when I was younger, but I was constantly playing with neighborhood friends and being active and creative on my own.  Life isn't like that much anymore.

And when I am feeling down on myself I pull away.  I want to read more - escape books, not good ones, although I have read a couple good books on ADHD. I don't pray as often and I find myself extremely short-tempered. I snap at the kids and then feel even worse about myself. I desire change in my head, but the inertia of lethargy is dragging me down.  I am finding that everything inspires anger inside me - not that I let it all show. But I don't really want to examine where it is coming from - out of fear perhaps at the answer.  We have an appointment to take younger son to a Christian psychiatrist in a month and I am afraid of finding out that it's all my fault. I know I've mishandled him and not been patient. He can set me off with a look.  I just want a quick fix and that's not how life works!

Taxes and other mundane issues

I finally finished my taxes and got everything mailed or efiled out.  We will get a modest refund this year - quite modest, my estimating was almost too good.  Unfortunately when I prepared for next year my eyeballs nearly popped out of my head as I discovered a very unpleasant reality.  Whether I did something wrong when originally filling out my W-4 to sub, or whether I filled it out that way on purpose assuming I wouldn't be making much, I have just realized that the school district has not been taking out ANY federal taxes for me.  Now, for the past 2 years that hasn't been a problem because I made next to nothing. This year, however, I am pulling in a nice sum for 5 months.  So, when I had good old Turbo Tax figure out my estimated taxes for this year, the amount - 4 times a year, is basically one month's paycheck for me! Ouch!!!  Of course that includes dh as well, but I cannot tell you how much it hurt to write out a check for almost my entire paycheck this month.  I am going to personnel this morning to rectify that little error, but sigh, it is really depressing!  And of course, my Sept. and Dec. installments will just be pulled out of dh's salary since I won't be working full time again.  Double ouch!  It makes me wonder why I am working - and I am really hoping that I have made a mistake somewhere!

On other fronts - my husband finally reinstalled the antenna last week so we could get our 3 HDTV channels on the tv - admidst lots of grumbling and "I hate tv" talk.  We haven't had tv in almost 2 months because dh  bought 2 signal boosters trying to improve our signal and neither worked so he got disgusted and just never hooked the original antenna back up - because it involved going into the attic which is not pleasant for a 6'6" man.  Well, 2 days after he reinstalled our antenna he tried just one more thing and ... fried the tv completely.  We now have a 27" paperweight. Sigh!  So of course it doesn't make any sense to buy a non-HDTV - but those suckers are expensive, and so much wider than the old tvs that one won't fit into our 3 piece entertainment center.  Thankfully a friend from church gave us an old tv he wasn't using, so we have dodged the bullet for now, but I think dh is hooked on getting a new one after doing all the research.  You know the man and his toys thing.

And to add insult to injury, our son's bike was stolen out of our garage.  They were off last Thursday and Friday but I had to work and I am sure they left the garage door open after they finished playing outside - they always do - and someone just walked off with it.  It makes me so sad about our neighborhood.  We have no plans to replace it - although I do feel a bit guilty about it because I am pretty sure that the one who left the door open was not the one whose bike was stolen.  Life is just frustrating sometimes!

On a positive note - my mom is doing much better!  Her strength is better, and finally after 4 weeks her low grade fever is gone!  The walker is banished to the basement and she even took a walk around the yard with the PT yesterday.  It is all good!

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