Good News From School

Image via WikipediaWhen my son was home from school for the Thanksgiving break, I was deeply concerned because he has still been losing weight.  All told since he started at the school 13 months ago, he has lost over 40 pounds.  He probably would have benefited from losing some of the weight, but he had lost a little too much.

When my wife took him back to school last week, she had a conversation with his teacher and the school nurse. There have been a couple of things going on. After breakfast each morning he would often lie down and go back to sleep until about 11 am.  He would also have a lot of undesirable behaviors such as dropping to the ground, hitting others, and throwing things like his glasses.

My son has never swallowed pills, so we have always had to crush his pills and mix them with his drink or food. One of his medications is supposed to be an extended release formulation.  Since we had to crush the pills, he was not getting the benefit of the extended release.  The nurse was concerned that getting all of the medication at once, combined with the weight loss was possibly causing some of his problems.

We contacted our son's psychiatrist, and he faxed a new medication order over to the school cancelling that one particular medication.  The plan is to see how he does without the medication.  If he does well, then we will keep him off of the medication.  If he continues to have issues, then we will look into putting him on another medication that is not extended release.

On Friday, they stopped giving him that medication.  On Monday, we received an email from the school nurse  that he had been better behaved and been eating more, as long as the food was covered in BBQ sauce.  She also informed us that he was using his spare pair of glasses because a lens had popped out of his primary pair of glasses and they could not find it.

Today, my wife drove out to school to take a new spare pair of glasses out to them.  She talked with everybody involved with our son at school, and they say he has been doing a lot better.  He has not dropped to the ground once, he has been focused and doing his lessons, and he has even eaten fish sticks (with BBQ sauce.)  He has never eaten fish before.

When my wife saw him in his classroom, he was not laying down like he usually does but was actively working on his lesson.  He even asked his aide for assistance.  The other good piece of news is that since he has been off the medication, he has actually gained a pound.  It has only been one week off of the medication, but so far so good.  I love the fact that he is eating a bit more and behaving himself. Hopefully this is the start of something good.