Happy Holidays! And a mini-update.

I have a lot of stuff to catch up on. 

Summing up: my cousin had another really bad breakdown, which we think is exacerbated by involvement in a particular local 12-step group that has mutated into something secretive, hierarchical and cultlike. Then we had an extended-family dispute over Thanksgiving that was very depressing to me, but I'm not going to talk about it any more.

I received some documentation on BB that states he was meth-exposed, which I half expected.  I did not expect that learning about BB's medical issues would give me so much insight into Sunny's issues. Really, it's like a lightbulb went off in my head. We don't have much medical info on Sunny beyond basic hospital stuff, because he didn't come into foster care until he was almost three.  But by all accounts, he had almost exactly the same issues as an infant that BB is having now.

On advice from Tubaville, I'm going to make an appointment with a neurologist ASAP.  This makes me really sad for Sunny. Much of his behavior must come from the fact that his brain was literally damaged by  destructive chemicals. Again, it's a possibility that was always in the back of mind, but I never really brought it to the front.  It's up there in the front right now, for sure. And unlike ADHD, which I feel confident about discussing widely, meth-exposure has a greater stigma, and so that raises huge privacy issues for me.  If this blog goes private for a while, that will probably be the reason why. On the other hand, this is really, incredibly important stuff for other parents to know about, and we stay ignorant when we don't listen AND talk... it's hard to say.

We're also halfway through a med change for Sunny.  We're switching from an atypical antipsychotic to an anticonvulsive. It's supposed to have less potential side effects, but Sunny has already been complaining of stomach pain, which is really worrying me. We're going to keep it up because so far the pains have been intermittent, haven't affected his appetite at all and there's a chance they'll go away as his body adjusts to the new medication.  He has a new diagnosis -- IED -- and if you know what that stands for, it's sort of a baloney diagnosis, but then again I take all these diagnoses with a grain of salt.

I'm mostly keeping up with my fitness plan. I'm getting burned out on Debbie Siebers but I still do Burn It Up a couple times a week and I'm exercising at least 5 days a week. 

So far Christmas is going OK.  I IMed my dad in Hawaii the other day and wished him a Mele Kalikimaka (Hawaiian for Merry Christmas).  I expected him to IM back something like "I don't believe in that garbage" or "you will burn in hellfire forever".  Instead, he wished me a Mele Kalikimaka right back!  He really has mellowed a lot in his old age.  Maybe one day he'll even buy me a present on Christmas, or let me buy one for him.

We're going to have a small Christmas, and my cousin is getting a day pass from her clinic to join us.  Sunny has been tracking Santa and making calculations about the chimney size.  I'm a bit stressed but staying in good spirits.

I'd also like to congratulate Thorn, who has a special visitor this season.

Celebrity ADHD?

I thought I had absolutely no interest in blogging about Kanye West, who seems to be the number one topic of conversation in the blogosphere over the last few days.  I don't have TV, much less cable, and haven't watched MTV in decades.  One celebrity was mean to another celebrity because they got an award they thought should have gone to yet another celebrity... yawn.  I'm usually interested in looking at any kind of racial analysis in the media but I care so little about the celebrities involved that I didn't muster up the energy in this case.

Then I read this post at the Republic of T that casts the episode in a different light...

In fact, four of the five most common social problems experienced by kids with ADD/ADHD could easily apply to West.

* Interrupting others – One of the primary symptoms associated with ADHD is impulsivity. The uncontrollable urge to speak makes it hard to listen. Additionally, kids with ADHD have difficulty focusing on one thought for very long, therefore getting their thought out may be more important than joining in the rhythm of the conversation.
* Failure to understand others anger – Kids with ADHD don’t perceive their inconsiderate actions as rude. They may not be able to understand why the schoolmate they interrupted 10 times in a five minute conversation was angry. After all what’s wrong with joining in on the conversation.
* Being Perceived as Self Centered – Self centeredness can be a serious problems both for kids and adults. The ADHD personality may come across as one that doesn’t understand the feelings or needs of others. If this trait is carried forward into adulthood it can be very problematic in personal relationships. For kid with ADHD it often causes problems with schoolmates, parents, and teachers.
* Not respecting others space – Little Johnny sat behind Sara in class. He continually bumps her chair and when no one is looking pulls her hair. Little Johnny doesn’t understand why he keeps getting in trouble, after all he likes little Sara. Kids with ADHD struggle with the concept of personal space. When you combine the disregard for others personal space with ADHD symptoms such as hyperactivity and inattention, classmate Sara should ask for a different seat assignment immediately!
* Poor sportsmanship – One of the common traits of ADHD children is becoming easily frustrated. Frustration can spill over into other activities such as sports; leading kids with ADHD to cheat if they fall behind and throw temper tantrums if the outcome isn’t acceptable. Often poor losers have trouble finding others to interact with socially thus adding to their already unpredictable behavior.

And in West’s behavior, I recognize at least one symptom of ADD/ADHD.

Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequence

I have mixed feelings about using ADHD as a label. I think it's used too often to label and limit kids. But there's also power (for the good) in understanding the way they think and benefiting from the experience of others with similar conditions.

All the above behaviors also apply to Sunny. I do think he has ADHD. After talking with NN, I think it runs in his maternal family, just like it runs in mine.  As I've often said, I don't think Sunny's ADHD is as severe as my cousin's or my uncle's. ADHD is just a bracketed subset along a mental spectrum. Sunny has a lot of problems with interrupting, personal space issues and so on, but he can function in a normal classroom with a fairly light set of 504-plan accommodations.

I almost hate to say it, but Sunny's personality seems rather Kanye-ish. He has a strong and very rigid sense of fairness. He interrupts others and speaks loudly. He expresses whatever he feels at any given moment, whether it's love, sadness or anger. He has a huge amount of confidence and thinks he's great at everything. He's very popular with other kids, but they also get mad at him at all the time. Sunny's ten-year-old friend often gives him lectures about his behavior! If he had a blog it would probably be in all capital letters.

This is not to say that he's helpless to change the more negative aspects of his behavior. We work on sportsmanship all the time and we've made some decent progress. He's capable of good sportsmanship, it's just more difficult for him than for the average child.

I agree with the blogger Terrance that if Kanye has ADD/ADHD, it isn't an excuse. He was still acting like a jackass (as Obama said). Or maybe he was drunk. Likely it was all three at the same time: he was being a drunk jackass with ADD/ADHD.

Terrance, who has ADD, offered this piece of advice for challenging situations based on his own experience. It's one I'm going to keep in mind for Sunny.

My strategy, for those times, is to fall back on a rule I taught myself years ago: “If I don’t say anything, I can’t say the wrong thing. If I don’t do anything, I can’t do anything wrong.”

And I almost forgot, my stepfather was diagnosed a few years ago (in his late fifties) with ADD plus PTSD.  He has horrendously bad impulse control.  I love him, but he's totally helpless in many ways and if it wasn't for my mother he'd probably be sleeping in a ditch somewhere.  Medication (a varying combination of Ritalin, Wellbutrin and Lexapro) has vastly improved his quality of life.  He had to discontinue the Ritalin for a while because of his Hepatitis C, but he wants to get back on it.

A Sunny Future

Good news on the pain in my side. I exercised several times last week and did a particularly strenuous class on Saturday. On Sunday I felt like I'd been hit with a baseball bat multiple times in the torso. But today my side feels great! The pain is at the lowest level in months, and I can inhale deeply all I want!

Saturday was also a date night. I think it's only the second date night we've had since becoming parents. We went to to an Ethiopian restaurant then saw Cthulhu. I was quite curious to see it after reading this account of the filming. The movie wasn't bad! Not really great, but not bad either. I recommend reading the article if you've ever been involved with movie production; otherwise, it's probably too long and esoteric.

During our kid-free date night, the topic of conversation was of course... the kid. We came to some really positive conclusions. The goal is to have Sunny working up to his potential in school by the time he becomes a teenager. Six years sounds like enough time.

This is assuming he doesn't have "real" ADHD. On the other hand, he might really have the same kind of genetic ADHD that runs in my family. If that's the case, my expectations are going to be a bit different (though not necessarily lower). But at this point, we think it's most likely that if he can work through emotional and anxiety issues over the next six years -- the ones producing symptoms that mirror ADHD -- he'll be at the point where he doesn't need any drugs or major special accommodations to succeed academically.

Guy remarked on how social he is. When we take him to school he always has a smile or wave for the other kids. They all smile and wave back and call him by name.

It's a contrast to a very recent NY Times Magazine article I read about kids diagnosed with bipolar disorder. It does a good job outlining the conflicting theories about bipolar in children. Pretty terrifying stuff. Most of the parents featured in that article were ridiculously rich, throwing money at their problems and still going through hell. It makes me sad to think about the other kids, the ones who live in low-income neighborhoods in New York. Most of them probably end up in prison, which nowadays is the low-income person's only available mental health facility.

I think there are three systems for psychiatric treatment of children. There's one for parents with money that's described in the article. There's another one for parents without money, where parents don't have the resources to get the right diagnoses, treatments or medications. And then the one for foster care kids, in which they're both underdiagnosed and undertreated AND overdiagnosed and overmedicated. It's the worst of both worlds.

I am so far quite unhappy with the quality of treatment under Medicaid we're getting for Sunny. I have to stick with it. We can compensate for it in other ways... for now.

It all gets back to the election. If Obama doesn't win, we're going to be totally screwed.

Uncertainty and Preparation

I wish I knew when Sunny's final placement was going to be. We're really hoping for within a month.

The great thing about having visited Sunny is that we know he's in a nice home with great foster parents. We don't have to worry about him!

We're calling him every two or three days and talking to him for a minute or so. Mainly "what did you do today" conversations. Today, I told him I bought him a piggy bank (he'd asked me for one at his last visit). He yelled at his foster mom, "GUESS WHAT! MOM GOT ME A PIGGYBANK!" He was so excited. A simple thing, but it really made me happy.

We're in the middle of school choice issues right now. Our first choice doesn't look as certain as it did before. We'll need backups, and backups to the backups. There are a lot of options and we're starting to narrow them down bit by bit. Some factors are: academics, student-teacher ratio, classroom style conducive to a kid with short attention span, close to us so he can make friends with kids who don't live too far away, public (charter/magnet) versus private, cost, diversity.

Diversity is not our number one concern since a) Sunny is black b) we live close to the center of a majority-black city. We're looking at a range of schools from 40-100% black. In this context, I think of diversity as a balance that goes beyond black/white to include Asian and Latino kids, and with a mix of several different cultures and languages. I think this kind of diversity will be more important as he gets older, but right now it's not on the top of my list of priorities. The one thing I'm a little concerned about is his cute Midwest accent picked up from Polish/Irish-Americans. How much will it make him stand out? In first grade, I don't think it matters that much yet.

Sunny is extroverted, talkative and confident. His ADHD diagnosis doesn't hamper him much in social skills. If he's not getting attention, he does get frustrated very quickly. But he likes to share. I'm guessing that he'll be happy in a wide variety of social situations with other kids.

I Think We're Matched!

As it happened, the other family did back out. It's just us now.

We had a presentation where more information was given to us. Many of our questions were answered. All of this information is hard to process, so excuse these choppy paragraphs.

He's a vivacious and energetic five-year-old boy. He loves playing with cars and trains. He likes to help around the house and he gets along great with all adults and with other kids. On pre-K academic tests, he's in the high range. He has a wonderful smile. My blog nickname for him is going to be "Sunny", for his sunny smile.

He was removed for neglect and has been in the same foster placement for several years. He calls his foster parents "Mom" and "Dad" and is very attached to them. He's had visits with his biomom, and he calls her by her first name. I don't know what he would call us. Maybe "Mommy" and "Daddy"? I don't want to confuse him by taking anyone else's title, but first names don't seem quite right either.

He's been diagnosed with ADHD and possibly bipolar. He's on a mood-stabilizing drug right now. I'm horrified by the particular drug, which is very strong, has at least one nasty side effect and has not been approved for small children. The first thing after placement would be to see if the doctor can take him off that. I'm not anti-med and it's very likely that he will need at least one ADHD drug on an ongoing basis, but if at all possible, I want to get him off the drug he's on now.

According to his therapist, he often engages in power struggles. He has a strong sense that the world should be fair. He can be redirected and understands consequences. He has a great memory but a short attention span. He has an IEP for behavior in the classroom, mostly concerning defiance towards authority, impulsivity and hyperactivity. He doesn't do well on the school bus and hates to sit down and be quiet. He doesn't sleep well, and he wets the bed, two things likely having to do with approaching anxiety about what will happen to him. He knows he's being adopted, even though he doesn't fully understand what it means. He has mood swings and tantrums lasting up to an hour... not aggressive, but with heel-kicking and screaming.

The workers were happy that we were very open to continuing contact, both with the foster parents and his biomom. There's an older half-brother on his father's side that he's never met. His father is in and out of jail. He's not dangerous on the level of the "Schillinger"-dad in Maerlowe's story, but without going into too much detail, he's not a safe person to have contact with. With the mother, there would be information sent through the caseworker (no addresses revealed). For the foster parents, we'd hope to have a lot of contact, plus yearly visits. The social workers said they often had to deal with situations where the adoptive parents were not as open to contact in the beginning. I said, "there's no point in being jealous". This is something our agency has always stressed: keeping positive contact alive.

Sunny's mother is white and his father is black. His foster family is white and they live in an upper-class, primarily white neighborhood. The social workers said that they liked the fact that our family and neighborhood is very diverse. He won't have to grow up being the only black kid, or alternately, being the only kid who doesn't look or sound as black as the other kids. When he starts to have questions and concerns about his identity (which will be just around the corner) we'll try to help him answer them in positive ways.

We didn't need time to discuss it privately... we went ahead and said yes.

The next step is a lot of paperwork. Then there'll be a visitation period. The workers want to do this fairly quickly. Dragging it out over a long period would only increase his anxiety.

I'm always thinking about the worst-case scenario, so I'm still worried that things could fall through in the stages to come. Is it time to give myself permission to feel like a mom? I don't know. "Sunny," who used to be a still, ghostlike figure, is gradually assuming emotional shape and form and color, and is about 80% opaque now, but still translucent.

Since I'm anonymous, I'm free to be very open on this blog. But I also need to establish what I'm not going to reveal:

- the state where Sunny is from
- intimate details of the stories of bio relatives
- medication names
- school details
- first or last names of anyone
- proper names in general

If I happen to know you, and you mention any of this in passing in comments, I'll have to delete the comment. Apologies in advance, and I'll send you an email too.

My husband seems completely unperturbed by this turn of events. It's odd. But he was already more in tune with the reality of this placement happening. He said he just knew it was going to happen. He's busy now thinking of names to give to grandparents, grandmothers and step-grandfathers.

We can start getting the room ready now. We're going to get a playset for the backyard.

This is so exciting!

We're going out tonight to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant to celebrate.

Conversation with an involved brother

I had a nice conversation this morning with someone about my age I know from church. I told him where our family was at, and he told me that when he was 9, his parents had adopted two children from foster care, biological brother and sister. As is usual, they had abuse issues. The aftermath of the abuse is still very much impeding the older sister's quality of life, but the younger brother is doing really well and recently graduated from college.

I told him that I felt like adopting from foster care is dominated by two myths: "all you need is love" and "no matter how hard you try, they're still going to burn your house and kill your pets". The truth is a lot more complicated. You just have to do your best and hope for the best. I feel lucky to have a realistic outline of what it's going to be like.

I have two cousins, one of whom I've written about before. She's one of the most competent people I've ever met in my life. My other cousin has ADHD, and a huge amount of talent he tends to waste in doing incredibly boneheaded things. I don't want to give any examples, but it's the kind of stuff that really makes you want to bang your head against the table.

I recently read an article that gave me a lot of hope for him, though. It said that many people with ADHD have brains that mature differently. They have unstable thought patterns until they hit their late 20s. Once a person with ADHD learns to properly tap their potential, they can shine like a star and shoot past "normal" people. So right now, my cousin is a young man living inside the emotional pattern of a fourteen-year-old, and he hasn't been able to get it together yet, but after five years or so, who knows.

If there's a point to any of this, I guess it's that there are no guarantees in life.