Day 1

After yesterday's debacle, I was really nervous going into today's session. First of all, it's the first day of school! Our appointment was scheduled immediately after, so I had no idea what mood I was going to meet at parent pick-up.

Fortunately, Amy and Gwyn came bouncing out of the hallway with great excitement. After dropping off the other two to Gram's (God bless Gram), Amy said she would be willing to watch the movie we brought during her treatment.

We went in and she sat down with only minimal fuss. Yay!

She was even patient while there were numerous technical difficulties with wires and electrodes and DVD's. I thought my laptop was a pain in the butt. These machines are like something out of a science fiction novel -- I can understand why Amy is intimidated by them!

The Good Doc was able to show me which parts of Amy's brain needed attention. It is REALLY nice to see confirmation that something is eschew in there. We were able to see a big red blob that indicates sensory issues,  an even bigger red blob that indicates emotional control/mood problems, and a super big blue blob that indicates anxiety and the inability to relax. Another blob showed her impulsivity.

Nailed it!

I was surprised, because some of the big red blobs were in places that would indicate learning problems or fluency issues. These are actually areas where Amy is advanced and does quite well. I have no idea what to make of that. The good doc didn't seem to think it was an issue.

I also can't remember if there were any blobs that indicated attention problems. I can't recall any. If there aren't, does that change the diagnosis of ADHD to something else? Perhaps a mood disorder?

Questions for next time, I suppose.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter at this point. The "diagnosis" is just a set of words used to indicate symptoms, right? We can see the brain to know what to treat, and that's the big issue.

So, Amy sat still and watched a cartoon. The program moved around quite a bit, getting larger and smaller, and brighter and darker. It made me a little dizzy trying to watch it. There was a column on the left side that indicated where her attention was. The idea is to keep the column low in order to keep the movie still. There were also numbers at the top that I have no idea about. At the end, the Good Doc looked at the numbers and said she earned 908 points, so I guess the higher the number the better?

She really did quite well sitting still, and we could see on her readouts at the end a trend that looked like  something good was happening.

When we got in the car, she started to cry again, though. I asked if it was hard to watch the program, because it was so bouncy, and she said that it was so hard she eventually just started to watch the green bar. She said she held her breath every time it went high, but then became distressed that she couldn't keep doing that. She doesn't want to go back, is embarrassed and cranky.

After picking up the sibs she kept yelling at them to be quiet and overall was pretty cranky the rest of the night. She seemed very, very tired. After the first day back to school, plus NFB, I can't say I blame her! She did go to sleep easily -- so that's a plus! I am interested to see what her mood is like in the morning.

Our next appointment isn't until next Tuesday, so we have almost a full week to look anxiously for any behavior changes.

Mantra: It's too soon, it's too soon, it's too soon...