pandas...what is it?
Why is my life such a disasters? (nota bene, her life is more than one disaster. And so young).
Why is my life filled with disasters, that's all I want to know.
Disasters in the life of a five year old girl might include things like, a hole in their pink tights, not being able to have their friend over. Like the bitter disappointment of being out of apples and peanut butter. Not being able to catch a butterfly with your new butterfly net, your brother kisses you on the cheek uninvited. Now normally on any given day, the coping skills for these small tragedies would be in tact. But imagine a day where disaster upon endless disaster piled up.
We all have our breaking point.
And, naturally, at our breaking point, it does seem like everyone else has a perfect life. Motherhood is so like this.
Life is really hard when you're five, honey.
Elizabeth's life isn't hard. She's five. Everyone else has a perfect life except for me. Why don't they just see what it's like for me? I don't know who the "they" are; her parents, the civil authorities, the media. Maybe the police. At any rate "they" are unsympathetic to five year olds and the crosses their bear.
Rosebud actually has had some real crosses in her short little lifespan. In the next couple of posts, I'm going to address the trials of Baby Rosebud. About two years ago, Rosebud being 3 and a half, we had a crisis.
Rosebud was an easy and confident three year old. She was mature and well spoken. We went with another family on a field trip in January of 2010, an ordinary and fun day. The next morning she woke up, fussy, withdrawn, not speaking...definitely not herself. The words that came to my mind...neurosis, delirium. Not herself. Not anything that she had ever been like.
I thought perhaps she was sick, and in fact, when I checked off and on through the day her temperature was up just a degree or two. But off and on. I didn't give her anything for it, she didn't seem to be sick but she was acting a little like I had seen my children act during a fever delirium. But that had only ever been with the onset of a significantly high fever.
Her weird behaviour escalated through the evening and night and the next day. She also had distinct OCD symptoms, and having been through OCD in a serious way several years ago with one of my older children, I was well acquainted with that behaviour. A couple of days later, we woke up in the morning to Huckleberry who had an eye that was swollen shut and the size of a golf ball. We took him into our physician right away, who looked at him and said he probably had strep throat, did a swab and said that they eye swelling was a complication of the strep and he needed to be on an antibiotic. If he didn't clear up within 24 hours, he would need to go on an intravenous antibiotic.
It occurred to me after I got home that I should have had Rosebud checked out, but I guess I just thought it would pass. That night, I checked the Chicken Whisperer's throat, which was covered in white spots. Another one down. Took him in the next morning. Like Huck, he had no pain, no fever, but was swabbed and put on an antibiotic assuming it was also strep. Huck's eye was no longer swollen after 24 hours. Test results a couple of days later confirmed strep. This trip to the doctor's office I had the wherewithal to ask about Rosebud.
Could a low grade fever cause delirium? Never seen that, but probably.
Could an infection cause symptoms that might be like OCD or delirium, non communication? Absolutely.
Could you check her throat, too? Yes and oh my, covered and spots and both ears in full blown infection. That could definitely affect behaviour. Has she complained of pain?
No, none of the kids have complained of pain, and yet they all have strep. No pain, no fever, except for a very low grade fever in Rosebud. Weird.
So she too, was put on an antibiotic. Phew, I thought. She'll be right in a day or two.
But she wasn't. She started screaming. High pitched, frequent and inconsolable screaming. Intense increase in obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Repeating one word, or phrase, differently each time a hundred times or more. Moving her hand or an object over and over to try and get it in the perfect position...freaking out when it "didn't work."
She hadn't eaten or drunk anything for about five days. She refused to nurse. I started taking a sippy cup and tipping her head back to make her swallow it, so that she wouldn't become dehydrated. She spent the entire day folded up on my lap, her head bent over and pressed against my belly. As though she was trying to shut out the world. Anything that upset this "flight" position set her screaming uncontrollably, blindly.
While she sat on my lap, and I was sinking into despair, wondering how my child could lose her mind overnight, I plunked on my computer to see if anything could give me a clue to her bizarre behaviour. Early childhood OCD, OCD in young children, OCD and infection, autism, screaming, ear infections and brain chemistry...anything I could think of that might be a clue. After two days of this, Alice, thank God for Alice, typed these words in a google search, as she did her own research on her computer...sudden onset, OCD symptoms...MOM! I have it, this is it, I know what this is, you won't believe this....LOOK AT THIS!
The ‘this' was mounds of information on PANDAS.
Next post on PANDAS here.